Google 4 Wheel Drive Diversified

I was reading an article earlier today that talked about how you no longer needed to put a "Click Here" button in a display ad. "People know that you can click on an ad and it will take you to there advertiser's web site."  And it got me to thinking...

When I worked for the Local Fox Toledo station, I had a client who ran the most interesting TV campaign that I was ever involved with.  He bought short TV commercials - 5 seconds as I remember.  The message was easy to remember.  "Google 4 Wheel Drive Diversified".  

He knew he did not have a large budget and could not afford 30 second TV spots.  He could not pick and choose when his spots ran.  So he gave me a budget and said every time you can run one of my spots, do it.  Some months he had 100 spots.  Some he had 17.  And his web address was difficult to get out in 5 seconds and it certainly wasn't easy to remember - www.divtrk.com.

But he knew that Google would remember the address for him.

And the campaign drove a lot of traffic to his web site.

So I am going to try to use this approach in a digital format. For a client (to be named later) I am going to run a targeted display campaign that says "Need help with...  Google insert a client's name here".  To drive traffic to the client's web site.  

Bet it works.  I'll report back.

"Cruise it, use it or abuse it."

“It doesn’t do any good to sit up and take notice if all you do is keep on sitting.”

As we all know, the mobile revolution has arrived.  For the previous three months in a row, the mobile traffic to KSAT properties exceeds the traffic generated on the “mother ship” – the desktop version of KSAT.com.  Life has changed and we embrace it.  “It doesn’t do any good to sit up and take notice if all you do is keep on sitting.”

It is no longer a case of whether or not your web site should support mobile devices.  Mobile support is what the consumer expects. 

The most compelling reason to focus on mobile is that consumers are moving their digital engagement away from desktops and onto mobile devices – Smartphones and Tablets.  Fourth Quarter 2011 was a watershed moment – it was the first quarter that mobile devices outsold desktop/laptops.  “Total worldwide PC sales fell 14 percent to 76.3 million units in the first quarter, IDC said on Wednesday, exceeding its forecast of a 7.7 percent drop. It was the fourth consecutive quarter of year-on-year declines…”   

33%Of Paid-Search Clicks Coming From Mobile Devices

·       “U.S. advertisers have already spent nearly 50% more on paid-search ads in 2013 compared with the previous year, with click-through rates rising 14.1%.”

·       Consumer behavior drove brand marketers and retailers to make search marketing investments early in the season -- in particular, the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. By getting a jump on the holidays, brands managed to connect with those consumers starting their shopping earlier, due to the reduced number of post-Cyber Monday shopping days this year. So far among Kenshoo clients, the 2013 shopping season generated record-high online revenue for U. S. paid-search retailers with a 30 7% YoY increase compared with 2012. 

Reaching the Mobile Holiday Shopper

Consumers are so increasingly connected that some argue we never actually go shopping -- we are always shopping. Consider the following:

• 44% of all email opens currently occur on mobile devices
• More than 1 billion smartphones were in consumers' pockets at the beginning of 2013
• 4 out of 5 minutes on a smartphone are spent engaging with an app
• 1 in 3 minutes spent online is now spent on devices other than PCs. Marketers must have both, a mobile app and a mobile Web site, or they run the risk of alienating their customer base
• Smartphone ownership tipped the scales to comprise 58% of all mobile phones in the U.S. in 2012 and is expected to reach 83% of all mobile ownership by 2017
• 62% of marketers will increase their budgets for mobile in 2013

Here is a link to download the eMarketer 2014 Snapshot of Digital Media Usage.  Some of the highlights:

·       Growth in Facebook usage has slowed to a crawl, with a 3% increase expected for 2014.

·       Mobile is hot.  Double digit growth against all social media sites.

·       98.2% if smartphone users are mobile internet users.

·       Video consumption continues to grow on mobile devices.

·       51.8% of tablet users will buy online this year.

Peter Townshend of The Who said it best in Going Mobile.

“I'm goin' home
And when I wanna go home
I'm goin' mobile”

He was only 42 years ahead of his time…