Local Deals Appeal to the Google
August 26, 2011
Google seems to be interested in the mobile advertising business. First they purchased AdMob for $750 million and now they are combining local searches with mobile advertising. This strategy is discussed by Jason Spero, Google’s head of mobile for the Americas, in the Tech Crunch article “Google’s U.S. Mobile Head Talks Local Intent, M-Commerce, Geo-Targeting and More”.
Spero says the move to combine local and mobile advertising was simply driven by consumer behavior. They found that one in three mobile interactions had local intent. So they have been exploring several different local ad formats, they have been particularly focusing on click-to-call ads.
[T]hese ads perform well on phones because the natural path for a consumer is to want to engage the phone and get more info from a merchant or service. The key in these advertisements on mobile phones is a ‘call to action’ element, which can work for a retailer, florist, insurance company and many other smaller businesses. So far, he says that over 500,000 Google customers are running click-to-call campaigns on a mobile phone.
Google’s strategy seems to be right on target. I cannot count the times that I have used my phone of look up a local pizza joint or a retail store. This could lead to some major advertising dollars for Google, a significant profit increase for the advertiser and a happy customer with the quick and easy ad format. Seems like a win-win-win to me. What about exisiting local ad and deal vendors? Maybe a lose-lose?
Jennifer Wensink August 26, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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