By Chuck Martin
Real-time mobile shopping just may drive more consumers to click on ads after searching.
It’s no surprise that more people are using mobile to search and more also are clicking on what they find on those searches, based on a recent study.
In the Mobile Search Advertising around the Globe report, Marin Software analyzed smartphone paid search data from large advertisers in 13 countries.
From the beginning to the end of last year, the share of paid searches from mobile devices increased from 22% to 34% of all paid search clicks, according to the study.
Marin projects mobile to account for 42% of all paid search clicks by the end of this year.
And the average click-through rate on smartphones was 4%, almost double that from computers.
There were varying smartphone click-through rates by region, with some of the higher rates coming from Russia, India an Australia and the lowest from New Zealand, Mexico and China
What strikes me as the reason for the difference in clicks from a search on a PC vs. a search on a smartphone.
Looking for information on a PC is often quite different from looking for information on mobile.
When consumers search on a computer, they have an idea what they’re looking for. A business manager could be researching a competitor’s products, for example. In those cases, the searches are premeditated, with the person having some idea of what they’re looking for.
On mobile it’s not so much about searching as it is about finding.
People on the go don’t need to know all the available options everywhere; they typically need to know what’s near them now.
Factors that can come into play for mobile searches include location, time, proximity to a store or product, movement direction, likely intent and context, which could include only stores that are open or those with a searched item in inventory.
The mobile ads that take all of that into consideration are likely to get more taps from mobile shoppers.
Chuck Martin is Editor of the mCommerce Daily at MediaPost and writes the daily MobileShopTalk column. He is the author of “Mobile Influence,” “The Third Screen,” and “The Smartphone Handbook.” He is CEO of Mobile Future Institute. Chuck Martin is a frequent Mobile Keynote Speaker and Mobile Marketing Speaker internationally. He also addresses Social Media in Mobile.
