CPG giant Kimberly Clark sees success with mobile ads across many brands

Kimberly Clark, one of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods companies, was curious to see how mobile advertising could benefit their multitude of brands but also wanted to learn how their consumers searched on mobile and where they were when they did. 

To pursue this curiosity and explore mobile advertising, Kimberly Clark teamed up with media agency, Mindshare, who ran test campaigns with Google Mobile ads featuring several brand keywords, targeted exclusively to iPhones and iPads. With these very specific, targeted mobile campaigns, Kimberly Clark saw an average CPC 44% less on mobile versus their desktop campaigns. They also saw that 7% of all clicks on the brand tested were coming from mobile. The campaigns gave Kimberly Clark enough intel on mobile advertising to move forward with optimizing their sites for mobile so they could offer their consumers a better experience while exploring and learning about the brands on their mobile devices. 

Mindshare agrees that mobile search advertising can no longer be ignored and must be implemented to capture a greater share of the market, “Mobile ads are reaching millions of price-conscious consumers searching for staples while un-tethered from the desktop. And, by being early entrants in the mobile space, we were able to drive traffic at lower average CPCs and to set optimal bids for each mobile device,” said Mindshare Group Search Director, Danny Huynh.

Kimberly Clark continues to see success on mobile across many brands and is focusing on developing mobile-specific campaigns to ensure a good interaction with their brands on mobile.

To learn more about Kimberly Clark’s mobile campaigns, download the entire case study here.

Posted by Dalia Mitra, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

“Mobile”-ize your business with Google Sites

A poor mobile web experience can negatively shape a consumer’s opinion of your brand or your company altogether.  In a recent study, we found that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site that they had trouble accessing from their phone, and 40% go to a competitor’s.  By the end of this year, more than half of all Americans will own a smartphone. Your customers are mobile, are you?  

Today, we’re excited to announce a brand new tool to help your business get “mobile”-ized: Google Sites mobile landing pages.  With Google Sites mobile landing pages, you can build yourself a professional mobile landing page in minutes, for free -- and without any coding experience.

Why use Google Sites mobile landing pages?

• It’s easy.  Creating a Google Site is as easy as editing a document, which means there's no markup language for you to learn -- just get started.
• It’s free.  Google Sites is one of many free products offered by Google.
• It’s measurable.  One-click Google Analytics integration allows you to monitor your site's traffic.
• It’s fast.  Create your mobile landing page in minutes by starting from one of five pre-loaded templates.  You can also start from scratch with the custom template.

Restaurant            Local Business         Lead Generation              Social                eCommerce 

Watch the video below to see how “small” businessman, Bob, transformed his business using Google Sites:



Visit sites.google.com/mobilize to get started today!

Posted by Shiv Kumar, Mobile Specialist

Animal Planet leverages rich media and video advertising across platforms to engage viewers for River Monsters premiere

Mobile, video and rich media advertising are changing the way that businesses capture user attention, bringing together the power of sight, sound and motion to engage audiences like never before. To build awareness for the new season of their popular River Monsters series Animal Planet, the ‘Surprisingly Human’ TV network, launched an integrated media campaign across platforms to bring the show to life with the broadest audience possible - driving more than 900k YouTube video views in the weeks leading up to the premiere. 

The River Monsters campaign ran across both YouTube and the AdMob network, bringing a sneak peak of the upcoming season to users whether they were on a desktop computer or their mobile phone. Rich media display ads on YouTube enabled the star of the show to pop out of the YouTube Channel to introduce new creatures to potential viewers, while video advertising offered a glimpse at upcoming episodes of the new season.

On the YouTube desktop website, users were able to interact with the River Monsters whether they were searching for their favorite video, watching partner content or browsing the homepage. Ads led visitors to a custom mimicry gadget on the Animal Planet Brand Channel, where the host of the show jumped out of the ad to highlight the most exciting portions of the featured video:

In-Stream Ads on YouTube are also available in the YouTube Android app, enabling Animal Planet to extend this engagement opportunity to mobile users. Including Interactive Video Ads on the AdMob network further expanded the mobile campaign - giving users the opportunity to watch a preview of the River Monsters show, share the video through social media, learn more on the show’s mobile website and watch additional videos, all from within the mobile ad.

