Mobile-Search – MobiAD

Venture Capitalists Bet Google is Vulnerable in Mobile

admin — Wed, 06 May 2015 09:49:11 +0000

For many years Google has had a seemingly unbreakable hold on internet search, with competitors like as Bing and Yahoo having a hard time making any gains in the marketplace.

However, search on mobile devices is developing into quite a unique proposition, with differences in content, user expectations, and technologies.

Venture Capitalists are now betting that Google might well be vulnerable in this new area of search. And so they are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars of investment into start ups that are targeting mobile search.

For the past decade, common wisdom has prevented start ups from challenging Google on its home turf of internet search. But now a new breed of entrepreneurs are creating companies that attempt to capitalize on the unique properties of mobile to .

These mobile search start ups have each taken a special angle to try to differentiate themselves. For example, many are trying to extend search into the inside of mobile applications using “deep links”. Others are working to utilize the additional “contextual” information that is provided by mobile – such as location – to try to provide more complete answer to what the user would like to do.

One such startup is Vurb, based in San Francisco. When a Vurb user does a search for a film, the service provides a complete listing with movie reviews, list of cast members, locations to see the film, links to purchase tickets, and even a link to call a cab to get there!

Bobby Lo, founder of Vurb explained, “If I’m searching for a movie, chances are I want to do a couple of things related to that.”

Based on figures from CB Insights (a key source for Venture Capital data), VC’s financed 33 search companies in 2013 and 27 in 2014, with many of them focused on mobile search.

John Lilly is a partner at Greylock Partners, a leading VC firm. He feels that while search is not broken, it certainly can be improved. Quoted in the NY Times, he said “If you ask 100 people whether search is broken or not, 99 would say Google is perfect, it’s everything I need. But if you ask them, ‘How are you going to figure out what you want to watch on TV tonight or where are you going to dinner?’ they would say Google wouldn’t know that, that’s not search.”

(for a more in depth discussion of this topic, read this article in the New York Times)

Google Makes Major “Mobile-friendly” Change to Search Algorithms

admin — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 11:11:29 +0000

Most people know that Google uses a complex system to determine which results to show from a search query. What some people may not know is that this algorithm gets updated periodically.

In mid-April, Google implemented a major change, one that was focused on the mobile-readiness of websites.

While this may seem to be a small technicality, in fact it can have huge impact on anyone that depends on customers finding them through Google.

Here are the key points of the change that went into effect on April 21st, 2015.

What is the change?
Google now rates each page to see if it is “mobile friendly”. This basically means is the page designed to display well on a mobile device.

If the page is deemed to be mobile friendly, then it will be more likely to listed when someone does a search from a mobile device.
Where do consumers see this?
In mobile search results, there will now be a small label if the page is mobile friendly. (see example below)
Does it apply to an entire site?
No, it applies page by page. This means that if some pages in a site are mobile friendly, they can benefit from this boost, while other “non-friendly” pages will not.
As a webmaster, how do I check my site?
Google has provided a tool to check mobile friendliness, it is here. (see example below)
Where can I get more information?
The Google FAQ is located here.

This change is different from many Google algorithm updates, in that it is actively encouraging good business strategy. Google’s changes often are implemented primarily to limit – or some would say punish – certain web practices that Google wants to discourage. For example, one such discouraged practice was hiding text on a page by making it the same color as the background.

However in this case, Google is actually encouraging companies to think about their mobile strategy, and to put the resources into making their website “mobile friendly”.

As a large and growing proportion of web traffic, especially web commerce traffic, is coming from mobile devices, this is actually a very good thing for most companies.

As Matthew Tulett, one of the organizers of UnGagged London, said, “I would urge businesses large and small to use the mobile friendly update to take stock and asses their mobile strategy… rather than a headache, this particular algorithm change should be seen as helping businesses focus on ways to achieve growth in areas that, until now, might otherwise have been ignored.”

