by Sladjana Ljubojevic
Mobile advertising has become a buzz word in the last few years, and is gaining increasing popularity amongst leading advertisers. A substantial rate of growth is forecasted as smartphone prices drop, networks become faster and data packages cheaper. Neo and Cisco decided to tap into this new technology with a mobile paid search campaign.
Mobile advertising campaigns generally have lower traffic volumes, especially when it comes to searches related to technology as it receives the majority of traffic from ring tones, wallpaper, news and entertainment queries. However after recent site updates, Cisco thought it an excellent opportunity to trial a new mobile search offering and raise awareness of their mobile site.
Google’s mobile search is executed in a very similar way to their search network offering: keywords compete in an auction and are bought on a CPC model with a choice of search or content networks. The character restrictions for text ads are considerably smaller with only 2 lines of 18 characters each, creating quite a challenge for brand messaging. As smartphone keyboards are generally small, mobile search queries are mostly 1 or 2 word generic phrases.
We used a selection of mostly 1 and 2 word mobile searches relating to Cisco’s brand and small business solutions: Mobility, Small Business, Network Technology, Routers and Technology.
The mobile search activity has been live for 8 weeks with traffic volumes steady but low as expected, however the CPC’s were at 29% of the search campaign making it a cost effective way to deliver traffic to Cisco’s site. The highest traffic areas were from Brand, Mobility and Network Technology keywords, which is a similar trend to the search campaign. 1 word searches delivered 70% or clicks with 2 words at 30% and 3 words less than 1% with overall CTR at the high end of the industry average at 0.5%
Cisco and Neo will continue to run mobile search activity while improving performance with regular keyword optimisations and the possibility of expanding into new networks and territories to move the account forward. Overall, it has been a cost efficient method of driving traffic and raising awareness of the Cisco mobile site. By embracing mobile search outside of its popular entertainment sector, Cisco is advancing their position as a technological leader.
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