 

To stir up even more excitement on the day of the premiere, a Rich Media Masthead on the YouTube homepage revealed clips from the upcoming episode and reminded users to tune in:

 

The River Monsters campaign was hugely successful:

• YouTube advertising generated more than 930,000 video views on the River Monster clips
• Nearly 2,000 users subscribed to the River Monsters Brand Channel
• Mobile In-Stream Overlay Ads received more than 3 million impressions, with 84% of mobile users completing the video
• Interactive Video Ads on AdMob generated another 6 million impressions, with 75,000 users engaging with one of the interactive elements in the ad creative

The combination of compelling rich media and video advertising on both desktop and mobile created an engaging experience that increased social buzz around the show and led to a premiere that exceeded expectations.

Posted by Vicky Homan, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Mobile Insights: 33% of consumers shop for autos online using mobile devices – are you reaching them?

This is the fourth post in our Mobile Insights series featuring expert views from our mobile ads team. Our guest contributor is Carrie Steele, Senior Mobile Ad Specialist at Google. Carrie shares her thoughts on mobile marketing from last week’s Think Auto 2011 (photo below), Google’s annual gathering of auto industry executives.

Nikesh Arora at Think Auto in Mountain View, CA

13 million people will fall in love with a new car this year. Most people are open to buying a car from one of several manufacturers. How will you connect with them? Increasingly, the link occurs on mobile devices.

The automobile sales funnel hasn’t really changed: it follows the path from brand awareness through consideration and purchase. But consumers are experiencing auto brands, researching cars and trucks and purchasing them in new and different ways--and mobile devices are playing an important role.

eBay sells 2,000 cars each week on mobile. And during the last Super Bowl, when Chrysler ran its TV commercial there was a spike in mobile searches. According to Google, data mobile queries on “Chrysler” increased 102 percent.(1)  Clearly, there’s a shift going on.

Many searches are happening right on dealers’ lots. In July and October 2010, 40% of AutoTrader’s users accessed AutoTrader Mobile on a dealer forecourt to find out more information about a car. This January, the percentage increased to 45% of users. When people are close to making a auto purchase, they compare makes, models, reviews and pricing, and then pull up maps to locate the dealer with the best offer. It’s a new point of purchase model for automotive.

I’m personally in the market for a new car, and I use my Android to Voice Search different makes and models. Back home, I continue my search on my tablet, looking for additional information to make an educated decision.

Although I’m a single data point, research shows I’m not alone. Last year, Google determined that over 33% of consumers went to manufacturers’ websites to shop for autos – 55% were comparing features and 44% were sizing up prices. (2)

Volvo is just one example of a company that has had great success with mobile. To promote their new S60, the Volvo team used the Google AdMob platform to target smartphone owners using a combination of banners and interactive video ads.  According to InsightExpress, Volvo achieved significant lift across the funnel including more than 240% increase in brand favorability.

To achieve results of this caliber, having a mobile-optimized site is vital. Make it easy for mobile consumers interested in purchasing a new car to learn about features, read reviews and compare pricing. Provide the ability to configure a car and schedule test drives. Use local ad targeting to immediately point out the closest dealer. Make it simple for mobile consumers to engage with you.

The bottom line: don’t be intimidated by mobile. It’s virtually the same marketing activity as always, but it’s coming from a different channel. Don't just test drive mobile as a “nice to have” add-on. It’s where consumers are, and it requires your attention if you don’t want to be left in the dust. To see what’s possible right now in mobile search for auto, check out this video.

Posted by Carrie Steele, Senior Account Executive, Mobile Search Ads


1) Internal Google research, 2010 

2) Google Auto Shopper Study, Compete June 2011.  

Join us on Wednesday 29th June to watch our Think Mobile event streamed live from London

On Wednesday, 29th June at 2pm UK time, we will be holding our flagship mobile event in London. We’ve hit full capacity with a truly amazing amount of sign-ups so we’re streaming some of the key sessions live to give you the opportunity to tune-in - no matter where you are in the world.