What is a Google Algorithm?

(from Google website)

You want the answer, not trillions of webpages. Algorithms are computer programs that look for clues to give you back exactly what you want.

For a typical query, there are thousands, if not millions, of webpages with helpful information. Algorithms are the computer processes and formulas that take your questions and turn them into answers.

Today Google’s algorithms rely on more than 200 unique signals or “clues” that make it possible to guess what you might really be looking for. These signals include things like the terms on websites, the freshness of content, your region and PageRank.

Mobile Search Soars in Q4 2014

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 22:42:12 +0000

Mobile search marketing enjoyed a very good Christmas season this year. The numbers are impressive.

According to the Digital Marketing Report Q4 2014 , mobile organic search traffic grew 54% from a year earlier, and now represents over 40% of all organic search across the three main search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo).

And more impressive, on Christmas day mobile plus tablet click share was over 50%!

The Digital Marketing Report Q4 2014, is a quarterly digital marketing analysis that is produced by search marketing agency Merkle|RKG. This report is a veritable treasure chest of information about digital marketing.

Paid Search
Google’s Q4 2014 paid search revenue grew by 19% over the previous year. Over 40% of the clicks came from mobile. The 19% resulted from a 12% increase in clicks, and a 7% increase in average cost-per-click.

Organic Search
Overall organic search site visits grew 13%, whereas mobile organic site visits increased 54%. Organic search represents about 1/3 of all site visits in the study.

Social Media
Social media represented only about 2.4% of all site visits in Q4. Although this is small, it is up from 1.4% last year.

Facebook accounted for over 60% of these visits. Mobile made up over 50% of all social media site visits, a major increase from last year’s 37%.

Key Shopping Days
A pattern seems to be emerging, with more sales happening earlier and later in the holiday season. As happened last year, the number one day this year for sales was Cyber Monday, followed by Black Friday.

The pattern for mobile’s share varies throughout the week, as shown in this graph of mobile share of paid search traffic.

Mobile CPC
For Google paid search, mobile CPCs stayed flat compared to desktop CPC’s for the past few quarters, at roughy a 60% discount. Tablet CPCs dropped slightly, but were still essentially the same as desktop CPC rates.

The complete report contains lots more detail on search advertising and comparison shopping engines, as well as display advertising. Take a look!

The rise of mobile search

admin — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 20:08:15 +0000

The number of people who are regularly searching on smartphones is rocketing, in-line with the explosive growth of mobile devices around the world.

Currently, around one quarter of all searches now come from mobile devices.

This infographic takes a look at the statistics around mobile search, and shows when, where and how users are performing their searches.

Mobile search offers some unique opportunities for companies who want to reach people at the right time and in the right way. Context and intent signals that are present in a mobile search are clear indicators of a customer with a specific need and they need to be considered by providers who seek to deliver relevant, personalized experiences.

Here is an infographic from HeyStax which gives some interesting data about the rise of mobile search.

Mobile advertising to grow 7x fasterthan desktop internet ads

admin — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 15:37:43 +0000

Mobile advertising is definitely on a growth spurt these days.

According to Publicis-owned ad agency ZenithOptimedia, global advertising will grow at a respectable rate of 3.5% over the coming year, with internet advertising growing about three times this fast. Mobile advertising on the other hand, is expected to grow at an astounding 77% this year!

For this study, ZenithOptimedia defined mobile advertising to be all internet ads delivered to smartphones and tablets, including display, search, and classified.

Driven by the rapid adoption of both smartphones and tablets, this growth is expected to continue for several years, although at a reduced rate of 56% in 2014 and 48% in 2015. This compares to an overall annual growth rate in internet advertising of about 10%.

In terms of actual expenditures, ZenithOptimedia estimates that total mobile spend was about US$ 8.3bn in 2012. This would represent almost 10% of internet spending, and 1.7% of total advertising across all media.

