Understanding smartphone use in stores: Shoppers who use mobile more, spend more in store

Smartphones are our constant shopping companions - helping us research, compare, and even purchase products online and in stores. We’ve already seen that smartphones are key to pre-purchase activities. With 84% of mobile shoppers now using their phones to help with shopping in physical stores, smartphones are now as commonplace in stores as shopping carts and cash registers. In “Mobile In-Store Research: How in-store shoppers are using mobile devices”, with the help of M.A.R.C. Research and the Google Shopper Council, we set out to understand mobile’s role in stores and how marketers can take advantage. We found that across the board, shoppers who use mobile more actually spend more in store, so marketers should face the mobile in-store challenge head on and own the digital shelf.

Smartphones are transforming the retail experience

Now that consumers have product details, price comparisons and reviews available instantly at their fingertips, shoppers complement what they’re seeing on store shelves with what they can find on the web. This behavior isn’t just limited to high consideration purchases like appliances and electronics. In every industry we looked at, including household items, apparel, and pet care, more than 70% of smartphone shoppers use their phones in store to help with shopping. In fact, two-thirds of baby product shoppers compare prices on their phones in-store.

So what are shoppers using their smartphones for in stores? The research showed that phones were primarily used for:

• Price comparison (53%)
• Finding offers and promotions (39%)
• Finding locations of other stores (36%)
• Finding hours (35%)

Shoppers who use mobile more, spend more in store

While many businesses might assume that smartphone use in store drives shoppers to seek better prices elsewhere and order online, we found that the opposite was true. We compared the in-store purchases of moderate and frequent smartphone users and found that basket sizes of frequent mobile shoppers were 25-50% higher. For instance, while the average appliance smartphone shoppers spends $250 per shopping trip, frequent smartphone shoppers spend $350. Marketers shouldn’t shy away from the showrooming challenge, and should instead, meet it head on.

Search is often the starting point for in-store mobile activity

While many marketers assume that smartphone shoppers use shopping apps or navigate directly to brand and retail websites while in a store, we found that 82% of smartphone shoppers use mobile search to help make purchase decisions. This represents a critical moment where businesses can win or lose customers - whether they’re navigating the aisle in your store or your competitor’s. Mobile shoppers are looking for information or savings in the key decision moments, so businesses should own the digital shelf by making sure they’re present when customers are searching and that relevant information is easy to find.

Understanding how mobile changes the retail game

For businesses, this new mobile behavior doesn’t just impact your marketing efforts, it also has clear implications for the entire business - from the products you stock on shelves to the way you train employees. For instance, 1 in 3 smartphone shoppers would rather find information using their smartphone than ask a store employee. In categories like electronics and appliances, this behavior occurs for close to 50% of smartphone shoppers.

However, understanding and embracing this new retail behavior can open up new opportunities for brands to connect with customers in key consideration moments. Some stores promote their expanded inventory online or implement a price match guarantee to retain savings-hungry shoppers. Others are putting smartphones to use with QR codes that share more information about products, or apps with store maps and real-time inventory. Whatever tactics marketers choose, it’s clear that smartphones are changing the in-store experience, and that winning the key decision moments at the physical shelves means owning the digital shelves too.

Check out the full research report to learn more or register now for a webinar on Thursday, May 16 where we’ll discuss the research and how businesses can take advantage of mobile use in stores.

Posted by Adam Grunewald, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Google Now on your iPhone and iPad, with the Google Search app

Many of us can no longer imagine life without our smartphones. We use them for all sorts of things, like getting reminders of important calendar appointments (say, a first date), and driving directions to the Italian restaurant where your table for two awaits. Today, with the launch of Google Now on iPhone and iPad, your smartphone will become even smarter.

Google Now is about giving you just the right information at just the right time. It can show you the day’s weather as you get dressed in the morning, or alert you that there’s heavy traffic between you and your butterfly-inducing date—so you’d better leave now! It can also share news updates on a story you’ve been following, remind you to leave for the airport so you can make your flight and much more. There’s no digging required: cards appear at the moment you need them most—and the more you use Google Now, the more you get out of it.

Google Now for iPhone and iPad is available as part of the updated Google Search app. Together, Google Now and voice search will make your day run a little smoother.