This thought leadership event will look at why the rise of the mobile web represents one of the most dramatic consumer behavior transformations in history and what this means for marketers.  The streaming includes the keynote sessions from: Charles Dunstone, Co-Founder & CEO Carphone Warehouse; Rory Sutherland, Vice President Ogilvy Group; and Ian Carrington, Google Mobile Advertising Sales Director.  During the stream you will see, for the first time in-depth, our latest research on mobile usage in the UK, the global launch of a new mobile product from Google and gain insights into what really works for businesses on mobile.

The live stream lasts for two hours, including a break, and can be accessed on 29th June at 2pm on the Google Think Mobile YouTube Channel.
 

For full details visit our Think Mobile event website or watch it on your Android or iPhone here.

I hope you can join us for what promises to be a session full of mobile insights for marketers worldwide.

Posted by Matt Brocklehurst, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Bridgevine Sees Crossover from Desktop to Mobile to Complete the Purchase Funnel

Bridgevine is a company that is focused on driving customer acquisition for its clients via its Acquisition and Merchandising Platform, AMP. The platform is a complex network that combines several different channels of promotion to support clients in marketing. To ensure that they are in front of all prospective clients, Bridgevine has been using online and mobile campaigns to promote their business with display and search advertising across both platforms.

As Bridgevine expanded their business onto mobile, they saw some unexpected but very interesting behavior from clients. 20% of clients that did research on the desktop would then finalize their purchase on their mobile devices. Seeing this incredible crossover data, Bridgevine invested in mobile search advertising by leveraging Google’s click to call to drive traffic to their call centers and also send mobile users to an easy to use two-step ordering process on mobile and tablet sites. This investment led to a large increase of new prospects and also lowered the cost of a sale by 25% when occurring on mobile versus the call center.

With visible success with Google Mobile Ads, Bridgevine targeted their mobile audience by generating mobile-only deals accessible via their mobile optimized site. To ensure they were targeting customers accurately on specific mobile devices, Bridgevine put resources toward campaigns that focused on device keywords, and then tweaked the campaigns to suit the interactions they saw by device. The campaigns using Google mobile ads drove up mobile sales by 10% for Bridgevine; something they believe wouldn’t have happened without Google mobile.

With this type of success in mobile, and also seeing a crossover from desktop to mobile, Bridgevine will continue to invest in mobile advertising as an asset to the growth of their company’s revenue.

To learn more about this crossover campaign, download the entire case study here.

Posted by Dalia Mitra, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Kiddicare.com grows business with mobile optimised website

Last week we shared research on mobile usage trends and business’ readiness for mobile marketing and commerce. We are excited about the rapid growth of the mobile ecosystem and so are our advertising partners, who continue to see more and more of their website traffic coming from mobile devices.

Kiddicare.com offers a great case in point. The UK online nursery and baby supply retailer noticed a rising number of visitors to their website via mobile. They knew consumers were getting a poor purchasing experience on mobile, and with approximately 7% of their traffic coming from mobile devices, they decided to build a website optimised for mobile.

The company has a strong commitment to customer service so prioritized improving their mobile shopping experience. “Our mobile site from concept to launch took seven weeks,” explains Simon Harrow, Kiddicare.com’s Technology Officer. The site was built entirely in-house and used existing IBM WebSPhere infrastructure. What was their process? “We went through the desktop website user journey and took out the elements that were important to our customers such as price, stock numbers, reviews and video. We tried to move as much of the functionality as possible to mobile. We removed anything that would
weigh the pages down unnecessarily.”

 

Kiddicare.com has seen a 36% increase in traffic on mobile since March 2011, but the benefits don’t end there. They’ve discovered the handy mobile site also serves to address two of the most common questions they receive from customers: When will the company release a catalogue? And when will the company open more stores? “The mobile site gives people a catalogue in their pocket, particularly as our stock shifts so fast,” say Mr. Harrow. “And between barcode scanning apps and our website search feature, the site turns all of our competitor’s stores into a showroom for us. Because baby goods are a considered purchase and people still like to see, feel and touch brands, this gives us a chance to acquire sales from people checking things in other people’s stores and finding that we are 70% cheaper, have a price-match guarantee, next day delivery and a 365-day return policy.”

