1. CASE STUDY | GOOGLE MOBILE ADS
Fortune 100 Retailer Discovers Mobile Traffic and
Harnesses Potential with Google Mobile Ads
An Online Store Is Born
AT A GLANCE
Despite having origins going back to before the Internet existed, this Fortune 100 retailer
knew they had to keep up with their clients who were going online. Pushing the envelope,
Goals they were one of the first retailers to launch an online presence. When they initially
• Increase site visits and launched their website and online store, they had no idea that it would soon generate
conversions on mobile
significant sales revenues.
• Positive return on mobile ads
investment
To help drive traffic to their website, the retailer used Google
AdWords to create text ads for search advertising. Since 2004, the
Approach company has been managing a number of campaigns on designer
• Google Analytics to discover brand name keywords as well as a number of generic apparel
mobile visitors to their website
keywords.
• Google Mobile Search Ads on
iPhones and other mobile
devices with full Internet “Demand driven by our AdWords campaigns has significantly
browsers to deliver ads to impacted our total site revenue, generating nearly 20% of total site
mobile users demand,” says the Search Engine Marketing Analyst for the
national retailer’s online division. “In addition, [AdWords] has allowed us to test and push
Results new products without disrupting our overall marketing cadence.”
• 17% increase in iPhone visits
• Average order value on mobile They also implemented Google Analytics with eCommerce tracking allowing them to track
was 50% more than the online sales in addition to website traffic. Since implementing Google Analytics, they've
average desktop order value been able to see that sponsored search visits have accounted for just as many visits as
• 6:1 return on their Google organic search results, and that around 40% of new visits can be attributed to their
Mobile Ads investment
AdWords campaigns.
The Mobile Discovery
One thing that the retailer didn't anticipate when they launched their online website was
that a significant amount of traffic was coming from mobile devices. With mobile traffic
increasing 182% over the same quarter in the previous year, this retailer realized that they
needed to harness the mobile opportunity.
“Mobile is becoming the nexus between our customers and our
brand. We could not ignore this revelation,” says their Search
Engine Analyst. “Anticipation has been building for years, but
only now does the data exist to support heavy investment. The
data suggests the shift towards mobile will continue to expand
so this can be a part of our long-term growth strategy.”
Diving into their Google Analytics account, Alex Barza, Google Account Executive,
discovered that three of the top ten sources of visitors were coming from high end mobile
phones such as the iPhone, Android, and Palm. Looking further into eCommerce tracking,
Alex also realized that not only was the retailer seeing a lot of mobile traffic, but that the
traffic was converting to online sales. Within nine months since implementation, Google
Analytics had tracked nearly $300k in online sales. “Unbeknownst to us, customers were
engaging with our website through their mobile devices and actually completing
transactions,” says their Search Engine Analyst, “that’s when we realized the mobile wave
had finally arrived.”
© Copyright 2010. Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.

2. CASE STUDY | GOOGLE MOBILE ADS
Targeting High End Devices
About Google AdWords
To take advantage of the mobile opportunity, this retailer created mobile search
Google AdWords™ is a campaigns targeted at high end devices like the iPhone and other mobile devices with full
performance-based Internet browsers. “The Google UI makes the set-up on these [mobile] platforms very easy.
advertising program that We decided that our best strategy is to duplicate our existing profitable search campaigns
enables businesses large and
over into specified mobile campaigns,” says their Search Engine Analyst.
small to advertise on Google
and its network of partner
websites. Hundreds of Having separate mobile campaigns enabled them to quickly extend successes to the
thousands of businesses mobile platform without impacting their desktop search campaigns. It also allowed them
worldwide use AdWords for greater flexibility to manage their campaigns in the face of budget fluctuations and
text, image, and video ads allowed them to test mobile-specific ad copy.
priced on a cost-per-click
(CPC) and cost-per
impression (CPM) basis. Built
Mobile ROI
on an auction-based system,
AdWords is a highly Within the first three months of investing in mobile search advertising, the retailer saw
quantifiable and cost effective almost a 6:1 return on their investment. “We have been overjoyed with the ROI of our
way to reach potential mobile campaigns,” says their Search Engine Analyst.
customers. For more
information, visit Over the same period, visits on the iPhone increased over 17% as a result of targeting high
http://adwords.google.com.
end mobile devices. Even more impressive was the average order value on mobile. The
average order value from their mobile campaigns was 50% more than the average order
value from their desktop campaigns.
Additionally, their mobile ads campaigns had other positive
impacts, such as driving more in-store traffic and sales. Not
only were people making purchases on their mobile phones,
they were using it to look up store information with 10% of
AdWords mobile traffic accessing the store locator page.
Future Mobile Strategy
This retailer was able to take advantage of the growing mobile opportunity and accelerate
growth and incremental sales through Google Mobile Search Ads.
“In the short term, we will continue to optimize our mobile search campaign. Mobile
content and display will be the next likely components added to our strategy,” concludes
their Search Engine Analyst, “we have obtained invaluable data by testing mobile search
[ads] in its infancy. This experience will help us make more educated strategic choices in
the future.”
© Copyright 2010. Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.