Bradesco increases banking app downloads by 31x, drops cost-per-download 70% with AdWords

Banco Bradesco, founded in 1943, is the second-largest private bank in Brazil, with more than 4,600 branches and 47,000 automatic teller machines across the country. Bradesco created a mobile app to provide consumer banking services like checking account balances, paying bills and transferring money between accounts, to its on-the-go customers. Bradesco teamed up with one of its online agencies, One Digital, to promote their latest app across Google AdWords Search and Display solutions. The team focused on driving cost-effective app downloads with the help of the Conversion Optimizer for mobile apps, a bidding feature that uses historical conversion performance data to automatically optimize ad placement so ads show more often when conversions are likely to occur.

Luca Cavalcanti, Director of Digital Channels, said: "Our apps are a key way for us to engage with our users and deliver the value they need. Promoting our apps with Google helped us to exceed our return on investment goals. With AdWords, we've dropped cost-per-download by 70%. Google is an important mobile partner for promoting our apps."

Bradesco promoted their mobile apps with ads on Google Search and the Google Display Network and used the Conversion Optimizer for apps to reach their app download and cost-per-download goals.

• Nearly 1 billion ad impressions and 4.4 million clicks during the first month
• Top 5 Ranking in Finance category of Google Play apps on average
• 31x increase in app downloads
• 70% decrease in cost-per-download (decrease from greater than R$5 to less than R$2)

To learn more about how Bradesco exceeded their app download goals, see here for the full case study.

Posted by: Gabi Viana, Head of Mobile and Social Marketing, Latin America

Innovative Swipeable Gallery ad unit for tablet launches new destination for Finnair, with 5% of impressions leading to an interaction

How do you inspire excitement around an exotic travel destination that many people have never heard of? For Finnair, the answer came in the form of the new Swipeable Gallery ad for tablets. In a CPM campaign running across six European markets, nearly 5% of the impressions Finnair achieved led to an interaction. Of these interactions, 60% clicked to enter a competition and 12% clicked through to view fares on the site with the possibility to purchase.

The seeds for this success were sewn earlier this year Finnair when became the first airline to operate non-stop flights between Europe and Chongqing, China. While China’s importance among business and leisure travellers is rocketing, Finnair faced a challenge in stimulating tourism to the destination. Because travel to exotic places is an inherently sensory and immersive experience, the airline aimed to unleash the most stimulating and emotive advertising imaginable.

The goals? First, the campaign needed to be highly visual and interactive, leading people to learn as much as possible about the destination in a short space of time. Second, Finnair wanted to drive users to register for a competition (with the prize being a pair of round-trip tickets to Chongqing) and ultimately visit Finnair’s website to check the current fare offers with the opportunity to purchase tickets.

Finnair seized the Swipeable Gallery ad format as the ideal union of performance with branding. This format is part of Google’s Rich Media Designs for Mobile, a set of templates making it easy for display marketers to create rich media ads using existing assets and to implement them across platforms including mobile and tablet. In essence, the designs enable advertisers to create beautiful and highly interactive ads with no HTML5 expertise.

The Swipeable Gallery ad used by Finnair consists of links to make a booking or to enter the competition. But the main content of the ad is a range of compelling imagery from cityscapes to ancient sculptures to tantalising local food. The viewer can swipe horizontally to browse the gallery. Clicking on any image will expand it to full screen size, effectively allowing the viewer to dive into the irresistable sights of Chongqing.

Want to learn more about the tablet’s potential for driving awareness and sales? Read the full case study here.

Posted by: Matt Brocklehurst, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

New Branded Video mobile ads bring Dishonored action video game to life and record a 13% click-through rate

An inspiring mobile ad campaign for the new video game Dishonored drove viewers to a four-minute trailer on m.youtube, achieving an incredibly successful click-through rate of 13% over the 12 days that it ran. By incorporating the Dishonored promotional trailer into the new Branded Video format from Google’s Rich Media Designs for Mobile, the short clip created serious excitement around the game in a compelling new way.

Dishonored is a first-person neo-Victorian stealth action-adventure video game. Because it’s not part of an established franchise, its creators Bethesda Softworks needed to grab the attention of gamers and educate them very quickly about the unique gameplay of Dishonored. So when Bethesda gave its agency Target Media the task of raising awareness about the brand-new game, everyone was in agreement: Dishonored deserved advertising as visually remarkable and as captivating as the game itself.

