Introduction
In the ever-evolving landscape of marketing, mobile advertising has emerged as a powerful force reshaping consumer behavior. With the exponential growth in smartphone usage worldwide, businesses are increasingly turning to mobile platforms to reach and engage with their target audiences. The impact of mobile advertising on consumer behavior is profound, influencing purchasing decisions, brand perceptions, and even societal trends. This essay explores the multifaceted effects of mobile advertising on consumer behavior, delving into how it shapes preferences, fosters brand loyalty, and drives innovation in marketing strategies. Through an examination of various studies and industry trends, we uncover the significant role that mobile advertising plays in today’s digitally connected world, revolutionizing the way businesses interact with consumers and vice versa.
Mobile devices are driving more consumers to research and buy products and services online and in-store also. You can measure your store visits in Google AdWords but it is only available in the United States, Australia and Canada. Google searches now take place more on mobile devices (including smartphones, iPhones, iPads or more) than desktops. Google says, “more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan”. Google is planning to launch it in 10 more countries for thousands of advertisers very soon. Google is the #1 search engine used by people for research to get answers for their questions like what to buy and what not, where to get cheap vacation packages, who is the best car seller and many more who’s, what’s, how’s, why’s and what not! For all these questions and queries, now consumers use their smartphones to get answers in fraction of seconds.
Recently, some more innovations were added to AdWords by Google in front of a global audience of 20,000 customers in livestream. For more info, please check out this video from Google:
Mobile marketing is growing faster than all other digital advertising formats. Now it has become a requisite need to go mobile-friendly and mobile responsive. Earlier, Google in an unprecedented move announced about mobile friendly SEO update to give website publishers a chance to update their websites ahead of time. The latest big change from Google is the mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal for SEO (there are almost 200 signals). Here is an exact quote from the announcement. “Starting April 21, 2015, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.””. Google also mentioned “users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.” Moreover Google said, “Starting today, we will begin to use information from indexed apps as a factor in ranking for signed-in users who have the app installed. As a result, we may now surface content from indexed apps more prominently in search”.
Ad Experiences that Convert Your Consumers into Sales:
Mobile searches are based on consumer needs and immediacy. They have much more expectations from your especially when they are searching via mobile phones. They need everything (whatever they search) quickly, no matter when they are searching and where they are. This is the basic reason for increase in Google searches. Based on Google insights and consumers feedback about how people look up for information on internet, new generation of Ad experiences were added to AdWords which are basically designed for mobile customers and are more engaging than before. Those include:
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Automotive:
Automobile Ads is the new search ad feature from Google which makes it convenient for users when searching for automobile/cars in the market. Before you buy a car you can research more about it like how it looks inside and outside, how comfortable it is, mileage, material and more. If you tap on the images on Google Automobile Ad search it will provide you more information about that car. While tapping on the “Dealers” link there will show you nearby deals of that particular car. Google explains the reason for introduction of this feature as, “Car buyers spend up to 15 hours online researching, comparing and learning. When people browse the web for automobiles, they want to see pictures and visuals of their dream car. In fact, about half of Google searches for cars contain images. That’s why we introduced Automobile Ads.”
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Hotel Ads:
Hotel Ads will be displayed globally now for the entire hotel partners of Google around the world. This move came after analyzing customer behavior which shows millions of people search (usually by smartphones) for hotels, rates, facilities and more daily.
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Mortgages/Finances:
Whether you want to buy a new house or want to sell your old house, Google search ads make it possible to take you to the right person. Even you can easily get to know about the loan process, new mortgage rates from different mortgage providers, interest rate and more.
Capture Moments at Scale with Automation:
Consumers usually search a lot before buying or getting to know more about brands. They search billions of times monthly and spend billions of hours monthly in order to watch videos, have interactions on various platforms and apps. Online marketers though can now make it convenient for users by automation. They can show them exact matches as per their need.
The main automation marketing tools include:
Automated Bidding:
The new reporting dashboard from Google enables more transparency and control to evaluate the bid strategies performance over time. Google AdWords bid strategies make you more effective and efficient as it sets billions of bids per day for tens of thousands of advertisers. Also, new simulation tools demonstrate exchange between volume and cost for different advertisers at different Cost Per Action (CPA) targets.
Dynamic Search Ads:
The new enhancement tools from Google in Dynamic Search Ads will now show pages where your customers may land. It will be totally based on your website content. These tools include:
- Recommended Category Targets
- Suggested Cost-Per-Clicks (CPCs) For Every Category
- More Visibility into The Ads
The new tools and services from Google will make online shopping experience easier both for marketers and consumers. Marketers should measure all the key performance indicators (KPI’s) always which will help them to choose the right path to advertise via mobile apps, devices and stores. Some of the major new Google AdWords tools include:
AdWords Attribution:
Data-driven attribution from Google Adwords will be the new tool to help in calculation of the actual contribution of each keyword across the whole conversion path.
Cross-Device Conversions Integrated With Automated Bidding:
It is important for online marketers to measure the new consumer paths driven by multi devices including smartphones, iPhones and iPads. Internet marketing experts can take action on these insights very soon when cross-device conversions are integrated into automated bidding.
Marketing experiments:
In order to measure incremental impact generated from your Google ads, the new tool from Google makes it more convenient. If we take an example of HomeAway, a global vacation rental marketplace, it has worked with the Google account team and learned that its Google Display Network ads are driving a 49% lift in click-related traffic to its website.
These were some of the important moments that matter to everyone including marketers, consumers and off course Google itself because these are the major indications when decisions are being made and preferences shaped.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the impact of mobile advertising on consumer behavior is undeniable. Through the ubiquity of smartphones, businesses have gained unprecedented access to their target audiences, influencing purchasing decisions, shaping brand perceptions, and driving innovation in marketing strategies. As mobile technology continues to evolve, so too will the ways in which businesses engage with consumers, making mobile advertising a critical component of any successful marketing campaign in today’s digitally connected world.
Zahoor Bhat has over 10+ years of experience as an online editor and media manager. He has worked with major online news and content sites as a media manager. He is well versed with major content management systems and web platforms such as WordPress and social media networks including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google Business, Yelp, Instagram & Linkedin. He is an expert in content creation, proofreading and finally making it live. Being a social media expert, he is able to make relations with social media influencers and make sure to generate leads and grow business via different social media platforms.