In two years, the mobile total is forecast to grow to US$33bn. This will about one quarter of all internet spend, and 6% of total advertising spend, a massive increase.

Global outlook
Clearly the growth in overall advertising is not expected to be consistent around the world. As shown in the chart below, ZenithOptimedia forecasts 2013 to 2015 regional growth rates of between -3% up to +11%; China and India being the fastest growth region, and Spain/Italy/Greece representing a region that will actually contract.

Media channel variations
In addition, of course the different media channels vary greatly in their future prospects.

Consistent with recent years, print media including newspapers and magazines will see a strong contraction of advertising spend
Cinema and radio meanwhile will remain relatively flat
Not surprisingly, internet is forecast to grow the fastest
And interestingly TV is also expected to see significant expansion

To get a download link for a detailed summary of this study, please enter your email address here:

and company name here:

UK mobile consumers love research,but are very likely to purchase

admin — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 13:48:55 +0000

UK consumers who use their phones for search tend to take a longer time for research compared to US-based consumers, but their purchase intent is very high, with over half reporting they had eventually made the purchase.

This and many other interesting facets of UK mobile shopping behavior are highlighted in “Path-to-Purchase” infographic.

xAd, a leading mobile-location based advertising network, and Telmetrics, a top mobile call measurement provider commissioned Nielsen to survey over 1,500 smartphone and tablet users about the actual “path-to-purchase” for mobile users.

The UK focused reveals many interesting facts, among them:

Forty (40) percent of U.K. mobile searchers report intending to make a purchase within the day and an additional 35 percent take up to a month before making a purchase decision.
Smartphone users have a more immediate need than tablet users, with 22% looking to make a purchase within an hour of their search.
Only 34 percent of mobile searchers know exactly what they are searching for, meaning the advertisers have a very good opportunity to effect the purchase decision of most consumers.
For tablet users, 81 percent report using the device at home, compared to only 42 percent of smartphone users who conduct searches at home
Price comparisons and reviews are both more popular in the U.K. than in the US – looking for coupons or deals is less popular in the U.K.

Check out the infographic below for more about the UK path-to-purchase. And for a more information about the global study as well as more detailed information about several verticals, check out the website www.mobilepathtopurchase.com

Home Depot continuing to increase its focus on mobile

admin — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 16:30:41 +0000

American superstore-chain Home Depot is focusing much of its efforts on increasing mobile spending, its chief marketing officer Trish Mueller announced at the recent mobile marketing conference.

The company, which has been a long-term and early-adopter of mobile technology within its marketing currently targets customers via a six-pronged mobile approach: web, apps, search, social media, email, and advertising.

To date, its primary mobile app has been downloaded well over 3.5 million times. The company’s return on investment (ROI) from mobile search has now surpassed that of desktop search, an impressive feat in itself.

One of Home Depot’s key areas of expansion is in mobile video, for which Mueller announced spending had been quadrupled from the previous years.

The company is also ramping up its advertising efforts on audio sites such as Pandora to ensure broad coverage across the board.

Mueller also said the company was continuing to experiment with possible uses for augmented reality (AR) technology, an increasingly commonplace aspect of such marketing.

At the moment, Home Depot’s use of AR extends only to the ability to see what a landscaped area would look like – but it’s undoubtedly something that will expand over time.

Google Show Huge Growth In Christmas Mobile Shoppers

admin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:16:51 +0000

Google has released some interesting data indicating that 44% of Christmas gift searches will be done via mobile this year compared to 20% last year and less than 2% in 2008.

This shows a huge year on year growth of almost 150%. Once the Christmas season is past, an ongoing growth rate of 35% predicted. This compares to desktop where Google only expects to see a 2% growth over the same period.

Google released data on shopping related searches for the US which shows very rapid growth over the year, with very strong peaks just before Christmas.

