Go Mobile! Series: Introducing click-to-call ads for mobile content and apps

Today at Google I/O, we announced that we’ll begin extending click-to-call advertising to mobile content and apps on the Google Content Network in the coming weeks. Click-to-call ads for mobile content and apps work with phone extensions and appear as animated  banner text ads with a call button on mobile devices with full Internet browsers. Now, whether your potential customers are reading the latest news, checking sports scores, or playing a downloaded game on their phones, you can reach them with relevant ads that let them easily click, call and connect with your business.

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Benefits:

As those of you who already use click-to-call search ads may know, providing a calling option can help you drive more qualified leads and conversions as callers are often more ready to make a purchase. Adding a phone number to your ads can also give your business more credibility, resulting in higher click-through rates and increases in both calls and visits to your website. What’s more, enabling click-to-call ads for mobile content and apps is easy, even if you’re new to mobile, click-to-call advertising, or the Google Content Network.

Getting started:

To get started with click-to-call for mobile apps and content, just follow these three quick steps:

1. Ensure that your campaigns are opted in to serve on the Content Network, either by selecting ‘All available sites’ or specifically checking ‘Content Network’ within your Campaign Settings.

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2. Set up phone extensions and add your business phone number.

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At this time, click-to-call ads for mobile content and apps only support phone extensions and not location extensions.

3. Ensure that you’ve chosen to show your ads on mobile devices with full Internet browsers.

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Improving your performance:

Once you’re all set up, we encourage you to track your results and experiment. Our robust reporting lets you see the number of calls you receive by campaign, ad group and keyword so that you can easily monitor and improve your campaigns. Keep in mind that you pay the same price for a call as for a click, so it’s a good idea to try creating new mobile campaigns for content to figure out what works best.

More innovative mobile ad formats on the way:
At Google I/O today, we also shared a preview of our new expandable ad units that display videos or images on content and apps on mobile devices with full Internet browsers. These new ad units offer you more real estate and let potential customers interact with the ad without being redirected from the content or app they were viewing. When people click to play a video, our ad unit plays on their device’s native video player or YouTube app. Once they close the video, they’re returned to exactly where they left off on their mobile site or app.  You may begin to see these new formats running on our network as part of our beta for US-based advertisers, and we’re excited to make them more widely available soon.

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We recognize that you have many options when planning your mobile advertising strategies and we’re excited to be a part of this rapidly evolving and competitive mobile ads ecosystem. We’ll continue to innovate with new mobile ad formats that we hope will help you better reach your audience in more relevant and engaging ways, driving the mobile ads space forward for everyone.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew