Mobile campaigns are 5 times more effective than those on desktop.

9 out of 10 mobile searches lead to action and over 50% to purchase.

This is exactly why marketing investments are being shifted more and more to this channel: in 2015, 35 billion dollars were spent on mobile campaigns, more than twice the amount spent in 2013.

However, mobile is still a largely uncharted territory: people spend 10% of their media time on smartphones, but only 0.9% of ad spends are on mobile.

Why are brands afraid to invest in mobile campaigns?

Here are the main reasons why some companies are afraid to invest more on mobile (and why they are wrong):

First: Ad blocking –

5% of the digital population uses ad blocking tools. Many marketers fear this trend will grow and lead to lesser ad visibility. However, it is an overrated phenomenon predominantly affecting only those who do not place their ads properly: if your mobile campaign is aimed at a specific target, people will be happy to receive your message. If they block you, it’s not a big deal: you can spare your budget for those who are really interested.

• Read: How to stop Adblockers from hurting your blog income

Second: Lack of information –

Google and Facebook are two fundamental spaces for mobile campaigns. Both platforms offer the possibility to create an ad with many styles, define your target audience, and the option to make your ad visible mainly or exclusively on mobile devices. The problem is their lack of transparency on the results: cost, placement, and to whom your ads are shown. But there’s a good news: investors will have a better idea in the future, thanks to the diffusion of new options for programmatic buying. This allows you to collect more accurate data and use them to learn more about your target.

Third: Tracking difficulties –

Online advertising, unlike the traditional one, allows you to have much more data with which you can measure the result of your campaign. With ad blockers abound, finding out how many people saw your ad has become more complicated. Furthermore, there’s a lot of data to be monitored and it is not always easy to determine which are the most important statistics to keep an eye on. Luckily, there are tools like ComScore or Socdir, able to aggregate and process data, and provide a clearer picture of the results and insights useful to determine the future objectives of the campaigns.

4 ideas to create efficient mobile campaigns right away

To make the most of the mobile ad investments, we offer you 4 aces in the hole that will help you improve conversions and results.

#1 Think Mobile: follow new paths

Mobile devices are designed for personal and immediate use, unlike desktop computers. Mobile campaigns must therefore take into account user location, they must be synchronized with their actions, and ads should be seen before or during the purchasing process.

With this in mind, Google has developed a solution allowing to better track user behavior. At the end of 2015, it started showing companies the most searched keywords related to their brand, and also reported store-visit figures by month, week, day and hour. Having these kinds of information can allow you to implement interesting multi-channel strategies.

For example, if a brand of cosmetics knows that “facial cream” is trending on Google search during the weekend, an ad dedicated to this product can be programmed in these two days. Then this product can be featured in the stores, combined with an exclusive weekend discount.

#2 Increase conversions with remarketing

Only 2-4% of visits to a website result in a transaction. However, online purchase paths are not linear: they allow users to search and make comparisons with other pages before turning into action. This is true especially on mobile. Remarketing can help you here: you can follow the user in their explorations and make an ad appear to remind website visitors of your brand. You can also create different lists of users and show the campaign only to a specific target.

Tirendo, a tire manufacturer, has experimented with remarketing by creating a mobile campaign dedicated to those who had visited the site and another one for those who were looking for a specific type of tire. The result was good for the first campaign, but extraordinary for the second one, achieving an increase of 22% in sales and 163% in conversions. Both Google and Facebook allow advertisers to insert ads with remarketing purposes. If you haven’t tried this yet, do it now.

#3 Use the power of immediacy: call now!

88% of searches carried out on the mobile have local intent. 61% of people who looked for this kind of information have made a call, thus transforming their search into direct action. To make this step more immediate, it is essential to insert a “call now” button on ads meant for mobile devices.

You can do this for ads on Google, Facebook and Twitter: in all three cases a simple procedure allows to integrate this function and make your mobile campaigns more effective. The result is an optimization of the campaign costs and an increase in conversions.

For example, IHG, an international hotel group, obtained with a Google click-to-call campaign an increase of 20% in mobile site traffic and a growth of 91% in mobile search activity.

#4 Add value to your content

Many people find ads annoying and intrusive. The main reason is that mobile campaigns contain irrelevant messages, while people on mobile expect to receive personalized information related to their interests, since tablets and smartphones are personal devices.

This explains the success of ad blocking tools. Mass messages do not work on mobile, but if the ad is shown to the right person, in the right place and at the right time, mobile conversions will grow. In order to do so, you have to segment the audience and create specific ads, leading users to click on them because they are strongly involved.

Nice Tees, a clothing company, has taken the idea of segmentation very seriously: in their Facebook campaign, they showed to each user a picture of a personalized sweatshirt with their surname. This message certainly doesn’t go unnoticed.

The content of the campaign itself is not enough: the clicks generated must lead to a site that should have a relevant content as well. It must be compelling, immediate and optimized for all devices.

Read:

• Adding value to your blog: Layers of content

How to build an effective mobile site?

There are online systems that allow you to create web pages and apps in just a couple of minutes, which any marketer can use to create an optimized site and personally update the contents depending on the strategy they have in mind. I’m little biased here but you can always my service Mob.is.it to create mobile optimized sites.

Which strategies are you adopting for your next mobile campaigns?

Marketers are more and more aware of the importance of mobile and also of the fact that investing in this instrument is no longer an option but a necessity. Perhaps within a few years, given the results of the competitors, even those who are hesitant now will decide to allocate more of their budget to mobile. To avoid wasting resources, don’t simply buy an ad space. You must also think about what you want to convey: in addition to a well-planned ad, say something that interests users.

Ads shouldn’t be disruptive, but instead be perceived as an advice or a very interesting message, as showed by the growing success of native advertising. Think about your ideal consumers: how could you be useful to them?

This post is submitted by guest author Silvio. You can also contribute. Read our submission guidelines.