Are You Taking Advantage of Mobile PPC Trends?

You’re relaxing at home on a lazy Sunday afternoon watching TV. As you’re mindlessly scrolling through your social media feeds, you get a text message from your friend that says “What time are you coming over for the big game today? I got the drinks, you’re bringing the pizza right?”… yeah, you forgot. As you scramble off the couch, you open your browser and search “fast pizza delivery”. You instantly see several AdWords Ads from different pizza joints offering “fast pizza delivery” and a number extension to call and order. As you order a pizza and frantically search for your jersey, you text your friend back “Yep! I got the pizza, be there soon”. Thank you, mobile PPC.

Mobile Trends

Chances are, if you’re not reading this on a mobile device you probably have one close by that you are going to use at some point today. In fact, 80% of people don’t leave their homes without their mobile device and 61% of smartphone owners perform searches from their device every single day (WordsStream).

Mobile devices aren’t just for mindlessly surfing the internet or sending snapchats of your dog to your friends. People are conducting business, making purchases, and ultimately making the digital marketing experience much smoother with the increase in mobile utilization. In fact, digital ad spending, including mobile searches, is expected to double to almost $59 billion by 2018 (Search Engine Land).

User Experience

If the overall mobile experience isn’t a smooth and enjoyable one for the user, would you expect them to follow through with a purchase? Let alone return to your business in the future? Research shows that 57% of consumers will not recommend a brand with a bad mobile site, and 40% will move on to a competitor after a bad mobile experience.

Extensions

Ad extensions that show extra information or provide easy access to a feature or action can greatly enhance the user experience, as well as your ROI. Sitelinks can provide helpful access to specific landing pages, features, or products. Location extensions are important of course because they can provide easy access to the address and store locations for a business. With mobile devices, these addresses can be instantly added into a user’s GPS service. Call extensions can add a clickable phone number for your business. For example, in the frantic pizza example from earlier the forgetful individual utilized a “call extension” from his search to quickly contact a pizza place for fast delivery from his mobile device.

Quality, Engaging, Content

One of the more interesting PPC trends that ties into mobile marketing is the emphasis and utilization of content marketing. There has been a shift in the utilization of PPC marketing to promote engaging content rather than product.

What’s notable about this graphic, is the “78% within a few days” purchase. This means that something about that mobile advertisement left enough of an impact on the user that a purchase was then made a few days later. Not all ad conversions are focused on a quick and easy sale (like the pizza example from earlier). PPC content marketing is all about utilizing engaging and unique content that builds a brand trust and creates a relationship with the consumer. Content marketing aims to create a lasting memory or impact that you will hopefully associate with that brand or service.

Mobile PPC

The influence of mobile devices has been tremendous, and it will only continue to grow. Smartphones and mobile influence aren’t going anywhere, so it is our duty to adapt to the trends being set in the industry. When utilized correctly, mobile PPC truly provides a whole new set of possibilities for businesses of all sorts.