When it comes to Google and Facebook Ads, mobile device inventory is a given. You are opted-in automatically when setting up a campaign unless you decide against it. Even turning all mobile delivery off would prove challenging if you don’t know what to look for.

Avinash Kaushik said, 2009 was the year of mobile. It’s 9 years later and everyone is still figuring it out. Advertising on mobile can be more complicated, confusing, and harder to drive ROI than on desktop.

Why?

It’s stating the obvious to say that behavior on a mobile device is inherently different. People search, browse social media and shop differently on mobile.

You’ll often hear statistics like:

“33% of people who showed interest on mobile, convert on a desktop computer later”

“67% of consumers start shopping on one device and continue on another”

To optimize your efforts, you should consider 3 key things:

How you will manage your campaigns in the platforms specifically for mobile.
How the destination (website) experience will be on the mobile device.
How you will optimize your campaigns for mobile.

These are equally important and easy to mess up.

So how can you optimize your campaign strategy for a mobile, multi-device world?

Google Ads

Maximize keyword -> ad -> destination relevance:

Because Google Ads only appear when someone is actively looking for something, here is your opportunity to help them find what they need. The more helpful and relevant you can be to their search query, the more likely you are to succeed.

Make sure you are matching the keyword used to an ad written for that keyword, and a destination curated for that search. Don’t send them to a website’s homepage, and have a responsive landing page or website. This is a must. Sending someone who searches on mobile to a non-responsive or mobile-optimized website is guaranteed to turn them off.

People expect a great experience now and they will immediately bounce if they are met with an unoptimized mobile experience.

Use device bid adjustments:

Within each campaign, it’s possible to adjust your bid depending on the device used. Don’t assume you know how your strategy is going to play out on different devices. Launch your campaign with either no bid adjustments or minor ones.

Then after running the campaign for a while, use data to make adjustments based on your KPI’s. Most of the time that is going to be cost-per-conversion. This can be done at the campaign, or ad group level.

The formula for this is:

Making device level bid adjustments is incredibly tedious so we use Opteo to be more efficient. It alerts us anytime an optimization opportunity arises so we can make the improvement immediately.

Disable Mobile App Inventory:

For Display ad campaigns, this is enabled by default.

Turn it off!

Unless you are actually promoting an app, we recommend always turning mobile app inventory off.

The reality is that this is some of the worst traffic you can buy. The audience is distracted and ‘fat fingers’ notoriously lead to accidental clicks and 100% bounce rates.

Facebook Ads

Facebook mobile strategy is inherently different from Google. When someone is searching on Google they are already looking for something (intent). When someone is on Facebook or Instagram or any social network they are in recreation mode.

People are especially in a different mindset when they are using social platforms on their mobile device.

They might be:
- Commuting
- Watching TV
- Waiting in line at Philz coffee (unlike the pros who use the Philz mobile app and don’t have to wait in line)

Likely what they are doing has nothing to do with commerce or business.

Instagram is predominantly accessed via mobile device, with very few people signing onto Instagram on their desktop computers. Currently there are no ads on the Instagram desktop version.

Consider these when running Facebook Ads on mobile…

Opt-out of the Facebook Audience Network:

Have you heard of the Facebook Audience Network before? Chances are you haven’t. Yet it has been around since late 2014.

It is the equivalent of mobile app inventory on Google. The app owner has joined the Facebook Audience Network to monetize their app, and made it available for advertising.

We recommend opting out of Facebook Audience Network, due to the fact that it is mobile app inventory. Unless you are doing remarketing only. In that case, it may provide another place to reach your highly valuable remarketing audience.

Have a multi-touch marketing strategy:

Smartphone conversion rates are around half of desktop conversion rates.

Luckily, with how Facebook audiences work, it is easy to reach your audience on every device that they use. Since users log into one of their properties (Facebook or Instagram) where they control the ad inventory you are able to serve ads to that audience across all of their devices.

Shopping behavior on mobile often looks like this: user sees an ad on mobile -> clicks -> visits the site but does not purchase due to the fact that they are on a mobile device. They then return later on a desktop to purchase.

It is very important to continue to market to them via remarketing, email etc. as it can take several interactions before someone decides to make a purchase or convert.

Use video if doing branding and awareness:

Video ads are becoming increasingly popular on Facebook and Instagram. They give you an opportunity to tell your brands story without the viewer ever having to leave the platform.

You may, however, see higher cost-per-conversion and lower overall conversion volume with video ads. This is due to people not wanting to leave the social platform.

They still get your message, and you can even retarget people who have watched a certain percentage of your video. This is a great way to drive conversions.

Summing it up

Assume that mobile is going to make up a significant portion of your ad campaign delivery, and have tactics in place to maximize your return.

As always let us know what questions you have by emailing andrew@levelup-digital.com.