Is your paid mobile search working for you?
Earlier this year Google confirmed that mobile searches have now exceeded desktop but before even thinking about changing your entire approach to ‘mobile-first’ and increasing spend, here are a few tips to help you get the most from your current campaigns.
Are your ads converting?
If you have mobile users that aren’t converting as much as you’d expect, then it might be because of poor user experience. Review how friendly your site is with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool and let Google give you some tips on how to improve.
Can your ads be seen?
What are your ads average positions? On desktop appearing in the top 11 may be suffice but if your mobile ad isn’t in the top 3 it may not even be getting seen.
How do you search on mobile?
Think about your mobile users; think about how you search on a mobile. Mobile users tend to type in shorter phrases so think about targeting shorter queries that are easier to type. As voice search grows, longer queries may need to be reconsidered. Spelling mistakes and typos are also more commonly seen with mobile search which makes a broad approach useful to start with so you can discover keyword phrases and refine your campaign from there.
Mobile specific ads and sitelinks?
Are you using mobile specific ads and sitelinks? Though more time consuming to implement, they can really improve click-through rate as well as increase conversion. This is the opportunity to think ‘mobile-first’ and think about the on-the-go nature of the mobile user opposed to just duplicating your desktop ads and making them mobile preferred. Another benefit of mobile-specific ads is that your results will be easier to analyse opposed to looking at combined performance across devices.
Are your Goals telling the whole story?
Are you realistic with your mobile Goals and what mobile actions you are seeing? Often looking at mobile conversions alone isn’t enough as mobile is often only part of a consumers journey. What is more important to understand is how the actions can be quantified against a later conversion. For example – did a call result in a purchase? Did a store locator result in a visit? Did a product view result in a cross-device purchase? Did an app download result in an in-app sale?
Google Ads has a tool that you can use to estimate conversions to help you get a better understanding of indirect conversions that may be attributed to your mobile search efforts. Whilst this is a great feature keep in mind that they are estimates only.
Mobile search is here to stay and with many search practitioners spending half if not more of their budgets on mobile it’s certainly worth running through the tips above to ensure that your mobile strategy is working. For more help with search engine marketing (SEM) and your mobile strategy contact the LOGIC1 team.
