Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. And at Google, everything starts with the user. Users these days? Well, they're mobile.
Users are increasingly employing their mobile devices to search and consume content; and mobile phones continue to enable this shift, with more processing power and storage, as well as higher bandwidth. Google is focused on helping users find the information they need whenever and wherever they need it, on whatever device they might have in their pockets.
Google believes that users should find relevant, useful ads on all mobile devices; advertisers should be able to reach the right users with their messages; and publishers and developers should be able to make money from
their content and applications.
What does this mean for advertisers? Building the best mobile user experience also means building the best advertising experience—one in which marketing messages, too, become useful information. Whether a mobile user is searching for a nearby clothing store, browsing a favorite sports site or using an application to build a recipe, Google is committed to delivering the right advertising message, at the right time, in the right format.
To get there, Google is applying the powerful technologies and tools it has built to deliver relevance and accountability in online advertising and is, of course, optimizing it all for the mobile platform.
When it comes to mobile, Google is focused on driving innovation with its advertising offerings. Visit google.com/mobileads to learn more.
CASE STUDY
CHALLENGE
When travelers don't want to gamble on their Vegas experience, they turn to Vegas.com to book travel and activities. More than 2.5 million unique visitors come to Vegas.com every month.
Scarlet Lento, Internet marketing manager for Vegas.com, is focused on driving high traffic to the Web site. Since 2003, Vegas.com has been using Google AdWords search-based advertising to promote its site. Having achieved success with AdWords, Ms. Lento decided to expand her reach beyond the desktop. "Many of our customers are already in Vegas, and they want to make arrangements for a show or other activity while they are there," she says.
SOLUTION
In 2008, Vegas.com introduced a mobile Web site at mobile.vegas.com and started using Google mobile ads within AdWords. Mobile ads appear across Google's mobile search and content networks, and enable companies to target by country, language and mobile carrier, as well as track impressions, clicks and conversions.
Ms. Lento says that getting started with Google mobile ads was easy—the process mirrors that for regular AdWords campaigns. The company started with standard mobile ads that appear on wireless application protocol browsers. Ms. Lento leveraged most of the same ad copy and keywords used for nonmobile AdWords campaigns, with one important difference to facilitate the on-the-go booking experience: Vegas.com added a click-to-call phone number to the mobile ads that connected users to their customer contact center. To track which calls came from Google mobile ads, Vegas.com created a custom vanity phone number.
After its initial success, Vegas.com expanded its campaigns to include iPhone, Android and other high-end mobile devices that use regular Internet browsers. These devices can deliver the Vegas.com site in its entirety without modifications.
RESULTS
Ms. Lento says she has been impressed with the performance of her mobile ad campaigns. "Google mobile ads are working in our favor," she says. "Sometimes click-through rates are a lot higher for mobile ads than for ads delivered on the desktop, and we've seen impressive returns on the iPhone, with CTR nearing 20 percent on some campaigns."
Ms. Lento adds that Vegas.com is ahead of the mobile advertising game with mobile ads and says you never know how something will work until you test it. "So far, we are 100 percent satisfied with what we're seeing in terms of Google mobile ads meeting our ROI goals," she says. "We're glad to have a jump on mobile advertising. With Google tools, we have a solid platform and strategy that will help us take advantage of the growing mobile audience—mobile advertising is going to be huge before we know it."
