With the holiday season just around the corner, Bing Ads has released a list of important tips on how to best use PPC to get the best possible results. Not surprisingly, going mobile is a major theme throughout the list of tips and other information that they published. Included in the post is some staggering information about the holiday spending season, including the fact that this year US consumers are expected to spend over $800 Billion. Needless to say, it is essential for all brands to work hard to get their piece of this massive pie.
It is expected that this year a record number of people will be using their smart phones and tablets to complete some or all of their shopping. In fact, it is expected that 125.7 million shoppers will be browsing, researching, comparing products and making purchases via these mobile devices.
Another important point that was made is that 40% of consumers surveyed reported that they believe having a nice mobile experience to be the most important factor when deciding to make a purchase or not. Of course, these factors haven’t gone unnoticed throughout the year thus far, which is made clear by the fact that the number of mobile ad clicks on Bing Ads has grown by 116% year over year.
Mobile Activities
One of the most important things that was brought up in the article are the ‘top five’ buying related actions that people perform on their mobile devices. In each case, PPC ads can be used to make the user experience easier while also driving sales for your brand. The five items are:
- Mobile Purchases – The most obvious one is based on mobile-commerce, which is when people make a purchase directly on their phone. This could be anything from buying something on Amazon to ordering a gift card online.
- Research for Offline Sales – Many people will research products they are interested on their mobile phone before going to make the purchase offline. It is becoming increasingly common for brick and mortar stores to have customers come in with a product pulled up on their phone that they want to purchase.
- Mobile to PC Sales – It is also quite common for people to find an item on their mobile phones, and then move over to a tablet or PC to make the actual purchase. This is becoming easier to track with advanced analytics offered from Bing.
- Phone Sales – Of course, when people find an item they like on their phone it is often the simplest thing to just tap the number on the site to call the company and make the purchase. For mobile sites that are set up properly, this can be a major source of sales.
- Offline to Online Purchases – This option, often referred to as showrooming happens when someone goes into a traditional store to see a product in person, but then purchases online. This is popular because online prices are often lower. Many people go to an electronics store, for example, and then make a purchase over their mobile phone on the way home.
If you are not thinking about each of these five activities when you are planning your mobile marketing strategy for the 2014 holiday season, you will likely miss out on some significant sales.
Optimizing Your Mobile Marketing
If you want to revamp your website or run a mobile PPC campaign, Bing Ads also offered some important tips on how to get the best results in this area too:
- Improve your Mobile Website – It doesn’t matter how effective your mobile PPC campaign is, if your website doesn’t function properly and isn’t user friendly, it won’t convert very well. If necessary, now is the time to make improvements to get ready for the holiday season.
- Positioning Ads Properly – Being in the proper position for mobile ads is even more important than it is on PCs. With limited screen space, you need to make sure your ads are in the perfect position for your customers.
- Optimize Ad Copy – You should start testing different ad copy now to ensure you are using the best one during peak holiday season.
- Use Available Ad Improvements – Bing Ads offers a variety of great extensions for ads such as site links, locations and call extensions. Make sure you are using all of the tools provided for all your PPC ads.
- TRACKING IS EVERYTHING – You’ll never get the best results if you aren’t tracking your performance. PPC networks provide a lot of data, but it is up to you to access it and learn from it so you can be constantly improving your ads.
The bottom line on all of this is that it is absolutely critical for companies to position themselves well during the holiday season. For some companies it is possible to make the majority of their money during just these busy months. No matter what business you are in, you can help to capitalize on the high spending that takes place this time of year.
