PPC Hero Takes a Look at the Mobile PPC Ad Market

Catching Up With Mobile
The State of the Mobile PPC Market and Why You Should Be Involved

In the infographic above, we at Hanapin Marketing take a look at the mobile PPC landscape, not just in terms of cost-per-click but how those mobile clicks actually perform, right down to the individual platforms that advertisers most frequently use.

The big “a-ha moments” come into sharp relief pretty quickly when you collect all of this data together: Mobile clicks are outperforming the attention advertisers are actually giving them–but conversion rates remain lower than desktop. And savvy PPC managers can quickly make up that lost ground with ad targeting and platform specializations.

Our main takeaway? The old marketing adage “it’s all in the mix,” long used by the best ad agencies in the business, is now becoming more and more true of PPC as well. In response, the best PPC management agencies will also have to step up their game when it comes to ad mixes.

Below is a text transcript of the infographic data:

AS OF Q1 2013

How Advertisers Treat the Market:

Paid Search Ad Spend by Device

  • Computer: 86.1%
  • Tablet: 8.9%
  • Mobile Phone: 5.0%

Paid Search Cost Per Click by Device

  • Computer: $0.56
  • Tablet: $0.46
  • Mobile Phone: $0.30

How the Market Has Responded:

Share of Total Ad Spend vs Share of Resulting Clicks

Computer

  • Ad Spend: 86%
  • Clicks: 81%

Tablet

  • Ad Spend: 9%
  • Clicks: 10%

Mobile Phone

  • Ad Spend: 5%
  • Clicks: 9%

The Doubletake Moment

  • Clicks from mobile phones outperform their share of ad spend by nearly DOUBLE

Where Advertisers Should Focus

Click-Through-Rate by Mobile Device

  • Android: 1.1%
  • iPhone: 1.7%
  • IPod Touch: 2.2%

Reality Check

  • Mobile phone conversion rates still lag behind the average:
    • Average conversion rate: 2.3%*
    • Mobile phone conversion rate: 0.87%

*Measured across all PPC media and platforms.

But ad specializations make a huge difference:

  • Mobile ads on Facebook have conversions 3x higher than the same ads on a desktop

The Top 3 Takeaways

  1. The mobile market is growing with or without you. Swallow your pride and fear and get in the game!
  2. Best practices for mobile conversion are still forming. As you get acclimated with mobile, be cautious! The game is constantly changing.
  3. Specializing ads and conversion options by network is becoming even more important. Be sure to cover all of your bases. Optimizing for just one network probably won’t get you to where you want to be!

Sources:

Kenshoo Q1 2013 Research
MoPub Q1 2013
Opera Mediaworks Q1 2013 Report
BLiNQ Media