The idea was to use the visually stunning announcement trailer to establish Dishonored in a front-of-mind position among the game’s tech savvy target market, building up awareness in the key demographic in the lead-up to the game’s launch. Target Media understood that the target audience of early adopters and committed gamers were likely to be heavy users of smartphones and tablets, so the Branded Video format for mobile was a perfect fit. Google’s Rich Media Designs for Mobile templates are designed to make it easy for advertisers to create ads using existing assets and then implement them across platforms including mobile and tablet. All Target Media had to do was use the Branded Video template to embed a short 20-second version of the game’s trailer on a backdrop comprising a key image from the game. By using just these two assets, the cost and turnaround time of the custom ad unit was kept to a minimum.

The clip plays with full in-line video and audio, meaning that the user can view it in place rather than being redirected outside of the ad to the native video player or their device. The aim was to get the maximum number of targeted views for the short trailer and also to drive users to click to Bethesda’s YouTube channel to watch the full four-minute version. The ad ran on the AdMob network, which provided the perfect platform to reach an audience of gamers when they were on their mobile devices. The timing of the AdMob campaign was coordinated with desktop efforts to complete a powerful multi-screen approach.

To learn more about the campaign’s success, see the full case study here.

Posted by: Matt Brocklehurst, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

With new search ads in Google Maps for Mobile, mo' lo' means mo' dough for advertisers

People use their mobile devices to discover and engage with the world around them. Searching for local information is one of the most common activities on mobile - in the US, 94% of respondents said they had done so, and nearly every surveyed country reported numbers over 80%. With Google Maps, they make informed decisions about places to see, shops to visit, meals to eat, and more.

To enable advertisers to better connect with potential customers via mobile search, we have redesigned our local ad formats for Google Maps for Mobile.  These have produced measurable results - in initial tests, these redesigned formats increased click-through-rates by 100%. This visual redesign will be rolling out today to the newer versions of Android phones.  

The updated formats feature several key improvements:

• Important calls to action like “get directions” and “click to call” are now more prominent in the ad and clickable in more places.
• A new hyperlocal marker shows the user how close they are to an advertiser’s business location
• Clicking on the ad now takes the user to an advertiser’s website from within the app, making it simple to browse the site without losing context or access to maps app navigation.

Above: Current view of local ads in Google Maps for Mobile

Below:  Launching today, new feature improvements in local ads in Google Maps for Mobile

Ads in Google Maps for Mobile are one of many ways advertisers are delivering relevant local answers to people’s questions on mobile.  Likewise, a recent campaign from T-Mobile shows how search ads, combined with location extensions, enabled them to reach users close to their store locations across mobile search and maps.

T-Mobile understood that they needed to adjust their goals and tactics to cater to mobile user behavior.  On the difference in user behavior between desktop and mobile campaigns, Kari Nicholas, Media Director of T-Mobile USA explained, “Consumers searching on mobile devices tend to be further down the purchase funnel and have a more informed opinion about what they want, which presents an opportunity for us to influence their decision regarding where to buy while they’re on the go. That’s why we felt it was essential to provide a way for them to easily find our retail locations.” T-Mobile’s approach of using mobile location extensions drove over 160,000 click-throughs and a click-through-rate of 13%. To read more, download the full case study, here.

T-Mobile’s mobile search ads on Google.com and Google Maps for Mobile contain locally relevant information like a user’s distance from their closest location, and the ability to call and get directions to their closest store.

Mobile technology is enabling people to connect with businesses in new ways via smartphones and tablets. People use search and click to businesses’ websites, but they are also clicking to make phone calls, find directions to walk into local stores, and more. To take advantage of these new local search ads on Google Maps for Mobile, make sure you’ve done the following:

• Target the relevant campaigns to mobile devices
• Enable ads to show to search partners
• Finally, have location extensions enabled within AdWords to take advantage of all these new features - so be sure to enable them if you haven’t already!

We’re looking forward to further understanding mobile usage trends and helping businesses better connect with their customers on the go.

Posted by Jay Akkad, Product Manager, Mobile Ads

With Google’s AdMob WWF gains new conversions at excellent cost

Not only is WWF the world’s leading independent conservation organisation, measured by ad impressions it’s also one of the biggest online display advertisers in Sweden. In the beginning of 2011, WWF’s marketing team noticed the boom in smartphone usage and decided to get in on the action early, by running a test campaign over one month on a selection of mobile networks.

WWF’s digital mission is to recruit monthly donors at the lowest cost per order. The charity already has exceptionally high brand recognition in Sweden, so WWF’s debut mobile campaign wasn’t about building the brand or sharing values. Instead, the activity centred purely on direct response in the form of fundraising. The objectives were to test the charity’s online approach in a new platform, establish a performance baseline to inform future mobile campaigns and to achieve the most conversions at the lowest cost per click.

Simple banner ads encouraged users to adopt a polar bear or tiger; by clicking these ads users would be taken to a landing page on the WWF mobile site where they could sign up to make a monthly donation towards the animal of their choice.

AdMob was one of several mobile networks WWF put on trial. One of the largest of its kind in the world, AdMob gives advertisers the opportunity to reach and interact with customers on the mobile web by placing ads within its network of apps. In Sweden, it reaches around 3 million unique devices through thousands of premium in-app placements.

AdMob very quickly stood out with its high reach, low cost per order and impressive number of orders. WWF liked the fact that AdMob enabled them to buy on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis and delivered the lowest CPC of all the test channels by a factor of seven.

At the end of the month-long trial, WWF decided to drop advertising on the other more expensive channels, but they continued to advertise on AdMob for the remaining four months of the year, increasing their mobile investment by 400%.
 
WWF continued to see good results during the months to follow, noticing that as investment increased, conversions increased too. At the end of the four-month campaign, mobile conversions had risen to represent almost 25% of WWF’s total conversions across all platforms. WWF’s next step was to triple their mobile investment as they put plans into place for the 2012. Not surprisingly, based on their success to date AdMob will continue to perform a key role in their approach.

Read the complete case study on WWF’s success with AdMob here.

Posted by Matt Brocklehurst, Product Marketing Mobile Advertising

Starwood Hotels & Resorts achieves 20x increase in mobile paid search ROI with ad extensions

Starwood Hotels & Resorts prides itself on delighting its guests wherever they are, and mobile has provided a tremendous opportunity to further Starwood hotel’s efforts, especially as travelers become more technically savvy across multiple platforms. Working with digital marketing agency Razorfish, Starwood Hotels & Resorts began running Google mobile search ads with click-to-call (CTC) and location extensions in November 2009, using a launch and iterate approach to achieve the best results. Through using mobile ads, Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Razorfish learned how guests are using ads to call as well as find directions to property locations.

“Implementing click-to-call and location extensions simultaneously boosted ROI and improved user experience,” says Amos Ductan, Senior Search Manager at Razorfish. “Mobile users are 20 times more likely to click on a map than desktop users and people who make a call are much more likely to convert. Ad extensions improved both conversions and customer experience.”

The combination of click-to-call and location ad extensions resulted in an increase in mobile paid search ROI, with CTC now driving a majority of Starwood hotel’s mobile search bookings. Additionally, Starwood hotel’s hyperlocal mobile search campaign resulted in:

• 20x increase in mobile paid search ROI
• Mobile booking growth of 20% month on month
• 200% increase in mobile traffic

To learn more about how Starwood maximized mobile, see here for the full case study.

Posted by Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager

GoMo: Mobile site redesign drives immediate results for 1-800-FLOWERS.COM

As part of Google’s Go Mobile (“GoMo”) initiative, we wanted to share the impressive results 1-800-Flowers saw from their revamped mobile site.  An early mover in the mobile space, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM began their mobile program over six years ago, and has since flowered to include both an app and mobile website as well as significant mobile advertising presence. Based on their analysis however, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM noticed that their mobile website still had room for improvement.  To address the problem, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM launched an initiative to revamp their mobile site. Amit Shah, Director of Mobile and Social Media at 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, recognized that the best way to approach mobile was not to simply transport their desktop website onto mobile but prioritize specific features for the mobile user.

“Trying to bring all of your desktop site to mobile misses the picture. You need to bring the right things to mobile,” says Amit.

           Before    After

1-800-FLOWERS.COM prioritized features such as shopping cart saving but was careful to prune less used features such as order tracking, which they identified only a small percent of desktop users utilized. Next, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM identified key content that would improve the user experience specifically for their own customers. Finally, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM streamlined the mobile shopping experience as much as possible by significantly reducing the number of steps it takes to complete a purchase and ehancing features such as a calendar that allows users to easily choose the best delivery date based on shipping prices and personal delivery needs.



By thoughtfully analyzing user behavior on their mobile site, and building enhancements to make the browsing and purchase experience even more robust, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM saw heartfelt success in the performance of their mobile website.

• Increase in conversion rate and 25% increase in average time spent on site, despite decrease in steps to complete a purchase
• 53% reduction in cart abandonment
• Increase in the average order value on mobile

Get the full study here to learn more on how to optimize best for mobile or test how your site looks on mobile at http://www.howtogomo.com/en/#test-your-site and download a report with personalized recommendations for your mobile site.

