Image via MobileBehavior
If you following marketing or technology trends at all, it would be impossible to miss the fact that mobile advertising spend is exploding. Techcruch tells us that Mobile Ad Spending is expected to grow 65% in 2011. Mashable was less bullish calling for a 50% increase. SearchEngineLand ponders how many billions of dollars Google can expect in mobile ad revenue next year. (Answer – $6.25B!) So, why are so many people spending so much money on mobile advertising? Because that’s where the shoppers are! We have a simple code that we live by here at Century Interactive. Figure out where our customers live and make sure that we are there. If our customers live in a CRM product, you will find us there as an integrated partner. If they live in Google Analytics, they will find us there too. Well, mobile marketing is no different. Advertisers know that their customers live on their mobile smart device. A recent study tells us that smartphone adoption is up to 43% up from 27% from just a year ago. This is an amazing stat and certainly goes a long way towards explaining the explosion of dollars spent on mobile advertising. The article goes on to spell out the opportunity for retailers to capture these shoppers as more and more of their browsing shifts from the PCs on the desktop to the mobile device in their hands. There is no arguing the fact that there are more people browsing and shopping on their mobile device. This point seems obvious. The more interesting question becomes, “Are these people converting?” In this economy and in the saturated advertising world we live in today, tracking your ROI is mandatory. Mobile advertising has quickly become a multi-billion dollar industry; rising at a rate so fast that virtually assures that it is the Wild West as it pertains to being able to accurately measure your advertising ROI. Despite that fact, the fundamentals still apply. Your advertising better bring in more revenue than you spend on it, and you better have hard data to show it. That is where we come in. We can help you tame the Wild West of mobile advertising and start measuring the response that it is generating on your hard earned dollars. Here are four ways to start gathering this data today.
Track your Mobile Website
Our Dynamic Website Tracking works on your mobile website too! Track every session that occurs on your mobile website and connect it to the resulting phone calls and online conversions. Our technology allows you to see where your mobile traffic is coming from (referral source), what was searched (search query), and detailed information on paid mobile campaigns (keyword, campaign id, network, etc . . .). Use our dynamic tracking to see exactly how your mobile campaigns are performing.
Local
Use a unique tracking number in all of your targeted local mobile advertising. Are people calling you from Yelp?, Google Places?, Foursquare? Hopefully you are getting calls from all of the above, but which one is converting at the highest rate. Where should you invest in the “Premium Package”? Unique tracking lines on each platform allow you to answer these questions and more. You will not only have call counts, but all of the detailed information associated with those calls, including call duration, recording, available customer information, etc . . . to determine the quality of those calls.
Social
I have read countless articles and attended several presentations about the importance of social media for business and the need to keep it “subtle”. It seems that an overt call to action would absolutely disgust your fan base and drive them to your customers. I will tell you that I do not disagree that annoying, impersonal SPAM posts and updates will almost surely drive away customers, rather than bring them in. I also agree that social media is all about the conversation. The more meaningful conversation, the more successful the social media outlet. The more participation in these conversations, the more effective the channel. These are intuitively obvious for anyone who dabbles in social. Where I take issue is the suggestion that a discreetly placed phone number within a Facebook Place Page or Twitter Profile Page will somehow disenfranchise your customer base. If it is all about the conversation, why not provide an avenue for the customers who would prefer to take the conversation offline. How many people want to do this? I don’t know! Use a tracking line and I will tell you the exact number of people. You are spending a lot of money, time, and effort to drive people to your Facebook Page or follow you on Twitter and click on a link. What happens when one of these people do hear or read an add that say proudly “Come check us out at www.facebook.com/ABCPlumbing and become our friend” and does exactly that and likes what they see enough to give you a call to ask for a quote? Without a number, they (AND YOU!) are out of luck. Track your social media, every bit of it! Friends, Followers, Likes, Conversations, Retweets, and yes Phone Calls. It all matters.
SMS
Last, but certainly not least is SMS or text message advertising. This is becoming more and more popular and no where does call tracking make more sense. Simply place a tracking number in the body of your message to capture those customers who prefer to place a call. While online and text conversions are growing in importance, neither has proven to be as consistently valuable as a phone conversion. Despite all of the available alternatives, for many the phone is still the preferred conversion method. Make it easy for your customers to contact you in the way that they feel most comfortable.
What’s the Moral of the Story?
The moral here is twofold: Track everything! & Never make it hard for potential customers to give you there money! It is that removal of friction in the purchasing funnel that this mobile advertisement explosion we is all about! Why force a shopper to be at his desk to make a purchase? Why not let them do it from the waiting room at the doctor’s office or while getting an oil change? If you are not utilizing any mobile marketing strategies, you should probably consider getting on the train. People want to do everything from there phone, get directions, make bank deposits, check email, and yes shop. Let them. Make your business easy to find on a mobile device, and when you are lucky enough to capture those potential mobile customers on one of your mobile marketing channels, make it easy for them to buy something or contact your business to buy something. And track all of it! Your advertising dollars are too valuable to spend blindly. Give us a call today to start learning more about tracking your mobile marketing campaigns.
Tags: ad effectiveness, advertising, call tracking, mobile advertising, website tracking