How To Create a Great Mobile Experience for PPC
Table of Contents
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Mobile customer needs are increasing every year, and it’s no secret that businesses must meet them. For some industries, “mobile-only” design is becoming the norm as “mobile-first” design has significantly improved customer experiences.
In the course of creating your PPC ads, a mobile-first approach is a great way to think through how these are going to be promoted. Remember that mobile-first PPC ads can be viewed on desktops as well. This means that optimizing for mobile-first can benefit your site in multiple ways.
Let’s discuss some numbers. Currently, adults spend more time on mobile devices than on computers, and mobile usage has exceeded desktop usage.
Still not convinced that mobile-first is a good idea? Here are some more motivating points to consider:
- Google prioritizes mobile-first indexing
- Shopping on mobile devices continues to grow
- By thinking mobile-first, you consider the entire customer journey and user experience
- As a result of mobile-first parameters, you may be forced to be more creative and develop interactive content that is cutting edge
The Best Way to Optimize Your Mobile-First PPC Ads
You need to optimize PPC ads for mobile by considering how mobile users will interact with them. It is crucial to consider everything from the visuals to the interactive elements to persuade users to click through. These elements should encourage the user to interact with your advertisement.
Creating mobile-first ads can be done in many ways, but ultimately it all comes down to how you go about it. There are several different paths that you can take when you look at your mobile user. As a starting point, here are a few ways to rethink your mobile-first PPC ads.
Include Interactive Content
Your mobile-first PPC campaign should be aimed at grabbing your viewers’ attention. You can use interactive content to redirect attention away from the webpage, game, app, or social media platform currently occupying them.
Include interactive content in the form of minigames, previews of full games or small games related to your products, or immersive, 360-degree video experiences. VR can also be incorporated into your advertisement. To leverage this type of engagement, you may need to build the interaction outside of the ad, pointing the mobile-first PPC ad at the interactive content.
Make your PPC campaigns mobile-first by including features that work with or without sound
Everywhere we go, we use our mobile devices, but some places are not sound-friendly. In a quiet environment or at work, you may not want sound blasting from an ad. Interrupting noise causes us to close out an advertisement without engaging with it.
By making sound optional (especially for videos or other engaging features of your ad), you may increase the chance that people will view and click through, rather than just leaving your ad. By default, you can mute the sound and let the user decide whether to turn it on or not.
Short and sweet is the way to go when it comes to the copy and video for your mobile-first PPC ads
The key to getting your message across in your mobile-first PPC ad is getting right to the point. Mobile-first is long-term good practice, and short Ad copy is best effective in the long run.
Be concise when you introduce yourself and your products or services by getting right to the point. Is there a problem that needs to be solved? What motivates your customers to come to you? How do you keep them coming back? Cut to the chase and get to the point right away.
Ensure that your call to action (CTA) is clear and compelling. Encourage your audience to want more, and then tell them where to find that information by directing them to your landing page or website.
A/B test your mobile-first PPC ads
A/B testing is important for any kind of advertisement, but mobile-first PPC ads can benefit from it especially. When you run side-by-side ads, you can monitor the stats over time and analyze the behavior of those who interact with them.
Make sure you check which pages are getting click-throughs from mobile users as you watch the data come in. Concentrate on developing PPC ads around the variables that gain mobile users to click and continue to tweak, build, and test them regularly.
Eventually, you’ll see which content, images, features, and more are attracting the kind of attention and engagement that you’re seeking in your mobile-first PPC ads.
To put it simply, emulating the ones people click on is the way to succeed. Make your future mobile-first PPC campaign decisions based on the numbers that work. Review your data before launching a mobile-oriented campaign, so that you can validate this strategy. Check out these important data points before launching your campaign:
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1. Analyze the differences between mobile, tablet, and desktop traffic
It might be worthwhile to create a separate campaign only for mobile traffic if it appears that mobile PPC traffic is underperforming or outperforming desktop or tablet traffic. Using this method, you can focus more on improving mobile PPC conversions through iteration.
2. Identify your highest-converting keywords
80% of conversions come from 20% of your PPC keywords, otherwise known as the Pareto principle.
If you want to maximize conversion opportunities for these valuable keywords, it is beneficial to split campaigns by device type.
3. Take into account the unique value mobile customers offer
If your business relies heavily on inbound phone calls for sales, then setting up mobile-specific campaigns, adding call extensions, and tracking calls is a great option.
Identifying performance gaps and optimizing campaigns by dividing by device type can be very helpful for e-commerce companies.
4. Focus your keyword strategy on action-oriented keywords
Over half of all mobile search traffic is looking to purchase within an hour.
With this information, you can target this high-intent segment more directly and capture a larger share of clicks.
5. Utilize relevant ad extensions to capture more space on result pages
The SERP (Search Engine Results Page) pixel space becomes increasingly relevant on mobile. Consider using extensions that increase visibility on mobile screens to make sure your ads take up as much space as possible.
Here are a few good ones:
- Price Extensions
- Sitelinks
- Promo Extensions
- Call Extensions
- Location Extensions (if relevant)
Note: Make sure you use App Extensions to boost installs if your company has an app.
6. Provide information quickly and simply on your landing page
As a result of high-quality mobile PPC traffic, our landing pages must be tailored to fit the needs of mobile users.
You should make sure your copy is clear and gets to the point because mobile users have limited screen space, and the most important information should be easily accessible. Pro-Tip: Improved landing page performance leads to higher Quality Scores and Ad Ranks.
7. Consider screen size
Mobile devices aren’t just getting smarter and faster, they’re also getting bigger.
On mobile devices, the size of the screen impacts how many organic results are displayed. Depending on where your business falls in the search, potential customers might not be able to find you unless they scroll down, click to view a different search result page or use a larger screen.
In other words, if you want to be found on all mobile devices, your mobile marketing strategy must put you at the top. This means that your PPC campaign and SEO must be effective.
Pro-Tip: Mobile websites can affect your ranking and are the top indexing factor for Google’s mobile-first system. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly if you want to be found by your customers.
8. Review your verbiage
Use “tap” or “swipe” instead of “click” for key calls to action in your ads or on your landing pages.
You should make your call to action as simple as possible.
9. Optimize your landing pages for speed and information accessibility
Keep your mobile landing pages lightweight with quick load speeds since mobile traffic rarely uses the most reliable connection speeds.
Now, as with all PPC campaigns, it’s time to optimize. The needs of every customer persona are slightly different. To ensure you have enough granular conversion data to review, make sure you split it by device type and keywords.
Using this data, you can increase the CTR of every single touchpoint – and unlock the value of mobile-only customers that keeps growing.
Think about mobile-first PPC as you prepare your next ad campaign, not only for your mobile viewers but also for best practices in general.
Putting mobile user experience first in everything from ad copy strategy and design to a landing page or other engagement will help to ensure the majority of viewers have a positive interaction and ultimately convert.
A successful PPC campaign can help you reach your target market, but it is crucial to be ready to reach them on mobile as well.
About the author
Alex Van Doren
The background of Alex Van Doren lies in successfully conceptualizing and implementing innovative marketing initiatives to drive market impact and expansion of products, programs, campaign launches, and development efforts. With her comprehensive experience, the focus is to implement strategic campaigns from launch through complete execution. As well as Alex’s knowledge in both digital and traditional media channels — she establishes the ability to enhance brand awareness and lead generation that prepares her to significantly impact her client’s company’s objectives while reaching levels of success.
