Posted by Guess what! It’s the year of Mobile! Again!
This year, it’s the year of mobile payments, mobile recruiting, mobile advertising. The first hand-held mobile phone was sold thirty-one years ago for $4k; it was fourteen inches long. As our cell phones have shrunk in size and price, they’ve grown in value.
I am 100x more attached to my smartphone than I was two years ago—four years ago, I had just invested in my first smartphone. Instead of just being a handy tag-along to communicate, it is now my #1 resource for everything from social media, to Pokémon Go, shopping, finding an apartment, and diagnosing any mystery illnesses (thanks, WebMD!).
In search, SERPs have been advancing efforts to incorporate mobile-friendly ads. Mobile search spending is expected to increase by 62% over the next 3 years (Tweet This)! The Google changes this year include the loss of right-side ads on desktop (making every SERP look more like the mobile SERP), the introduction of huge Expanded Text Ads on every device and the return of device-level bid adjustments. At WordStream, we’re constantly reminding clients to make sure their websites are mobile friendly—or at the very least, their PPC landing pages are. (And if they aren’t, to avoid mobile landing pages altogether.)
Mobile drove more than half of the total paid search clicks this past Thanksgiving and Black Friday, and mobile conversion rates are constantly improving.With a smaller screen, different ad formats, voice search, and other variables at play, it’s much easier to fail on mobile. If you’re concerned about how you measure up, new features in our AdWords Performance Grader make it an even more valuable as a source of free competitive intelligence, especially for small and medium-sized businesses who are learning how to win in mobile PPC.
If you’re still not buying into the importance of mobile, we have an infographic from Invesp full of mobile advertising stats and trends to prove it! Don’t underestimate the power of your beloved iPhone and prepare yourself for even more ads targeted to your 6.5’’ screen.
