Search Marketing Sage

Notice the Google Ad Onscreen

I recently wrote about how Google’s new adsenseformobileapps.com was showing our clients Content Network Ads on mobile phone apps like Pandora, StyleM Galleries and CompSMS.  The shocking part about this was that Google is completely ignoring its “rules” for how Content Network is supposed to work – the content on the web page viewed matches the keywords you want to advertise on.

The mobile apps in Adsense for Mobile Apps for the most part have no content that matches any of the keywords in our clients Google Adwords Accounts.  When an AdWords ad appears on my Droid Phone’s Pandora Music App, it’s not matching keywords to song lyrics or song titles.  Google is was showing the Ads of my highest bidded Ad Groups (I excluded adsenseformobileapps.com from showing our ads).  Those Ad Groups had high bids, because the keywords within them were great at converting.  But those keywords were of no consideration when it showed those ads on mobile apps and because they had no relevance they did NOT convert well.

I obviously think that Google is doing a serious disservice to its advertisers, by just “blending in” clicks from mobile apps as just being the same kind of contextually triggered clicks advertisers get from it’s Content Network.  Advertising on Apps that have no keyword content that triggers ads or that don’t have a way for the app user to query or search for something within the app are not Search Advertising.  Ads of this nature are purely Display Ads.

I’ve come to accept that for some advertisers, Google Content Network can be an effective way to achieve an advertiser’s goals.  Google Content Network ads are contextually triggered when keywords on a Google AdSense Publisher’s website match the keywords in your Search Advertising accounts.  At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work…

I recently wrote about, how Google was showing Content Network Ads in Gmail, based on the content of possibly up to 100 different e-mails, the Content of the e-mail you are actually reading won’t always necessarily trigger any ads.  Sort of like contextual triggering of your ads divided by 100.  Not nearly as effective for advertisers as having your ad match the content that’s on the same page.

Now, in the course of monitoring our clients advertising and experimenting with Content Network on Google Mobile, I’ve discovered another instance of Google looking the other way and showing Content Network ads somewhere where the keywords I want triggering my ads are NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!

A few years ago I was on a Panel Discussion at the Online Marketing Summit and a question was asked of the panel “What is the future on online advertising ten years from now?”  It honestly had marketing managers from IBM and Home Depot a little stumped.  But I had an answer.  The future on online advertising isn’t on your computer.  It’s on your refrigerator, it’s in your car, it’s in the everyday devices that we use have could potentially have a hard drive and a wireless Internet connection.

I’ve been envisioning the car of the future for years, and not in a horsepower or miles per gallon sense.  I envision hard drive space, processing power and wireless Internet connectivity as the automotive options of the future.  The key to all of this becoming a reality is finding a safe way to integrate computer interaction with driving.  The windshield is the only safe place to make this happen, and now it is becoming a reality.  General Motors recently released details on an Augmented Reality Windshield.

Picking up where Avelyn Austin left off in 10 Tips for Google Mobile Advertising – Part 1, here are the final 5 tips:

6. Segmenting and Reviewing Mobile Campaign Performance Metrics

If you live a lot of your life online, you probably noticed all of the conversation surrounding updates in the mobile search industry recently. I have taken the liberty to sum some of them up for you.

New mobile ad targeting options. Some of you may already be advertising via mobile search…If you are one of those early adopters, you will be happy to know that you may now target by specific mobile devices, or by mobile carriers. This will be beneficial for advertisers with a message tailored to a particular mobile phone type or carrier.

Clickable phone number in adWords Mobile Ads. A big trend with mobile search, is the fact that many users are trying to find a quick address or phone number. A new feature was recently made available that makes the phone numbers in mobile ads clickable. Searchers can find the phone number they are seeking quickly and easily, and can click to call directly from the ad. Another feature is that the phone numbers and ads are location based, so you’d be calling the nearest location.