In addition to the handy cards in Google Now, the Google Search app still gives you instant answers to all your questions. Try tapping the microphone and speak to your phone—you’ll get quick answers spoken back to you. For example, ask Google, “Do I need an umbrella this weekend?” and you’ll get the forecast. Or ask “Who’s in the cast of ‘Oblivion’?” to decide if you want to see it. Voice Search is particularly handy on the go—try "Show me nearby pizza places" and you'll see a map of restaurants around you with directions, phone numbers, ratings and hours.



Get the Google Search app with Google Now from the App Store. Drag it to the tray, open it, sign in and you’re ready to go.

Posted by Andrea Huey, Engineer

Upgrade to enhanced campaigns more easily with the new AdWords upgrade center

Enhanced campaigns help you reach people with the right ads based on their context - including location, time of day and device - without having to set up and manage several separate campaigns. For most advertisers, upgrading is a simple 3-step process. Already, advertisers have upgraded more than 1.5 million campaigns and seen strong results.

New upgrade center

Today we're introducing the upgrade center to make upgrading easier for advertisers with lots of campaigns. With the upgrade center, you can upgrade several campaigns at a time and merge campaigns together with just a few clicks. As the upgrade center rolls out to all accounts over the next few weeks, you can access it from the left-hand nav bar on the Campaigns tab. Learn more.

Upgrade center entry point

There are two basic ways to use the upgrade center.

1. Bulk upgrade

This option provides a fast way to upgrade multiple campaigns that don’t need to be merged. Rather than upgrade campaigns one at a time, you can select several campaigns, choose a mobile bid adjustment, view traffic estimates, and upgrade with fewer clicks.

2. Merge and upgrade

If you have search-only or search+display campaigns that have similar keywords and location targets, the upgrade center automatically identifies them as candidates to merge. You’ll then be able to preview and adjust the proposed campaign settings, ad groups, and extensions for the merged campaign. By default, ad groups and budgets will be combined. Other campaign level settings and extensions in the Primary campaign will override those in the Secondary campaign.

Table view of merged campaign settings

After creating new enhanced campaigns, we recommend upgrading your extensions for more control, flexibility and relevance. You may also want to add back any important keywords, negatives, extensions, or location targets from your Secondary campaign which were left behind in the merge.

We recommend upgrading display-only campaigns rather than merging them together. The upgrade tool doesn't support the ability to merge image ads, audience targeting criteria, and other display-specific campaign elements.

There’s also an advanced mode in the upgrade center, which provides a view of all of the campaigns in your account, providing more flexibility and less guidance if you’ve already developed a strategy for how to merge and upgrade.

Reminders
Starting on July 22, 2013, we will begin upgrading all campaigns to enhanced campaigns.  As you’re upgrading to enhanced campaigns, please continue to share your feedback using our feedback form.

To learn more about strategies for upgrading to enhanced campaigns and the upgrade center, please join us today at 10:00 a.m. PDT at our Learn with Google webinar.

Posted by Neil Inala, Product Manager, AdWords

Enhanced campaigns improvements for Google+ and mobile apps

People are constantly connected and are moving between devices throughout the day to shop, connect and stay entertained. This creates great opportunities for advertisers to use context – like location, time of day, and device – to show the right ad and bid more efficiently.  In February, we launched enhanced campaigns to help you reach people with ads based on their context as well as their intent. Since then, advertisers have already upgraded over 1.5 million campaigns and have shared many success stories.

We’ve also continued to build new features on the enhanced campaigns foundation.  Today, we are introducing two additions.

Enhanced campaigns and social annotations

People are looking for relevant information, and sometimes the most helpful signals are recommendations from people who know a brand or business well.  Social annotations in AdWords show endorsements from people following your Google+ page on your search ads.  Many businesses such as Red Bull, National Geographic and H&M are using social annotations as part of their broader Google+ strategy.  On average, search ads with social annotations have a 5-10% higher click-through rate.

Starting today, enhanced campaigns will include social annotations when they can improve ad performance, without additional edits to campaign settings.  All you need is a Google+ page with a significant number of followers and a linked website that matches the URL in your search ads.  Learn more about how this works.

Social annotations on AdWords work hand-in-hand with your Google+ page to build community, conversation and engagement with your business on Google.  Learn more about getting your business started on Google+.