Optimising for mobile has already paid off for Kiddicare.com. Mobile conversion performance is consistent with desktop: same categories of purchases, same conversion rate, same average order value (AOV). Traffic from mobile has already increased 36% since March 2011 and they expect mobile to be 20% of business by the end of 2012 (up from 6% currently).

Learn more about Kiddicare.com’s mobile strategy by reading the full case study here.

Posted by Vicky Homan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

Dictionary.com uses Google across platforms as mobile business continues to see strong growth

(6/23/2011) The links in this post have been updated.


With an average of 1 million new smartphones entering the market each day, it is critically important for content publishers to ramp up their mobile efforts if they have not already. According to StatCounter, the share of U.S. web browser activity originating from mobile devices more than doubled since May last year to 8.24%.   The good news is that some online publishers, such as Dictionary.com, started exploring mobile years ago to understand its potential and find new ways to engage their “on-the-go” user base.  

 

In 2007, Dictionary.com launched a mobile optimized website to provide the increasing number of users accessing their online content from mobile devices with a better mobile user experience.  Now Dictionary.com sees 9 million unique users on their mobile website and has over 30 million app downloads across Android, iPhone, Blackberry and iPad.  According to Dictionary.com’s President, Shravan Goli, growth in mobile usage is outpacing online usage by 4x and mobile users spend 2-3x more time engaged with mobile content.  In the interview below, we sat down with Shravan Goli to get his insights into growing a successful mobile business.

 

 

One of the key takeaways from Dictionary.com is the importance of adapting to the mobile context. Goli urges publishers to avoid just porting their online content to mobile and follow a few simple guidelines:

• Create a great user experience: This sounds simple, but is a challenge for many mobile publishers. Optimize for both mobile web and leverage unique capabilities of smart phone platforms for apps. User feedback directly impacts your app ranking, so listen to your users and be flexible to adapt quickly.
• Diversify your business model for apps: Free ad-supported apps provide extensive reach, but consider adding a paid ad-free version to give users choice.  
• Ad networks complement direct sales: Similar to their online business, Dictionary.com finds that ad networks such as Google’s AdMob make it easy to start monetizing both the mobile website and cross-platform apps from day one.
• Plan for the iterative process: The development cycle on mobile is more complicated than online so build in feedback mechanisms, monitor them closely, and evolve your products rapidly to meet the changing needs of your users.

After seeing such strong results with the Dictionary.com property on mobile, the company is now expanding its mobile portfolio to include a Flashcards and Spanish app to accompany their online versions.  Shravan comments, “on mobile, people are looking for content to fill the pockets of time in between activities.  Dictionary.com is providing tools for people to educate themselves on the go, wherever they are.”

 

For more details on Dictionary.com’s success, download the 2-page case study with additional insights from Dictionary.com’s GM of Mobile, Lisa Sullivan-Cross.

 

Posted by Keri Kandel, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

AdMob campaign drives unprecedented user engagement for Unilever

When Unilever launched it’s new Lynx Excite product, they commissioned simple but powerful advertising creative. The video ads promoted a fragrance so irresistible it causes angels to fall from the sky. Unilever knew from the start that they wanted the film to work across a variety of formats, reaching not just TV viewers but also cinema visitors and mobile users.

For the mobile component of the Lynx Excite campaign, they were immediately drawn to the AdMob platform. AdMob enables advertisers to engage with mobile users across mobile platforms to maximize reach with their target audience.

In order to provide the most engaging experience possible for mobile users, Unilever built a robust HTML5 mobile landing page for the campaign. Mobile banner ads led users to an extended advertising experience, where a rotating halo enabled navigation through the microsite. A visitor could view the television ad, see exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and enjoy interactive features including tips, tricks and tools.

Through AdMob, the ads achieved results that far surpassed expectations. In all, 149 million impressions were served and 690,000 unique visitors accessed the content. On all devices, users spent approximately two minutes actively engaging with the Lynx brand storytelling. In terms of this phenomenal reach and high levels of engagement, the mobile advertising achieved unprecedented results for Unilever. 
 

Posted by Vicky Homan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team