Adwords: 5 Tips to Optimize Your Mobile Campaigns
On June 14 I attended the Online MKT Day and I came away more convinced than ever that I must take much more advantage of the opportunities that Mobile Commerce offers.
A good starting point to take better advantage of the Mobile channel is through optimizations in our already familiar Adwords accounts, that is why in this article I share 5 tips to optimize our Adwords accounts for Mobile.
1) Create specific campaigns for Mobile
Campaigns specifically created and targeted for Mobile perform much better than "hybrid" campaigns that are targeted at more than one device.
In the same way that Search and Display campaigns should be separated, too Desktop-oriented campaigns should be separated from mobile-oriented campaigns.
This allows us to more easily analyze what happens with our Mobile traffic and differentiate it from the Desktop traffic data, in order to perform the optimizations for each type of device independently.
2) Use short and concise keywords
Mobile device users do not search in the same way as desktop users, it is common to see that very generic keywords that do not perform well on Desktop perform much better on Mobile.
Start your Mobile campaigns using short and concise keywords and then expand your list of keywords according to the Search Terms reports, this is the best way to start getting to know your mobile audience.
3) Implement ad extensions
There are different types of ad extensions that are specific to Mobile campaigns, such as Click To Call ads and location extensions.
Location extensions are especially important as most users perform local searches to find information about shops, restaurants, etc.
Click To Call ads are also very useful, as they allow users to contact your business with just one click.
4) Position yourself in the first 2 positions
Having a good position on Mobile is much more important than on Desktop, as normally only two ads are shown above organic results and then 3 below them.
An ad in first position that also uses Sitelinks will normally occupy a very large percentage of a smartphone screenTherefore, your CTR will tend to be drastically higher than that of the second position ad, let alone the last 3 ads.
In Mobile it is much more important to fight for the top positions.
5) Optimize your landing pages for mobile
If our landings pages are not well optimized to be clearly displayed on mobile devices then there is little point in bothering to send mobile traffic, besides Adwords will penalize our Quality Score since the user experience will be poor.
The way to navigate websites on a mobile device is different from that of a desktop device, so landing pages should be designed with this reality in mind.
The content should be straight to the point, the calls to action should be clear and the buttons large to make them easier to use. (We all hate having to press the screen more than once to hit a button!)
These are the first steps towards better optimized campaigns to take advantage of the growing mobile traffic, however this is only the beginning and I am sure that there will be many more articles on this topic!