Enhanced campaigns for mobile app advertisers

Apps have become a significant part of people’s everyday mobile experiences. In fact, US consumers spend an average of 127 minutes per day using mobile apps¹.  Advertisers can now reach app users, with ads in apps, based on people’s context like location, time of day and device, with enhanced campaigns.  For example, if a certain mobile app has the most usage on Saturday evenings, you can increase your bid adjustments for mobile and this time of day to reach these users. You can also adjust bids across the key display signals like demographics, interests, topics and remarketing at the ad group level.  All of these powerful bidding tools will enable you to reach the right people with the right ads.

Upgrading strategies webinar tomorrow

After upgrading, you’ll be able to start using all of the new features in enhanced campaigns.  Join us tomorrow, Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 10am PDT,  for a Learn with Google webinar about upgrade strategies (sign up here).

Feedback

We really value your feedback to help us make AdWords even better. Please continue to share your thoughts using this form so we can continue to improve the product.

Posted by Christian Oestlien, Director of Product Management, Google Display Network

¹"Time Spent with Mobile Apps Rivals TV emarketer. December 11, 2012."

Ad group mobile bid adjustments available soon in enhanced campaigns

People are constantly connected and moving between devices to communicate, shop and stay entertained. Their context – like location, time of day, and device – is an increasingly important signal for advertisers. In February, we launched enhanced campaigns to help you reach people with ads based on their context as well as their intent, all from a single campaign. In just a few short months since launch, we are already hearing enhanced campaigns success stories from businesses of all sizes.

Ad group mobile bid adjustments
To provide more control and precision over bids in an enhanced campaign, advertisers will soon be able to set a mobile bid adjustment at the ad group level. This functionality will be available to all advertisers in mid-May. We think this may be useful if you’ve been operating large scale campaigns and found that your optimal bids for some keywords would require significantly different mobile bid adjustments within an enhanced campaign.

Example: A nationwide retail chain currently uses mobile-only campaigns to optimize bids for several hundred thousand keywords. They’ve found that 95% of their keywords in mobile-only campaigns have bids that are 10% lower than in the equivalent desktop campaigns. The remaining 5% of their keywords have very different bid ratios (ranging from 40% lower to 100% higher) based on differences in performance and competition on mobile and desktop. By using the new ad group bid adjustments for mobile, this retailer can better maintain their desired bids and ROI on different devices as they upgrade to enhanced campaigns.

The majority of advertisers will still see the most value in using the existing campaign level bid adjustments in enhanced campaigns, so we recommend that you upgrade now to access all the new features. Upgrading takes an easy 3 steps for most advertisers [video]:

1. Click the “Get started” button when you log into adwords.google.com
2. Select a mobile bid adjustment
3. Click “Complete upgrade”

Upcoming dates
We’ll share more details and tips here on the AdWords blog when ad group level mobile bid adjustments are generally available in mid-May. API access for this feature will be available in early May and announced on the developer blog.

We will begin automatically upgrading all AdWords campaigns to enhanced campaigns starting on July 22, 2013.

Feedback
Thank you for your feedback on enhanced campaigns. Please continue to share your thoughts with us using this form so we can continue to improve the product.

Posted by Bhanu Narasimhan, Group Product Manager

ValueTrack parameters for enhanced campaigns are live: manage your keyword level URLs by device

Recently, based largely on your feedback, we announced the launch of new ValueTrack features to help advertisers using keyword level URLs achieve specific conversion and ROI goals. These features are now live and ready for you to apply to your campaigns. To recap:

1. We’re changing the existing parameter {ifmobile:[value]}. Previously, the ifmobile parameter would insert [value] when a user clicked your ad on either a tablet or a mobile device. Now, it will only trigger from an ad click on a mobile device.
2. We’ve added a new parameter, {ifnotmobile:[value]}, where you can replace [value] with text that will then show up in your URL when the user clicks on your ad from a computer or tablet.

These features will help you achieve your conversion and ROI goals, and make the upgrade to enhanced campaigns easier by:

1. Directing users to a device-specific landing page at the keyword level.
2. Aligning performance reporting with device groupings used in enhanced campaigns.

For more information about our new ValueTrack features, please check out our Google AdWords Enhanced Campaign Upgrade Guide - The URL Supplement.