Posted by: Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Smile Designer enjoys big jump in new-patient calls with Google Mobile Ads

Everyday consumers use their mobile phones to find local business information, to get directions, contact information or reviews. Research shows that 95% of smartphone consumers have looked for local information on their phones and 61% call or visit a business afterwards. Mobile advertising can provide a huge competitive advantage to local businesses to be discovered and preferred. 

Ask Dr. Rania Saleh, who founded Smile Designer in Arlington, Virginia, in 2010. The success of her dentist practice in metropolitan DC, shows how running Google Mobile Ads can help a small business grow by driving more calls and attracting new customers.

Dr. Saleh is a general and cosmetic dentist. She was joined in the dental practice by an orthodontist and a periodontist. These three specialists take pride in creating a first-class experience for patients. The trio aims to attract patients who value good dentistry and want the best treatment they can get.

Once the fledgling practice had created an attractive website, which included links to starred reviews on Google and elsewhere, Smile Designer immediately launched an AdWords campaign. Although largely inexperienced in digital advertising, Dr. Saleh and her husband found AdWords easy to use. They added keywords and tested ad copy they wrote themselves. Google AdWords today constitutes about 95 percent of the practice’s advertising.

Following up its initial success with Google AdWords desktop campaigns, Dr. Saleh created a mobile-specific AdWords campaign. The ads were specific to the various practice areas and included keywords chosen especially for mobile users, mobile-specific calls to action, and text that included phone numbers.

“Mobile lets us reach people whenever and wherever they are,” Dr. Saleh says. “Patients with emergencies see our ad and use the click-to-call feature to call us right away. Others might discover our mobile ad when looking for a local dentist, then call us later from home after reading about our services and seeing the positive reviews on Google Places. Mobile helps us create a seamless experience.”

The AdWords campaigns raised Smile Designer’s competitive profile. The practice can now determine the number of people coming in through AdWords and other sources, and track clicks for keywords such as “orthodontist,” “dental implants,” “teeth whitening,” etc. The number of hits on the website jumped, as did the number of phone calls. In addition, the click-through rate (CTR) on mobile devices increased 74 percent, while the cost-per-click (CPC) dropped 34 percent. 

All of this gave the dental professionals at Smile Designer something more to smile about.

To download the full Smile Designer case study, click here.

Posted by: Nabil Haschemie, Product Marketing Manager

Comcast mobile search campaign leads to mobile accounting for over 10% of online sales

Comcast is one of the nation’s largest Internet, phone, and cable television service providers for residential and business customers.  High-quality customer service and products are central to Comcast’s business. To this end, Comcast closely evaluates how users engage their online site and find ways to improve upon their experience. With the surging rise of mobile Internet users, Comcast wanted to take better advantage of the growing mobile platform for advertising. Partnering with Google, Comcast developed a mobile campaign strategy that utilized mobile AdWords and mobile search ad extensions driven by top keywords and created mobile-optimized sites for all of its products.

The search campaign engaged users searching for Comcast keywords and directed them to mobile-optimized sites with mobile-specific functions including streamlined ordering, checking service availability nearest their location, and clicking-to-call for assistance. Comcast also implemented a mobile ad extension that allowed users to call Comcast directly from the search results page on their phone.


By advertising on the right channel with an approach optimized for mobile, Comcast capitalized on the many consumers already searching for Comcast services on mobile but who previously could not access needed information as easily.  Making completing a Comcast order with a mobile device simple and convenient, the campaign led  to a surge in mobile sales with mobile now driving over 10% of all online sales.

• Average of more than 1 million impressions on mobile per month
• More than 270% greater CTR than desktop for mobile search
• More than 100% greater CTR than desktop for mobile click-to-call
• Over 10% of all online sales driven from mobile

To learn more about how Comcast maximized mobile, see here for  the full case study.

Posted by Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Hair Club garners 30:1 return on investment using Google mobile ads

Hair Club, with the help of agency partner Integrated Media Solutions, uses Google mobile ads as a key way to reach new customers. With 35 years of experience, Hair Club is the world’s leading provider of proven hair loss solutions. In their marketing activities, their primary goal is lead generation from their target demographic of men aged over 25 and women aged over 35.

Hair Club launched their mobile strategy by optimizing their website for mobile and leveraging Google AdWords to target specific key terms on mobile devices. Separate AdWords campaigns were created specifically for mobile devices and Hair Club took advantage of mobile specific formats including location extensions.  On the mobile Google Display Network Hair Club began using contextually targeted call-only ads on relevant websites to generate additional qualified phone leads.

For their mobile site, Hair Club took steps such as prominently displaying a click to call phone number at the top of the page to drive new customers to their call center.  

“From our own research we know that 30% of the people visiting the Hair Club website do so because they’ve seen our TV ad, and often they are on the sofa with their mobile device or tablet. What better way to be able to have someone convert than calling on their mobile device?” says Lee Zoppa, Vice President of Marketing and Advertising for Hair Club.

The results show the campaigns are proving an efficient way to generate more leads and interest in Hair Club. “While desktop searchers constitute 94% of sales, mobile is rapidly gaining ground, capturing 6% of sales over the last three months,” says Lalita Warren, Hair Club’s Media Director.  The campaign exceeded Hair Club expectations with exceptional results:

• 30:1 return on investment on Google mobile ads
• 100% increase in mobile search ad clicks over the past year
• 11% higher conversion rate from mobile ads than desktop ads as tracked via online form

“Google mobile ads provide a successful, incremental platform for us. Mobile and tablet usage is increasing exponentially. Given our target demographic, we get more qualified traffic through mobile,” says Zoppa.

Get the full case study here.

Posted by Michael Schipper, Product Marketing Manager

Sweet sound of success

Sweetwater Sound Inc., one of the largest dealers of musical equipment in the United States, launched the first version of its mobile site in 2008.   Sweetwater, partnering with top interactive agency RKG , became an early adopter of Google AdWords, and most recently incorporated mobile search into its marketing strategies. Since representing 2.6% of total sweetwater.com traffic in 2008, mobile traffic has now more than tripled to 8% of total traffic.

By tweaking bids for device-specific ads, mobile ads targeted at iPads are demonstrating a better return on investment than any other tactic. “Because iPad leads are targeted to that device and iPads are popular among musicians and sound engineers, order values generated from iPads run a full 10% higher in value than orders generated from any other source,” says Matthew Mierzejewski, Vice President of PPC with RKG. “We were able to leverage iPad user data to increase our bids on that segment of the mobile audience. By leveraging this segmentation, we’ve been able to increase iPad CPCs by close to 90% compared to bundling smartphone and iPad devices together, efficiently driving more revenue for Sweetwater.”  

Pleased with click-through-rates as well as the results from using tried and true keywords on smartphones like iPhones, Sweetwater is now making the most out of tablet-targeted mobile ads. With the help of Google mobile ads, Sweetwater:

• Increased conversions: iPad conversion rate was 30% higher than desktops and laptops rate, and orders originating from iPads had 10% higher value
• Improved ROI: Continuously tweaked ad copy, keywords, and bids based on performance by device
• Maximized successful sales model: Implemented the click-to-call feature to drive more leads into telephone service center, where hundreds of expert sales engineers nurture customer loyalty

To learn more, see the full case study here.

Posted by Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager

AdWords on mobile helps Regtransfers reach its on-the-move customer base

For sectors like motoring where target customers are inherently on the move, mobile is a critical marketing and sales channel. Regtransfers, a UK market leader in the field of personal number plates, recognised that mobile offered an ideal way to reach their audience of gadget-loving, tech-savvy car drivers, and they embraced a suite of Google tools to help.

With Google AdWords, Regtransfers had driven users to its desktop website with considerable success, so they began their mobile activity by creating an AdWords for mobile campaign and simply replicated the keywords used in the desktop campaign.

They’d also found Sitelinks useful in the desktop campaign, and since mobile search ads offer the chance to present two Sitelinks, Regtransfers was quick to take advantage. The first Sitelink on their mobile search ads clicks straight to the inventory search facility; the second Sitelink employs click-to-call. This enables a potential customer to automatically reach the call centre without navigating to the website. There’s no need to copy, dial or re-key a phone number, making it that much easier to convert a browser into a customer.




Next Regtransfers launched an iPhone app to let customers search for registrations, make enquiries and complete purchases. As with click-to-call, the app removes barriers that might otherwise prevent easy engagement.

Finally, Regtransfers implemented remarketing campaigns both for desktop and mobile web users. Search ads first drive traffic to the site, but then if a visitor doesn’t sign up for future communication, download the app, obtain the magazine, make a phone call or email an enquiry, Regtransfers can remarket to them by displaying tailored ads on sites throughout the Google Content Network.

