Over a billion smartphones enter the market every year. They’re everywhere, and users are finding new ways to leverage them every day. Mine is rarely more than 3 feet away from me, and I use it for everything from research, social “creeping”, and shopping to email, an alarm clock, and my camera. One of my biggest pet peeves is when things aren’t mobile compatible. As it turns out, I’m far from alone.
When it comes to websites, 61% of users won’t return to a site if they have a negative experience and 40% will go to a competitor’s site instead. Add on to that the statistic that 90% of all purchasing decisions begin with online research, and it’s understandable why appealing to mobile audiences has become so important. But doing so is very different than appealing to traditional web users.
Lauren Moores of Dstillery and Ambrish Verma of Microsoft presented on why location is so important when it comes to targeting mobile users, and gave a few pieces of advice to help their fellow marketers target their growing mobile audiences in their SES Session:
Key Mobile Insights
Mobile is not only becoming increasingly popular, but users are relying on it for more and more things and using their devices to multitask. Here are a few key statistics offered in today’s session:
- 44% of mobile search queries have a strong location intent
- 84% of shoppers use mobile devices for search while shopping
- Mobile users are relying more on apps than on browser searches
- Retail queries on mobile drive better engagement than on desktop
- There are 4 main reasons people use mobile: communication, looking for local information, getting instant answers, and app usage
Be Present During Each Step of the Consumer Journey through Targeting
The days of making one ad for everyone are long, long gone. Now mobile users expect to see what they want, when they want and in the format they want. On top of that, they want to save time, money and hassle. As a marketer targeting has become an essential way to help them do those things. There are 3 main kinds of targeting:
- Device targeting: this makes sure your site and advertisements are optimized for the device they’re using. Device targeting provides some flexibility in budget allocation in terms of targeting certain devices. Device-targeted campaigns have been shown to result in higher click through rates. If you’re targeting mobile users, be sure to include a “click-to-call” button.
- Day-time targeting: this ensures that your information is shown at the time it’s most relevant to the searcher. See when people are checking your site, reacting to your ads, and post around those times.
- Location targeting and OS targeting: can be used to make sure your information is presented in the most optimized local and time context in order to provide an enriching experience to help users get what they’re looking for from mobile. Local ads can be targeted within a 5-to-100 mile radius of your store. Or you can use zip code, address or DMA.
Use Location to Target the Right Audience, at the Right Time
Location data is essential for capturing the physical patterns of consumers, especially mobile users. There are three key pieces of location information that can help you, as a marketer, find your audience:
- The IP address can help you identify if it’s a wi-fi IP address or if it’s “out in the wild”.
- Census-blocks are the most granular piece of census data that can be married with demographic data to provide more insight into those using your site.
- Latitude and longitude are the key to targeting mobile. This allows you to create a lot of context about a particular user, or a group of users. In your app make sure you have an opt-in for users to access their location for your marketing purposes. On mobile web you will receive the users IP address, so it’s important to emphasize usage of your app.
Using location data, you can make a difference and change your marketing strategy in four areas:
- Creative: location can help you determine how to change your messaging, images and even content to appeal to your mobile users. Consider providing directions
- Audience Segmentation: location can help you understand where your users are and target those based on their proximity to you, those who will interact with you on a more frequent basis.
- Scale: location can help you go from digital to physical. It helps you find where searchers are over-indexing and under-indexing with your brand. This data can be used to scale your advertising by finding people on mobile and targeting them on desktop to expand your advertising and exposure.
- Visualization: location can help you visualize your audience in maps and in colors. You can identify where your brand action-takers are, creating an opportunity for you to expand your advertising in those areas. Sometimes you’ll be surprised by where your searchers and customers are!
Include Site Link Extensions
Site links are used to provide users much deeper and richer context. For mobile users it’s all about taking immediate actions in real-time and on-the-go. Guide consumers onto your ideal conversion path with Site Link Extensions. These can help increase click-through rates, and shorten the funnel to increase leads. These can be used to link to social pages or to drive app downloads as well as pages on your site.
Key Takeaways
When considering a mobile strategy and site there are a few key things Moores and Verma advise you to keep in mind:
- Define your mobile strategy with a focus on consumer experiences relevant to your business
- Reach your customers via mobile site and apps to expand your reach
- Optimzie for location and platform to improve ROI mobile campaigns with targeting
- Use mobile ad formats to drive conversions with click to call, click to map and site links
I guess the old phrase “location, location, location” still holds true.
Do you use location targeting in your mobile strategy? How could you take it to the next level and make your mobile ads more tailored to those around you?
SES Chicago is winding down, but check back for a recap on the highlights from the conference and the key tips you need to know.