Posted by Karen Yao, Senior Product Manager, AdWords

The Full Value of Mobile: New calculator and resources to estimate mobile’s value for your business in the new, multi-screen world

We live in a world of constant connectivity, where mobility is bridging the digital and physical worlds. With smartphones in hand, people are taking a variety of online and offline actions, like calling a business, downloading an app, looking for directions to a store, or starting research that leads to a purchase on another device. We’re working hard to account for these new paths to purchase in AdWords, like the recent addition of calls as conversions to AdWords reporting. Still, with more work to be done to improve measurement tools, most marketers still account only for sales happening on a mobile site and aren’t seeing the full picture. Today we’re introducing the Full Value of Mobile initiative to help marketers begin this discussion and better understand mobile’s impact online and offline. 

This new consumer behavior is now the norm, with a recent study showing that nearly three of ten mobile searches result in visiting a store, calling a business, or making a purchase online. Some smart marketers are already investing in understanding how mobile drives sales through these new customer paths. For example, adidas, in partnership with their agency iProspect, felt that mobile was converting in ways beyond their mobile website, so they created a simple yet powerful attribution model to understand how mobile is driving customers into stores. As a result, adidas found that each click on their store locator button was worth $3.20, which has changed the way they view their digital investment. See their full case study here.  

While savvy marketers like adidas are already defining the full value of mobile, most marketers have struggled to get started. To help marketers better understand mobile attribution, we’re launching the Full Value of Mobile initiative, which includes:

• A calculator tool
• Videos that illustrate each mobile conversion path
• Case studies highlighting successful mobile strategies
• Tips for measurement

The Full Value of Mobile Calculator provides simple equations and benchmarks to help you estimate of the value that mobile drives for your business through calls, apps, in-store, mobile site and cross-device. In about 30 minutes, you can follow the step-by-step wizard to upload data from AdWords and your mobile website, and make some key assumptions to create your Full Value of Mobile estimate. Through the exercise, you’ll see the total value, value per click, and ROI that mobile is driving for your business across all mobile customer paths, not just your mobile website. You’ll also see how cost-effective your mobile CPAs are.

We hope the Full Value of Mobile Calculator helps marketers begin to investigate mobile’s impact online and offline, whether they use it as a directional estimate of mobile’s value or to spark ideas on how to build deeper and more customized models. To learn more about the Full Value of Mobile and how to use the calculator, please join us for a webinar on March 28 at 1pm EDT.  You can sign up here.

Mobility has forever changed the way consumers live and shop, giving rise to these new customer paths as the lines between digital and physical experiences blur. Understanding what each of these mobile pathways means for your business is a critical piece of the larger attribution challenge that every marketer needs to meet head-on. This requires thinking about the full customer journey and acknowledging the interplay between various devices, channels and media influences along the way. Only then can marketers give credit where it’s due – both between and within channels. In other words, rethinking conversion paths is not only key to unlocking the full value of mobile, but also to unlocking the full value of digital.

Posted by Johanna Werther, Head of Mobile Ads Marketing

SES New York: Google solutions for a constantly connected world

SES New York is coming up next week, and we hope you’ll join us in the Big Apple!

During day 1 of SES New York, we'll be on the expo floor with a custom-built Google classroom. Join us for a full day of learning about the latest solutions from AdWords, Mobile, Google Display Network, and DoubleClick Search to help you win in a constantly connected world.

Where: SES NY Expo Hall, 5th Floor Marriott Marquee
When: Day 1 - Tuesday, March 26th
Sessions:

• 10:30-11:30am Reaching customers whenever, wherever, across any device. Surojit Chatterjee, Lead Product Manager for enhanced campaigns
• 11:45-12:45pm Understanding the Full Value of Mobile. Brendon Kraham, Director, Global Mobile Solutions
• 2:00-3:00pm Engaging with your audience in a multi-screen world. Speaker TBD
• 3:30-4:30pm Using DoubleClick Search to manage campaigns across channels and devices. Anthony Chavez, Product Manager for DoubleClick Search

Don’t have a pass yet? Don’t worry! Expo Only passes are free and get you access to our Google classroom. You can also use the code NYGOOGLE which is redeemable for up to $700.00 off a full conference pass!

Posted By Derrick Djang, Product Marketing Manager, AdWords

Making search-friendly mobile websites — now in 11 more languages

Webmaster level: Intermediate

As more and more users worldwide with mobile devices access the Internet, it’s fantastic to see so many websites making their content accessible and useful for those devices. To help webmasters optimize their sites we launched our recommendations for smartphones, feature-phones, tablets, and Googlebot-friendly sites in June 2012.

