Has Mobile Search Finally Arrived? - Benefits by the Numbers
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So why should you try to reach this market? Well, one obvious reason is that you don't want to be left behind. But there are others, most of them related to the very nature of the mobile search market segment.
First of all, you'll be reaching a wide audience of people who want something right now. If you're a local business, and near the mobile user performing a search, you're practically right on the spot with what they want. There are ways to target customers by geography and type of handset.
Second, if you choose to use pay-per-call advertising, you're in a very good position. You'll be speaking directly with a potential customer right when they're making a decision. Pay-per-call advertising is still trying to find its niche, but one would think it might be worth trying to reach consumers who are surfing on a device that also makes phone calls!
Third, you'll get a very good picture of your customers as to when they're most interested in what you have to offer. Using these and other metrics, you'll be able to adjust your ads to maximize your return on investment (ROI).
So let's take a closer look at what these mobile web surfers are looking for. JumpTap, a provider of mobile search technology, published some interesting figures in May that covered mobile searches performed in April. Based on those figures, if you market anything dealing with music artists, you owe it to yourself to think about mobile search advertising. Of the top 100 mobile search terms used in the U.S., nearly 60 percent of them concerned individual music artists. Adult searches made up another 12 percent, perhaps reflecting the personal nature of mobile devices. Games, sports, television, and miscellaneous made up the remaining searches in roughly equal proportions.
While these don't include a number of the categories I mentioned earlier, music and games are fairly prominent. That doesn't mean the other categories (restaurants, weather, movies, and so on) aren't of major interest; "miscellaneous" made up seven percent of the top 100 mobile searches. Remember also the "long tail" of search. JumpTap stated that the click-through rate on mobile searches is 36 percent. If you're well-positioned, you can take advantage of that kind of traffic.
Next: Mobile Search is Serious >>
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