So what about the numbers? Since implementing their AdWords mobile campaign, Regtransfers’ mobile traffic has increased 100%. With a cost-per-conversion that is 48% less on average than on desktop, the click-through rate across the mobile campaign is 93% better than the desktop campaign that it’s based on. Regtransfers’ mobile AdWords campaigns are now delivering 73% more calls than when they first began.

To download the full Regtransfers case study, click here.

Posted by: Matt Brocklehurst, Product Marketing Manager

PrivacyStar scales Android business with AdMob

With the rapid smartphone growth, it’s no surprise that consumers are downloading a huge number of apps--10 billion on Android alone, as of last week. Many app developers are recognizing the opportunity to develop on Android, including PrivacyStar, a small privacy services company offering smartphone users the ability to block unwanted calls from telemarketers via their mobile app. To help grow their business on Android, PrivacyStar looked to AdMob to drive quality downloads of their app.

PrivacyStar had used a variety of marketing channels to promote their app, including desktop display and television advertising. While successful, this initial acquisition strategy resulted in relatively high cost-per-acquisition (CPA), with downloads costing upwards of $5. Seeing the need to reach their audience while on specific smartphone devices and slash CPA, the PrivacyStar team decided to try in-app advertising across a number of mobile ad networks to drive users to download their app directly to their devices.


AdMob was able to deliver and quickly become their most effective channel of advertising.  Other mobile ad networks struggled to maintain a low CPA as they grew on Android inventory. The team then began optimizing their advertising within other mobile apps on the AdMob network—informed by data from Google Analytics. App placements were limited to particular app categories to focus their audience and placements that didn’t meet the aggressive CPM targets were excluded. Within a month of these optimizations, cost per acquisition fell to less than $2, a fraction of their initial acquisition cost. Additionally, the quality of downloads that AdMob drove were far superior, with more users upgrading to a monthly subscription.

The success that PrivacyStar has achieved with AdMob and Google Analytics has them poised for continued growth on Android. For more details on PrivacyStar’s approach, check out the full case study.

Posted by: Eduardo Fenili, AdMob Sales Executive

Liberty University leveraged mobile to drive direct responses at lower cost-per-conversion

Liberty University Online has long been able to reach and engage prospective students as they searched for education options from their desktop computers.  However, with the growth of mobile search activity, Liberty recognized a new opportunity to reach the people on a new platform. Liberty noticed rapid growth in mobile traffic to their own website, which closely mirrored industry-wide trends in mobile usage growth. According to Google internal data, education-related search volume is increasing rapidly and is projected to grow to over 17% by the end of 2011.  

Liberty started advertising their online programs on both desktop and mobile. After seeing initial success, Liberty broke out mobile campaigns for their branded traffic, and continued to monitor and optimize the performance specifically for mobile. Executive Director of Admissions Steve Peterson was surprised at the immediate results from mobile.  

“Sometimes when you’re trying new things, your tolerance is a little higher for what you’re willing to accept,” Steve said.  “The thing that was surprising was how well it performed in a short period of time compared to stuff we’ve been doing for years.  So when you have that out of the gate, we just want to keep scaling until we see some kind of diminishing returns.”

Liberty hasn’t seen diminishing returns yet. In the first six months of mobile-only campaigns, Liberty saw effectiveness and efficiency improve for conversion volume and cost-per-conversion:

• 49% increase in number of conversions
• 50% decrease in cost-per-conversion

Now, Liberty plans to break out mobile traffic from all their campaigns and is pursuing a full-fledged mobile landing page strategy.  Mobile represents both an immediate and long-term opportunity for Liberty.

Full case study can be downloaded here.

Posted by Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Asia-Pacific: Toyota drives downloads of first iPad app in Indonesia with Google AdMob campaign

Toyota launched its Model AA, the company’s very first passenger car in the 1930s, not long after Ford’s Model A. Now 75 years later and 70 models in its product line, the Japanese automaker is the third-largest car manufacturer in the world and one of its most trusted brands.

Accustomed to its vanguard role in an ever-evolving industry, Toyota immediately embraced the digital marketplace with online marketing campaigns that have naturally morphed from desktop to mobile computing. According to a recent Google/Ipsos survey, 21% of urban Indonesian phone owners own a smartphone, a significant marketing opportunity for Toyota.

Converting iPad users into Toyota customers
With a population of over 300 million in Indonesia, Toyota Indonesia is capitalizing on consumers’ predilection for mobile computing by targeting new and core customers who use an Apple iPad. With more than 25 million people worldwide already toting around the sleek tablet computer, the automaker used Google’s mobile ad network to capitalize on this explosive new marketing channel.