We’re happy to announce that those recommendations are now also available in Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Spanish. US-based webmasters are welcome to read the UK-English version.

We welcome you to go through our recommendations, pick the configuration that you feel will work best with your website, and get ready to jump on the mobile bandwagon!

Thanks to the fantastic webmaster-outreach team in Dublin, Tokyo and Beijing for making this possible!

Posted (but not translated) by John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst, Zürich Switzerland

New ValueTrack parameters for enhanced campaigns: managing keyword level URLs by device

In a multi-screen world, it’s increasingly important for advertisers to show relevant ads based on a user’s context: location, time of day, and device. We launched enhanced campaigns to help advertisers take full advantage of user context, maximizing the effectiveness of their ad campaigns.

We’ve been listening to your feedback, and in the next few weeks we’ll be launching new ValueTrack features for advertisers using keyword level URLs.  These features will help advertisers achieve specific conversion and ROI goals, and make the upgrade to enhanced campaigns easier by:

1. Directing users to a device-specific landing page at the keyword level.
2. Enabling measurement of the effectiveness of campaigns by device.

What’s new

We’ve added a new parameter, {ifnotmobile:[value]}, where you can replace [value] with text that will then show up in your URL when the user clicks on your ad from a computer or tablet. We’re also changing the existing ValueTrack parameter {ifmobile:[value]}.  This parameter will now insert the specified value into the URL only if the user clicks from a mobile device.

In this post, we will discuss using the ifmobile and ifnotmobile parameters to direct users to a device-specific landing page.  We will also discuss performance tracking by device, and how the ifmobile and ifnotmobile parameters differ from the existing device parameter.

Example 1: Redirecting users to device-specific landing pages

Responsive web design is often a good fit for advertisers who provide device-optimized experiences to their users. If you must specify different landing pages depending on device, you have two options. If the landing page varies by creative, you can simply create mobile-optimized ads by setting the device preference to “Mobile.”  If the device-specific landing page varies for each keyword, then you can use the ifmobile and ifnotmobile parameters in the keyword-level destination URL.  It is important to remember that if you are using the ifmobile parameter today, it will no longer insert a value into the URL for tablet clicks.  The new parameter ifnotmobile will now insert a value into the URL for tablet and desktop/laptop.

Let’s say you want to send mobile users to "m.example.com/widgets," and desktop and tablet users to "www.example.com/widgets" for the keyword “widgets.”  In this scenario you could set the destination URL for this keyword to:

{ifmobile:m.example.com/widgets}{ifnotmobile:www.example.com/widgets}

Example 2: Tracking performance by device

If you want to track performance by device, the existing device parameter will work for most cases.  Using device inserts an “m”, “t”, or “c” into the destination URL, depending on whether the user clicked from a mobile device, tablet, or desktop/laptop computer. If your tracking system requires different internal ids for the same keyword on different devices, then you may need to use the ifmobile and ifnotmobile parameters.

For the keyword “widgets”, let’s say you have assigned an internal keyword id of “df32” for desktops and tablets and “df33” for mobile devices. You can set the keyword-level destination URL to:

www.example.com/widgets?kwid={ifnotmobile:df32}{ifmobile:df33}

Then, if the user clicks from a desktop or tablet, the landing page is:

  www.example.com/widgets?kwid=df32

and for a mobile click:

www.example.com/widgets?kwid=df33

Success in action

Advertisers are upgrading to enhanced campaigns and seeing strong results.  VivaStreet in France, the 4th largest free classified website in the world, upgraded all of their campaigns within the two weeks after launch.  When they upgraded, they increased their mobile bid adjustment to 125% and saw overall conversions increase by 34%.  After seeing the positive results, VivaStreet went on to increase their mobile bid adjustment to 140%.  By using ValueTrack parameters, you can also direct users to device-specific content and measure the effect it has on conversions.

We appreciate the feedback we have received on enhanced campaigns and encourage you to continue helping us understand how to make a great product.  Please join us on March 21st at 10:00AM PST (1:00PM EST) for the latest in our enhanced campaigns webinar series, EC 205, covering enhanced campaigns and the Google Display Network.

Posted by Karen Yao, Senior Product Manager, AdWords