Simon Morgan, Google UK head of mobile advertising, said: “There is a great opportunity for businesses to reach their customers where they are; on mobile. Advertisers can take advantage of innovative mobile ad features to drive people to their web properties, increase footfall, or even grow phone traffic.

In the UK there are 3 spikes in mobile search during the festive period:

At the end of November, as consumers receive their last payday before Christmas
Just before Christmas Day, as last minute shoppers panic having not bought all their presents
At the start of the January sales

Google advises companies to make the most of this growth by integrating their mobile, tablet, TV and desktop advertising in order to maximise ROI.

Mobile Search: 15 Statistics You Might Want To Know

admin — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:04:44 +0000

Mobile marketing and advertising have generally become mainstream by now, and along with this has come an increasing appreciation for the importance of mobile search.

Now publications traditionally focused only on PC based SEM are actively discussing and analyzing mobile search. Recently in MediaPost’s SearchInsider publication, Aaron Goldman wrote an article listing 15 interesting and potentially significant statistics about mobile and search.

We found the statistics quite interesting and fun, and have listed a few of them below. Go to the MediaPost site to read the full article.

#1 – By 2012, there will be 5 billion mobile devices in use.
This is roughly equivalent to 70% of the entire world’s population!

#2 – Penetration of smartphones stands at about 40% in both Western Europe and the U.S.
And the more smartphones, the more searches as it’s much easier to type and navigate the Web on a smartphone than a standard phone.

#3 – Mobile makes up about 15% of all Google searches, and about 20% of searches globally for Yahoo.
That’s 528 million mobile searches per month through Yahoo sites (based on comScore query volume).

#4 – Nearly 30% of all mobile search queries are with local intent, compared to just 16% for the PC.
The implication for companies is clear: If you have a physical location, its a better idea to try to get people to visit your shop, rather than use search to steer them to a website.

#5 – 43% of mobile Internet usage happening in home, and 86% of mobile Internet users surf the mobile Web while watching TV.
Mobile isn’t just for people on the move. Perhaps people are just too lazy to pull out their laptops when it’s just to do a quick search.

#6 – 43% would give up beer if they would otherwise have to give up their smartphones.
This is a statistic I haven’t seen before!

#7 – 48% of mobile ad clicks are accidental.

#8 – In Japan, the average consumer has 45 mobile apps installed on his phone, compared to 23 for the U.S. and U.K.
Implying that as the US and UK regions mature, there still is a lot of room for growth in the apps market.

Go to the MediaPost site to read the full article.

What Ads Do Consumers Really Want? Personalized Ads!

admin — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:50:12 +0000

Mobile offers marketers many unique advertising possibilities. Among them are the ability for location-based ads, personalized ads, and ads based on time of day.

But what type of mobile ads do consumers really want to see? An in-depth study from Upstream confirms that personalized ads are by far and away the consumer favorite.

Upstream conducted a study of over 2,000 mobile users to see what sort of ads they preferred to receive. The results were somewhat surprising, with an overwhelming majority preferring personalized ads to any other kind. The preference was very strong for personalization, with more than 4 times as many people preferring it over, for example, location based ads.

“Comparing the importance of personalization versus location in receiving mobile ads is especially interesting, given the hype around location-based players such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Facebook Places or even Google+ with its Latitude check-ins,” said Assaf Baciu, Senior Vice President, Product Management, Upstream. “While location remains an important factor in delivering mobile ads, tailoring interactions via mobile to consumers’ ‘tastes and interests’ clearly presents much greater potential for driving higher response and conversion rates.”

Upstream also looked at what type of campaign mechanics were most likely to lead to a followup action by the consumer. Consumers were asked to rank their “channels of influence”, and the results were a bit surprising.

Some of the more widely publicized means of mobile advertising such as mobile website ads and mobile search ads did not score very well, especially among feature phone users. However, certain very basic marketing channels such as opt-in text messages rated very highly.

Upstream previously released a study, North American Consumer Attitudes to Mobile Marketing, which you can download by clicking here.