Today’s post comes from fellow Tar Heel, Dan London. Dan is the Director of Online Marketing at ShareFile.com, a provider of alternatives to FTP sites for business. Before joining ShareFile, Dan held the same position at Lulu.com and also worked at MarketSmart Interactive, Clean Design and LastAvailable.com. He can be found on the web at Dan-London.com.
Mobile phones have become incredibly advanced in the past few years. I remember getting a Motorola Razr and thinking that I was special. Smart Phones, such as the iPhone and any of the recent models of Blackberry line, have changed everything. No longer are phones used primarily for vocal communication. Smart Phones act as portable laptops. I hardly talk on my iPhone, but use it constantly for social media, searching for local information, email and even managing my paid search accounts and web analytics.
While managing my paid search campaigns at Lulu, I never set my content network ads to show on mobile phones and even after Smart Phones were introduced, I still did not adjust my ads to show on mobile devices. Why? Our website was not optimized for the devices. The site could function on a Smart Phone, but not well enough. New customers, whom I was targeting, couldn’t get through the sign-up process via a Smart Phone.
If you own a business and want to advertise on mobile phones there are a few things to consider first:
- Will your site work well in a mobile device?
- Will you need a mobile site in addition to your standard site?
- If you are an e-commerce website, is your shopping cart Smart-Phone optimized?
- What will be the goal of your advertising and what metrics will be tracked?
Once you have those questions answered, you have a number of options to choose from when deciding on where to spend your advertising dollars. Google AdWords offers targeting via the content network that can be effective as well as paid ads via search. This advertising is excellent because of the low cost and high amount of targeting options. For example, if you are a local bowling alley, you can target people close to your location and spend far less than a print ad would cost—as well as be able to adjust your messaging and focus quickly.
Google also recently bought AdMob which provides in-app advertising. These ads are generally image ads and sold on a CPM basis. There are a number of other options to choose from. I’d suggest using your Smart Phone and seeing who is advertising in your favorite apps and what network is being used.
Mobile advertising is the future, but making sure your website—and business—are ready, is essential.
Image by Gonzalo Baeza Hernández
{ 6 comments }
Great article. I think a lot of people assume they are mobile ready. Definitely good advice to make sure your site works on these devices and test ads before simply adding moblie advertising.
Also, in general, mobile users tend to be more oriented to a specific action or want, that they need at that time, with their mobile, as compared to pc users. Mobile users are less likely to be in a deep research mode. So what things will customers want from you on their mobiles? They will want it easily and directly on the small screen so, designing…redesigning specifically for mobile can be important. Maybe it's an app.
Jackie, thanks for letting me guest post!
B- I agree. Test and optimize before pushing hard.
Mike- I agree. If you are running ads within an app, they should be ads for a similar product.
Thanks for the comments!
Great article. I think a lot of people assume they are mobile ready. Definitely good advice to make sure your site works on these devices and test ads before simply adding moblie advertising.
Also, in general, mobile users tend to be more oriented to a specific action or want, that they need at that time, with their mobile, as compared to pc users. Mobile users are less likely to be in a deep research mode. So what things will customers want from you on their mobiles? They will want it easily and directly on the small screen so, designing…redesigning specifically for mobile can be important. Maybe it's an app.
Jackie, thanks for letting me guest post!
B- I agree. Test and optimize before pushing hard.
Mike- I agree. If you are running ads within an app, they should be ads for a similar product.
Thanks for the comments!
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