Last week, we introduced expanded mobile reporting features in Google Analytics. To help developers, this launch includes features that make it easy to see how people are using specific parts of their iPhone and Android applications. The same Google Analytics reports that provide insights into website traffic and engagement are now available for mobile apps.
As with websites, there are two basic categories of user interaction you can track: pageviews and events. Since mobile apps don't contain HTML pages, developers simply determine when their apps should trigger pageview requests. Google Analytics then aggregates this data in the Content reports to display the number of visits, session length and bounce rates. The data gives insight into how your users interacted with the app. Developers can also track visitor actions that don't correspond directly to pageviews using Event Tracking. These user actions can include views of embedded videos, button clicks, downloads and more. App developers can then use this data to understand which features are most popular and inform decisions about which features should be promoted or prioritized for further development. Redfin, an online brokerage for buying and selling homes, recently tested Google Analytics on their mobile application. Watch this video to learn more about their experience:
To get started using Google Analytics to understand and optimize how people use your iPhone or Android mobile app, check out the SDK and technical documentation.
High-end mobile phones, like iPhone, Android-powered devices and the Palm Pre, continue to grow — Gartner estimates that global sales of smartphones will soar by 27% in 2009, to 177 million units. Naturally, as a result more and more people are browsing the web on the go.
Because these devices offer a browsing experience that is similar to desktop computers, advertising on smartphones is a natural extension for any AdWords campaign. However, it's not always been easy for advertisers to reach people on smartphones. That's why we're investing in new high-end mobile advertising products such as our search ad options for high-end phones and AdSense for mobile applications. We hope to make advertising on high-end mobile devices as intuitive, effective and user-friendly as our existing AdWords tools.
Today, we're excited to announce a new feature for our AdSense mobile publishers that enables them to serve text and image ads on their sites — specifically on these high-end smartphones. This helps mobile publishers earn revenue and fund more mobile-specific sites and web content.
New features like this help to nurture the smartphone ecosystem by encouraging the creation of more mobile content and by helping advertisers to grow their businesses by reaching new audiences. Our users' experience is also improved, with increasingly relevant and device-optimized mobile ads that load faster and fit better on small screens.
In December, we launched ads for iPhone and Android devices. This feature allows advertisers to target their standard AdWords text and image ads to the iPhone, Android devices, and other mobile devices with full (HTML) Internet browsers. Before that, advertisers who wanted to reach mobile users had to create mobile-specific text and image ads that would only show on phones with mobile Internet (WAP) browsers. Now that mobile ads can be targeted for both full HTML and WAP browsers, some of you advertisers may be wondering, "which mobile ads are right for me?"
Standard mobile ads show on mobile devices with WAP browsers and usually direct users to a mobile website -- most likely written in a mobile markup language such as XHTML, WML, or CHTML. Standard mobile ads also offer a click-to-call feature, which lets you direct users to a business phone number instead of a mobile website. If you have a mobile website or want to collect leads via phone, standard mobile ads may be right for you. You can learn how to create standard mobile ads here.
High-end mobile ads show on iPhone and Android devices and don’t require a mobile website. High-end mobile ads don't have a click-to-call option, but they do allow advertisers to direct users to various other properties such Google Maps, the iPhone App Store or Android Market, or YouTube. If you specifically want your ads to show on iPhone or Android devices, these ads might be right for you. They are also a good choice for new mobile advertisers because they are easy to enable through your campaign settings.
Of course, depending on your needs, you can also use both types of mobile ads. To summarize, here's a table with information on standard and high-end mobile ads.
Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager, mobile ads
Today, the Google mobile ads team is announcing a new campaign-level option that allows those of you who are AdWords advertisers to show your desktop text and image ads on the iPhone, the T-Mobile G1, and other mobile devices with full (HTML) Internet browsers. The ads can point to desktop landing pages so you don't need to create mobile landing pages or ads in mobile formats. The ads will have many of the same benefits as our standard mobile ads, such as the delivery of mobile-specific calls-to-action and reaching mobile users that are searching with their phones more than ever -- especially during the holiday season.
You may have seen ads running on the iPhone and G1 already. That's because Google Search on these devices used to show desktop results pages modified for these phones. Recently, the Google mobile team launched new results pages formatted specifically for the iPhone. Now, advertisers will be able to display ads exclusively on these mobile devices, create campaigns for them, and get separate performance reporting. If you prefer not to show your desktop ads on these phones, you can opt out and show ads only on desktop and laptop computers.
To target ads for G1 and iPhone, go to your campaign settings tab in your AdWords account. Then for the "Device Platform" option under "Networks and Bidding," select "iPhones and other mobile devices with full internet browsers." As additional devices that use full browsers enter the market, your ads will show on those phones, too. You can visit the AdWords Help Center for more detailed instructions and watch my video below for a quick demo. If you currently have an AdWords campaign running, by default your campaign will show ads on desktop and laptop computers, as well as iPhone and G1.
Note that if you're currently running our mobile ads, this new option for desktop ads does not affect your campaign. You can still create mobile ads that show up on other mobile devices like before. For a refresher on our mobile ad formats, check out my past posts on the Google mobile blog and past videos on the mobile blog YouTube channel.
Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads team
Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager, mobile ads
Back in April, we launched our mobile image ads based on the recommended guidelines of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA). At about the same time, the MMA published its new mobile advertising guidelines. The new guidelines set forth suggested sizes for image ads that were different from its previous guidelines, so our image ad sizes were not in line with the new recommendations.
We're delighted to announce that our mobile image ads are now MMA-compliant. Google mobile image ads now come in six sizes -- three sizes for each of two different aspect ratios: 6x1 and 4x1. We've also increased our file size allowances so you can do even more with your advertising creatives. Watch the video below to see a comparison of the old and new image ad sizes.
We think that working with industry standards like those proposed by the MMA will help us create the best experience for our advertisers and users. We will continue to work with the MMA to ensure consistency between our formats and future guidelines.
And don't worry, if you have an ad in an old format that's already uploaded to your account, it will continue to run. From here on out, though, we'll be accepting uploads only in the MMA-compliant formats. To take a look at our new offering, refer to our mobile image ads example page. You can also get a refresher on our mobile image ads policies.
Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads
The mobile ads team is happy to announce the launch of mobile image ads. These look like standard image ads for desktop web pages but they are smaller to fit on mobile screens and they run on the mobile content network. Take a look at the mobile image ads example page to see samples. Also, watch the video below to see my interview with Sanjay Agarwal, a mobile ads engineer, and his demo. Note that all mobile image ads are keyword-targeted, are priced on a cost-per-click basis, and must link to a mobile web page.
For advertisers, mobile image ads serve as a branding tool and have shown to have good clickthrough rates. Advertisers using mobile image ads will also benefit because we only show one image ad per mobile page. For publishers, mobile image ads provide added flexibility. They can now choose to show text ads, image ads, or a mix of both and Google will dynamically return the ad that we expect will perform best at the time the ad is shown. Publishers who are already using AdSense for mobile content just need to update their AdSense code to start displaying mobile ads on their site.
For those of you who are mobile web surfers, mobile image ads provide a new way to interact with mobile content. Contextual targeting keeps ads relevant, and with only one mobile image ad shown per page, you can uninhibitedly browse mobile websites while clicking only on the ads that interest you.
Mobile image ads are currently available in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, the UK, and the US. As always, leave questions and comments below or on our YouTube channel.
Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads
In my last post, some of you expressed concern that intrusive and oversized advertisements on a small screen could result in a poor mobile user experience. You asked how we strike the delicate balance between ensuring a good user experience while providing effective advertising. At Google, we care very deeply about this balance and we're constantly striving to make sure that you have the best experience possible. In this post, I'll tell you more about some of the things we're doing to try to achieve this.
At the core of striking this balance is working hard to improve ad quality. The more relevant the ads, the fewer ads there need to be. In fact, when you go to google.com on your phone and do a search, we now return no more than two text ads per query. These ads can appear above or below the organic search results and most take up just two lines of text on larger mobile screens. And while a single ad may appear at the top or bottom of a mobile content page, a double ad unit can only appear at the bottom of a page. Watch the video below to learn more about ad size and placement.
Of course, we also want to make sure our advertisers have a good experience with Google mobile ads. Fewer ads per page can be beneficial for an advertiser because there is less clutter on each page and each ad gets more visibility. More importantly, showing relevant ads and maintaining a good user experience results in better click-through rates and return on investment.
I hope this addresses some of your questions. Thanks so much for your comments on my last post and keep submitting more questions. This is your opportunity to guide the direction of this series!
Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads
You may have heard a lot of talk about mobile advertising, but it might still be hard to make sense of this rapidly growing and constantly changing market. To help us all understand this industry, its trends, and Google's part in the market, I wanted to start this column -- and hopefully a dialogue -- about mobile ads.
First, let's define what exactly mobile advertising is. In its simplest form, mobile advertising may be an SMS or an MMS sent to your phone. On phones with data plans, mobile advertising is more likely to be text or display ads on the mobile web's search and content pages. On more sophisticated devices, you may also see broadcast TV or video advertising.
The mobile ad market, however, faces a number of challenges. While industry leaders like Japan have the technology and scale for mobile ads to thrive, other markets face a chicken-and-egg phenomenon in the development of the mobile web. Some potential mobile website owners aren't sure how much they will be able to monetize a mobile website, or whether WAP will soon be replaced by HTML. And since the mobile web remains smaller than the regular web, mobile advertisers may not feel they have enough places to put their ads -- or enough viewers to see them.
The times are changing, though. The combined impact of mobile advertising promises to be huge -- and is projected to reach some $4B by the end of 2008. By 2011, this number is expected to increase to $11.3B. There are a few key reasons this market holds a lot of potential. For one, there are nearly more cell phones in the world than televisions, telephones, and personal computers combined. Secondly, smartphones that offer unlimited data plans and easy mobile web browsing are becoming increasingly popular. Smartphones already account for a majority of data traffic and are gaining in sales. Finally, mobile ads are still cheaper than their online counterparts right now.
Developers can also track visitor actions that don't correspond directly to pageviews using Event Tracking. These user actions can include views of embedded videos, button clicks, downloads and more. App developers can then use this data to understand which features are most popular and inform decisions about which features should be promoted or prioritized for further development.
Redfin, an online brokerage for buying and selling homes, recently tested Google Analytics on their mobile application. Watch this video to learn more about their experience:
