How Does Mobile Search Impact Day to Day Marketing? Part 1

Smaller Screens Require Specialized Answers

While desktop search is dominated by one company, Google, mobile search is currently a “Wild West” with plenty of undiscovered territory and a different set of user behaviors to be decoded.  For advertisers and publishers in this new mobile frontier, the question of traffic retention requires a different answer.  The search of the future - both in engines and ads - needs to be more anticipatory, better integrated; and must deliver compelling, useful on-demand results for the user to remain on your page or app.

 

The current state of play

The Web search game has been decided, and the decision for most users is one of convenience. At the beginning of the year, according to Search Engine Watch, Google accounted for 66.2 percent (up from 65.9 percent in December 2011) of all searches, with Bing and Yahoo well behind.

 

For Google, the war was won with distribution. As a recent study by comScore shows, browsers and default engines narrowed the search gap.  By winning the race to be the default browser engine, Google stormed the search market before any competitors really had a chance to get going. But user patterns are currently undergoing a massive sea change.  At the moment 50 percent of Americans own at least one mobile device that can access the Web.  Over the next decade, 4 to 6 billion people will use a tablet, smartphone, or other mobile device as their primary access point to the Internet.

 

Applying the lessons of the Web to the Phone

Aside from the long-term explosion of number of devices owned, search volume will be rapidly migrating to mobile over the next five years. According to a recent BIA/Kelsey report, 30 percent of all searches could nclude a location-based comment, thus making the GPS-enabled smartphone the clear “weapon of choice”for most users moving forward.

 

The first phase of the online advertising world was viewed through the lens of the desktop. Since then, access to the Web has been continually evolving as new devices emerge and change the way we access and interact with the Web. In the very near future smartphones will have 3 to 4 times the number of desktop users worldwide. The number of users who access the Web will multiply by the same fold.

 

Where two paths diverge

Of course, as the audience splits, the user expectations for Web and Mobile are vastly different.  Mobile, in its infancy, has traditionally reflected a complimentary experience to the desktop, but this is quickly transforming to meet the shift in on demand, on-the-go user behavior.    The sit back and browse experience won’t cut it for users on the move; adaption of the Web on mobile will become highly infused with location-based filters coupled with highly interactive and adaptive features, from “swipe and scroll” interfaces, to the next evolution of voice-acted responses.

 

Developing ads for the new search reality

Like any emerging medium, there are flaws that can arise. Think about the evolution of TV ads. There is a noticeable difference from the ads of the 1950’s to what we see today. The history of advertising on traditional platforms tells us there are good and bad campaigns. For  earlier age. But the reality is,  like many things, the advertisements get more robust over time.

 

How Does Mobile Search Impact Day to Day Marketing? Part 2

USA Network | White Collar | HTML5 Gamified Banner Ad on the iPad from Glow Interactive on Vimeo.