Why Mobile Advertising Is Critical for B2B Marketers

Our browsing habits and search engine usage has undergone a significant shift over the past decade. Mobile device connectivity continues to take more and more of our time, focus, and energy. Portability and function have become more important for the average person than having a powerful desktop environment. The experts agree that the way people are searching, browsing, and accessing information has changed and will continue to do so over the next several years.

• According to Search Engine Land, digital media usage has grown 49% and mobile app usage has grown 90% between June 2013 and June 2015.
• eMarketer forecasts that during 2016 mobile ad spend will top 100 billion worldwide, which translates to 51% of all projected digital ad expenditures.
• Wordstream reveals that people in 2014 spent more time on apps than on desktop computers.

This is an extremely important point – next year more than half of all digital ad spend is projected to be generated through mobile device accessibility. The trend continues to just over 70% by 2019.  As B2B advertisers, it’s important to make sure we also continue to evolve in line with the changing marketplace and the behaviors of our target audience.

Our clients are evolving as well – Internet Retailer suggests that almost two-thirds of B2B companies offer some type of app or site designed specifically for mobile devices.

One of the biggest challenges B2B advertisers have is simply getting there ads served to the right user. B2B professionals in software, manufacturing, or executive roles are extremely sought after due to their value and influence over purchasing extremely high ticket or niche items. As B2B advertisers, we need to continue to update, test, and modify our paid search advertising methods to stay in touch with our audience.

How Can We Best Utilize Mobile Advertising in the B2B Space?

Here are three advertising considerations for B2B marketers as they consider adapting their PPC programs to target users on their mobile devices.

It’s Not Just Google AdWords

• Yahoo Gemini – Yahoo’s native mobile search platform is continuing to gain market share in the mobile space. It doesn’t currently have all of the features or support that Google’s platform does but it’s continuing to grow and is worth consideration as a platform to capture impressions and clicks to mobile devices.
• 44% of Facebook users only access the site by a mobile device – this accounts for more than 650 million users. And even though Facebook is not often considered a viable option in the B2B space, its worth noting at least as a signal for how user behavior is evolving.
• Facebook is also growing in importance for app development – over 30 million apps have been developed specifically for the platform.
• 57% of advertisers budgets for Facebook are being allocated for mobile usage.
• Half of LinkedIn’s visitors access the site via mobile device.
• Over 40,000 users apply for jobs daily on LinkedIn from an online device – proof that it is possible to get users to browse and execute complex conversion actions if the process is smooth and well designed.

Generate App Downloads and Engagement

• Google has expanded its mobile campaign offerings to include specific designations for apps in the Android or ITunes store. App Promotion Ads can be tailored around different engagement types of conversion actions centered on your app. You can monitor app downloads and installs, or share screenshots or YouTube videos of your app in action. With average user time spent on apps growing and more and more B2B companies creating apps – it will become extremely important to familiarize yourself with different methods to drive traffic and users to them.

Remember Mobile Best Practices

• The mobile keyword space is less likely to have a long of long tail searches or extremely long or technical keywords queried. Auto complete and broader search terms take up the lion’s share of mobile searches.
• Remember to aggressively mine your Search Query Reports to make sure only qualified terms are bringing in traffic.
• Misspellings and typographical errors are more common – so consider bidding specifically for common misspellings of your keywords or your brand.
• Remember that landing pages and conversion actions both need to be tailored specifically for a mobile audience – no long forms and no downloads. Click to call is generally the best and most common conversion action utilized.
• Consider adjusting your mobile bids by ad group or campaign.   Mobile bids can be adjusted to a range between -90% through +300% depending on your particular objectives and KPIs. Pair this with ad scheduling to maximize bids when your users are likely to be using their devices, and limit them when they are more likely to be in front of a desk.

As B2B advertisers we need to remain nimble enough to make sure we’re accessing our targeted users no matter where or how they search – and as the trend in mobile search and app usage continues to grow in popularity we need to make sure we find new ways to get our ads in front of the right people.