Google mobile search ads can help you reach and convert audiences with relevant messages customized for their smartphones and tablets.
As a society, we’ve embraced our smartphones and tablets, and use of mobile devices continues to grow rapidly. Most advertisers expect this trend will continue, but many struggle to embrace mobile audiences in their strategies.
Mobile users aren’t an audience you can afford to ignore. So let’s dig into how you can use Google mobile search ads to target users with specific language, ad extensions and an improved mobile experience.
How to improve your Google mobile search ad performance
- Write ad copy that speaks to a mobile audience
- Use ad customizers that appeal to mobile users
- Adapt your call to action for mobile users
- Offer more information to users with mobile-specific ad extensions
- Make sure your ads take people to a mobile-optimized landing page
Why you should be using Google mobile search ads
How important is mobile search? It’s become part of our daily lives. Over 90 per cent of people use their mobile devices to look up information when they want to find, do or buy something.
It’s not all mindless scrolling, either. An impressive 51 per cent of mobile search users have discovered a new company or product as a result. Mobile users are searching with actual intent to find solutions and act on the information they find. The trick is to create Google mobile search ad campaigns that deliver relevant information in targeted ways.
Mobile users are a huge source of search traffic. With over 3.5 billion Google searches happening each day and 63 per cent of those searches coming from mobile devices.
Where do advertisers often go wrong with mobile search?
In most cases, failure comes from not customizing an ad campaigns for mobile users. It’s not adequate to simply run ads for all users without optimizing them for mobile.
Failure to optimize for mobile can mean a waste of advertising dollars and missed opportunities to convert high traffic numbers. But, that’s not all.
Positive experiences are very influential, but so are negative ones when it comes to mobile search ads. If a user has a poor experience, it could deter them from becoming a customer now and in the future.
How to optimize your Google mobile search ad campaigns
The best place to start with any advertising is to consider your customer. What they are experiencing and what they need? When a mobile user pulls out their phone to search for something, they’re unlikely to be doing deep research for a future purchase.
More commonly, they are looking for a solution or product to solve an immediate problem. Therefore, having Google serve up an ad for your product or service at that moment is highly valuable.
What does this mean for advertisers? Optimizing campaigns to target mobile users will help you convert more customers and get a better return on your ad spend.
Here are a few ideas to help optimize your Google mobile search ad campaigns:
1. Write ad copy that speaks to a mobile audience
When you write copy for any ad, you need to target your ideal customer with your product as a solution to their needs. Of course, that’s still true for mobile ads, but there’s one more thing to consider. You’re writing copy to appeal to a customer who may have an urgent need and will decide much more quickly than a desktop user.
For example, a mobile user might be looking for a service depot that can do an oil change that day. This user is likely to click on an ad that invites them to visit today, includes an extra vehicle check, offers a current coupon and gives them a way to request an appointment online.
2. Use ad customizers that appeal to mobile users
Google offers ad customizers to automatically customize the text of your search ads according to the customer searching. In addition, you can adapt your ad text based on keywords used to search. This customization allows you to offer different ad variations and show the most relevant version to each user based on their physical location, device and when they see your ad.
For example, if your business is a gluten-free bakery in Toronto with a limited delivery area, you may want to target local customers with your ads. In doing so, you’ll make sure your ad spend goes to people who could visit your shop and buy your products.
This type of customization can help improve your click-through rates because Google shows a relevant version of your ads to users ready to consider options or even make a purchase.
3. Adapt your calls to action for mobile users
A call to action is needed in any ad campaign to help motivate your customer to take the desired action. This step is where you’ll potentially convert someone viewing your ad into a customer. For desktop users, desirable calls to action might encourage them to click through to a website, sign up for a newsletter or click through to a contact page.
However, when it comes to Google mobile search ads, consider the most valuable call to action that is most likely to result in a conversion. For example, is a customer looking for dinner ideas for tonight going to sign up for your emails from their smartphone? Probably not. However, they may be very interested in calling you to see if you can seat them at a table in the next 30 minutes and accommodate important dietary restrictions.
When you’re targeting mobile users searching for your location or a product near them, you may want to focus on driving calls to ensure they connect with you in that moment of urgency.
4. Offer more information to users with mobile-specific ad extensions
Google offers ad extensions that give customers viewing your ad more information through expanded text areas. These extensions can help draw them to your ad because they can tell your business is relevant to their needs before they click.
Google mobile search ads can be made more appealing by implementing call extensions and location extensions on your ads. Call extensions simply make it easier for a customer to click and call you right from your ad. Location extensions show your business address in your ad so a customer can see you are a local and convenient option. They can even click on a link in your ad to view your location on a map.
5. Make sure your ads take people to a mobile-optimized landing page
A user’s mobile experience doesn’t stop with an ad. Even with carefully crafted copy and handy features in place to attract attention and garner clicks from mobile users, you still must deliver a seamless experience once they click.
When users click on your ad, your landing page should load quickly and immediately appear relevant. If they need to navigate from page to page on your website, it should be easy to find what they need and subsequent pages should load quickly. Any purchase or conversion needs to be smooth and intuitive.
Google offers enhanced features to help you build effective campaigns targeting mobile users. You can use these features to reach your audience with relevant ads that deliver the information they need right to the device in their hand.
If your mobile strategy isn’t bringing you the results you want, book a consultation to see how you can successfully include mobile search ads in your advertising strategy.