“At Toyota, we pride ourselves in leveraging cutting-edge technology, be it automotive or computing. Reaching out to customers on such an exciting new platform like the iPad really energizes our marketing efforts. Google’s mobile ads provide the critical channel to connect our company with customers,” says Joko Trisanyoto beber, marketing director of Toyota Astra Motor (TAM).

They created the company’s first iPad mobile-optimized site and employed Google’s mobile ads network—encompassing over 89,000 websites and apps worldwide—to target user eyeballs during a 13-day advertising campaign targeted at the vibrant Indonesian market.

Banner ads appeared above or below a broad spectrum of applications—from city-search-sites to currency conversion—touting the download of a customized Toyota application. When people clicked through to the site, they received more information with the option of downloading the M-Toyota app, which delivers information about Toyota products, credit simulations, addresses of dealers, workshops, services, community, price, and other information, all served from a mobile-optimized website.

"Now that information can be obtained easily without having to call and sit at the computer. We make it easy for Toyota owners and those who want to know about Toyota's development," says beber.

The campaign results were encouraging. More than 9,000 users viewed the beckoning banner ad and elected to continue on to the corresponding advert, representing an overall click through rate (CTR) of 1.36%, with nearly 5,660 clicks coming through AdMob. Nearly 4,000 users then proceeded to download the actual application. During the campaign, the M-Toyota application was elevated to the Top 10 Favorite List on the App Store, within the “Lifestyle” category.

For Toyota, advertising on the mobile web is a natural extension of the iconic company’s reputation for cutting-edge innovation. Google AdMob has already become an integral element in the automaker’s marketing efforts to capitalize on the nascent mobile-device marketplace.

Says beber, “The promising results we obtained from this first AdMob campaign validate this exciting new marketing channel. Connecting a smart, affluent demographic like iPad users to the Toyota brand makes perfect sense.”

Posted by Ryan Hayward, Product Marketing Manager

Asia-Pacific: XL Telecom in Indonesia gives a call to Google Mobile Ads

An extensive archipelago comprised of over 13,000 islands, Indonesia ranks as the world’s fourth most populous country. An important trade region going back to the 7th century, this vibrant slice of Southeast Asia has always presented communication issues because of its unique geographical character and diverse languages.

The dominance of non-electronic delivery in the past has given way to a formidable telecommunications infrastructure that is well suited for this country’s unique needs. Already more than 67% of its citizens sport a mobile device, a statistic which XL Axiata (XL as it’s commonly known)—a dominant provider in the Indonesian telecom field—intends to expand.

XL fully understands its unique market and boasts more than 40 million cellular subscribers and 22,000 cell towers after 15 years of business. Java and Bali, in addition to the nation’s principal cities, have access to data communication, broadband Internet, and mobile communication/4G services.

Promoting across the Google AdMob network
Capitalizing on its strong brand recognition, XL decided to both pursue new customers and solidify current ones with a broad mobile-centric advertising campaign. Using Google’s AdMob network as the advertising conduit, they conducted a 45-day ad campaign consisting of colorful banner ads exhorting viewers to check out promotions and contests. Since the mobile-ads technology is predicated on appearing within user-downloaded websites, XL’s ubiquitous ads popped up on a broad spectrum of apps. After clicking on the various ads, users were directed to a mobile-optimized site for more information.

“Google’s AdMob is already the gold standard in mobile-computing ad strategies here in the Southeast Asian market,” says Tommy Wattimena, SVP Marketing Brand and Communication Deevelopment PT XL Axiata. “We’ve already had tremendous results employing it in our telecom expansion efforts, so it was a no-brainer to use it again as the foundational tool in our latest mobile-marketing campaign.”

With the burgeoning implementation of Google’s mobile ads, text, banner, and media-rich adverts are now an integral facet of the application landscape on smartphones and iPads, and users readily engage with those that catch their interest.

During the month-and-a-half campaign, over 80,000 users were sufficiently intrigued with the banner ads to investigate further, representing a healthy clickthrough rate (CTR) of 1.48%. In addition, 5.4 million impressions were recorded, augmenting XL’s brand awareness.

For XL, employing Google AdMob to drive its latest mobile-advertising campaign was a given since it has proven its merits in previous telecom marketing efforts. “Google mobile ads really come through for us,” says Mr. Wattimena. “They’ve become a standard part of virtually every campaign.”

Posted by Ryan Hayward, Product Marketing Manager

Asia-Pacific: Lexus CT City Challenge

According to the Harvard Business Review, Asia-Pacific is expected by many to constitute half of the world’s economic growth by 2030 1.  According to internal Google research, nearly half of the top ten markets for smartphone penetration are in Asia.  AdMob requests grew by 500% in Asia Pacific last year, the highest in the world.  A rapidly expanding population, upward trending consumer spending and living standards, and significant infrastructure investment all help to make Asia-Pacific a hot market.  As such, starting today Google Mobile Ads will focus this next week on Asia-Pacific to help you optimize your Asia strategy for mobile.

About Lexus
Lexus has established a unique place in the automotive world as a manufacturer of premium vehicles. The Lexus brand is synonymous with breathtaking design, innovative technology, heart-stopping performance and environmental sensitivity.
In March 2010, Lexus launched the first luxury hybrid hatch on the Australian market, the         CT 200h, reinforcing Lexus’ commitment to innovation. The target audience was people in their late 20s to early 40s, both singles & couples, with a high disposable income and for whom style, design and technology is important.
Lexus’ objective for the CT 200h, launch was threefold:

• To drive awareness among the target audience;
• To focus messaging on the unique features of the CT 200h, such as the Two Mood-Two mode;
• To connect and engage with their audience to drive consideration.

Solution
Among the target audience, smartphone ownership and internet penetration is very high. Subsequently, casual gaming usage is heavy, a typical quote being “When I need something to pass the time, I use Lineup on my iPhone.”
Based on these insights, Lexus, The White Agency (Lexus’ digital agency) and Admob worked together to create The Lexus CT City Challenge -a mobile app that was addictive in nature, held the key product benefits ‘eco’ and ‘sports’ two moode-tow mode at its centre. They also ensured the game is part of the overall CT 200h and F1 strategy, and it was also incentivised with a grand prize of a CT 200h.  The digital directive was lead by The White Agency and development of the app by Webling.
The app was created with a young, urban, design and quality-conscious audience in mind, this being the primary target group for the car itself. They are frequent visitors to the Apple iTunes App Store, engaging with and purchasing casual gaming offerings in high quantities.
To build awareness and acquisition of the app, Admob also created a mobile ads campaign..

The Lexus CT City Challenge Game
The game challenges players to take the Lexus CT 200h for a virtual spin around courses modeled after Australia's capital cities. The game features five courses which are progressively unlocked as players achieve qualifying scores. Engagement was incentivised with a live playoff at the Melbourne Motor Show with the winner receiving a brand new Lexus CT 200h
The “Slot Cars” style gameplay demonstrates the unique hybrid “two mood – two mode” feature of the CT 200h. This allows players to switch between ‘Sport’ and ‘Eco’ modes to achieve the best times while saving fuel, culminating in higher scores and positioning on the leader board.
Players can easily broadcast their scores across social media, challenging friends to download the game, or beat their scores/position on the leader board.
The game was developed via a custom 3D engine and features realistic torque physics, particle animation, sound effects and an original music soundtrack, with a stylised look and feel to match the Lexus brand.

The Admob Mobile Ads campaign
The campaign ran from 21st April to 1st June across the Admob network, targeting iPhones, iPads and iPods. Click-to-download banners were displayed on mobile apps such as Words With Friends, Angry Birds, WeatherZone, and various mobile websites. These sent the user through to the iTunes App Store where they could download the app.
A burst strategy was employed to upweight investment at strategic intervals to help the app rise up the iTunes ranks in order to achieve higher vis
ibility and gain more organic downloads.

Results
●   Won “Best mobile advertising campaign” at the 2011 Mobile Marketing Awards.
●   Total time played (all players): 1,138:46:83 (hh:mm:ss)
●   Average number of plays per user: 5.01
●   Most number of plays by a single user: 131
●   CTR:1.03%
●   Downloads peaked 2 weeks after the campaign launch. A 2nd peak occurred during the last week of the campaign
●   Highest Ranks in iTunes Store achieved during the campaign
○   Racing: 5th
○   Game: 76th
○   Overall 168th


Quote from Julie Hutchinson, CRM & Interactive Marketing Manager, Lexus Australia
"For the launch of the Lexus CT200h we wanted to reach out to a new demographic, a younger audience in their late 20s to 40s. The Lexus CT City Challenge mobile campaign was the perfect way to achieve this objective. It created a sense of excitement and innovation around the Lexus brand and kept this demographic engaged with the car and the brand."

 1Harvard Business Review, April 2010

Posted by Ryan Hayward, Product Marketing Manager