mobile advertising

Making a Smooth Transition to Mobile PPC

April 11, 2013 by Justin Miller Leave a Comment

If you are running Pay per Click ads using Google AdWords, you’ll need to be ready for your ads to start showing up on smartphones. Once yourLegacy Campaigns are upgraded to the Enhanced Campaigns, your ads will begin showing on mobile. Before this happens though, there are a few things that you can do to prepare.

Targeting Devices (or not)

First off, if you absolutely do not want to be advertising on mobile at all, there is a way to do so within Enhanced Campaigns. The Bid Adjustment feature allows you to target specific devices. By setting your bid adjustment to -100% for mobile devices, you will prevent your ads from being shown on phones. But with the noticeable rise in smartphone use, are you sure that is the best marketing decision?

Mobile-Optimized Ads

Another option is to prepare our ads accordingly. A great way to do this is to utilize the Call Extension. Although this extension can be used to target all devices, it is best suited for targeting mobile users. This extension will allow searchers on mobile devices to not only find you, but connect with you via a phone call with a single click. Another additional feature that comes with this Enhanced Campaigns extension is day parting. This means that the call functionality can be set to coincide with your business’s operating hours. On top of all that functionality, Google has also dropped the additional charge that formerly came with using a Google forwarding number.

Using the steps above, you can make sure that your PPC account is ready for the Enhanced Campaigns upgrade. These new features and extensions allow you to reach new customers no matter what device they’re using!

We’d love to hear which aspects of AdWords Enhanced Campaigns you’re using to improve your PPC ads. Let us know in the comments below!

Top 5 Financial Services Marketing Tips

February 13, 2013 by Daniel Laws 1 Comment

We do a lot of work with banks and credit unions because of previous relationship within these markets. The financial services marketing landscape has really changed over the past decade and it’s about to get a mobile face lift and whole lot more in 2013. Below are my top five recommendations for bank & credit union marketers:

Go Mobile

Invest in mobile banking and measure the effectiveness of mobile to generate leads as well as increase sales. According to a report by Adology, Mobile banking is having the biggest impact on routine banking activities: 64% of mobile banking users in the U.S. say that the future ability to use their smartphones or tablets to check account balances would be highly valued. This move has the potential to increase liability and risk for financial services institutions, so make sure it delivers value to your customers.

Incorporate Measurement

Measure all of your marketing campaigns and implement tag management solutions. With all of the marketing tactics that financial services use as well as third party application processing, tag management will help to simplify tagging and limit data collection challenges. Tag management boils down to this–one tag on your site for numerous solutions, such as affiliates, third party application, media buys, etc.

Test, Test, Test!

Test your marketing tactics, PLEASE! The cost of many tests can be justified and can help improve your institution’s online sales process. If you’re not testing, you might as well dump a portion of you marketing budget into the trash and set it on fire.

Tag Management for Financial Services Marketing

The best place to test is within the conversion process. Invest the time, money, and resources into conversion optimization. It will require you to bring your partners (third party vendors) to the table for discussions. Tag management solutions can also streamline required vulnerability testing within the application process.

Predictive Modeling for Applications & Quotes

Now that measuring all of your marketing tactics is on the agenda, you should consider attribution and predictive modeling. Attribution modeling will help you give credit to marketing tactics that most impact the conversion process, and predictive modeling will help you to forecast future sales and revenue.

Have your own financial services marketing tips to add? Let us hear them in the comments below!

The 5 W’s of Mobile Advertising

January 30, 2013 by Dabrian Marketing Group 1 Comment

It’s safe to say that the “Mobile Marketing Revolution” is in full swing. To offer a bit of perspective, think about this: Mobile web usage is expected to surpass traditional Desktop Internet browsing by 2015. It’s clear–smartphones and tablets are on the fast-track to ubiquity, and a lot more marketers are starting to catch on and make moves. This week, we’re going to break down Mobile Advertising into its most basic elements.

Here’s the Who, What, When, Where, & Why of Mobile Advertising (your High School English teachers would be so proud!).

Who?

This one is pretty self-explanatory, but there’s nothing wrong with bringing in a little context. In just two years, 40% of American consumers will have a smartphone. That’s a big portion of the market, and that means that advertisers will have to take these devices into account when forming their latest and greatest marketing campaigns. Another thing to consider is the way consumers are using their devices. Now more than ever, mobile devices are becoming the go-to platform for eCommerce, managing finances, performing brand research, and more.

What?

When it comes to mobile advertising, there are many options that marketers will have to consider. Some big ones include mobile-optimized content, mobile-friendly websites, mobile application development, QR Codes, as well as the mobile paid search environment. It’s a lot to wrap one’s head around, and it’ll require research for those marketing teams that are planning to make the mobile transition soon. The numbers don’t lie though–Mobile Ad Spend in the US is projected to reach nearly $4 Billion by the end of this year.

When?

Studies and research have completely agreed on the rise of mobile devices in the future. Consumers are expected to devote more time to using mobile devices, spend more money on mobile apps, and complete more tasks and activities on the small screen. As devices and consumer behavior evolves, marketing teams will have to keep an eye on the trends, capitalize on what they can right now, and prepare for the advances the future will bring.

Where?

Where are these users spending their time? The era of using a smartphone just to check email is over. As these devices have become more sophisticated, average users have become far more comfortable using their smartphones and tablets to complete everyday tasks that were once confined to a Desktop. Shopping, doing research, connecting via Social Media, banking, searching, using brand-specific apps, and playing games–all of these offer big opportunities for a business to gain reach & visibility. Put simply, industry-specific possibilities abound for the mobile arena.

Why?

Time for the most important question of all: Is mobile marketing really worth it? Will it live up to the hype? Time will certainly tell, but the current data is hard to ignore. Mobile devices are fast-becoming the latest communication medium, both from a personal and business perspective. When it comes down to it, successful marketing starts with target audience’s behavior and values, and ends with creating a unique marketing message to match. Mobile devices are poised to be the most effective way to get the word out, and advertisers have begun their plans to explore this new technological frontier.