Mobile shopping isn’t slowing down anytime soon. With 82% of online users in the U.S. (as of December 2017) using mobile devices for online shopping, mobile looks like it is here to stay. So if you’ve been putting your mobile ecommerce strategy on the back burner, it may be time to rethink that.
Google shoppers expect solid mobile experiences. And if they stumble upon a listing that isn’t mobile friendly, you can expect them to move on to the next one. So how do you create that perfect mobile experience for your users? There are a variety of ways to go about optimizing your Google Ads campaigns for mobile.
Product Data
Clear Information
The content of your listing matters. On mobile, space is limited, so you want to make sure your listings are concise and to the point. Make sure you are highlighting the most important parts of the product-- both in the title and description fields.
Promotions
To boost your ads' chances of being clicked on smaller screens, you need to differentiate yourself. One way to do this is through merchant promotions. If you’re offering something like 10% off, shoppers will be more inclined to buy your offer over a competitors’.
Images
Screen size cannot be overstated. Small screen realty means your images will appear smaller. You’ll want to make sure your images are clear on all screen sizes. That’s why high quality images should be a top priority when thinking about mobile.
Mobile_Link
The mobile_link attribute lets you add a URL to your mobile-friendly landing pages. This is then shown to mobile device users on Google Shopping. It’s a way to ensure that landing pages are displayed correctly for mobile shoppers and provides an overall better shopping experience for those users.
Mobile-Friendly Website Experience
When shoppers are searching on mobile, they expect their experience to be just as good as if they were using a desktop. To do this, you’ll want to make sure your website has a responsive design. This creates an easy-to-use experience for the shopper.
When a shopper clicks on your ad, they are expecting to be taken to the landing page. If they experience a pop-up or have to fill out information to actually see the page, they may give up and leave. Another deterrent is slow load times when they switch between pages on your site.
The more user-friendly of an experience you create on mobile, the more likely shoppers will complete a purchase. Ease of use, quick speeds and clear information should be top priorities.
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Campaign and Bidding
Some products may do better than others on mobile. A high price item such as a couch may not perform as well as say a low involvement item like dishwasher soap. Use Google Ads to segment performance by device to see which products convert better on desktop vs mobile. Once you’ve identified top mobile performers, you can choose to create a separate ad group for them so you can more accurately modify the mobile bid.
For more information on how to choose the right mobile bid, check out Google’s article.
Google also suggests using Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC) on top of mobile bid adjustment modifiers. They say that this can improve mobile conversions by an average of 6% for the same cost.
If you want even more control over bidding, another option is to create two separate campaigns-- one for desktop and one for mobile.
Regardless of how you choose to set up your campaign, you want to stay on top of product performance. Check out how your ad is doing compared to benchmarks of other advertisers with products in the same auction.
You’ll also want to take advantage of some of the other reporting tools and KPIs such as click share and the cross device attribution report.
Local Inventory Ads
Mobile shoppers are likely on the go. Take advantage of their mobility by using local inventory ads to show them local product information. This gives you a way to bring shoppers directly into your brick-and-mortar store and give them an omnichannel shopping experience.
Learn more about Local Inventory here.
Closing Thoughts
Mobile has taken the ecommerce industry by storm. If your Product Listings aren’t prepared, you could be missing out on major sales opportunities. Keep in mind that online shopping is always evolving. Make sure to stay up to date with the latest trends to see where you can best optimize your campaign performance.
