You don't have the development bandwidth at the moment to focus on building a mobile optimized site. There are scores of new SAS model companies waiting in the wings to help you for prices ranging from $500-$10,000 a month. You're more than aware of what needs to be done to take advantage of this new medium.
Knowing that a project like this could take between 3-6 months based upon your corporate decision making tree, meetings, committees, and finally implementation frustrates you. You decide to look for opportunities NOW. The mobile site will come in the future but until its up, are you leaving money on the table?
Forgive my sports analogy but, "Don't Sit The Bench" while the market competitors enjoy scores of valuable visitors.
A quick cruise through one's Google Analytics under Visitors> Mobile> Mobile Devices delievers all the data to move forward. This view will yield the analytics data around the mobile devices visiting your site, and how they are interacting with it. Typically most profiles will show Android, Iphone, Ipad, & Ipod making up the bulk of the devices visiting your site.
Here is where the analysis, strategy, & execution comes into play:
Review your mobile visitors for anomalies. Evaluate these four devices, how does their behavior compare to a normal desktop visitor? Are the stats similar, better, or worse? Do all four devices show similar statistics? Apply the Ecommerce option in Analytics to these devices to determine how they stack up against a traditional visitors revenue potential? Does the conversion rate and average order fall in line with your goals for a traditional visitor?
In our hypothetical situation lets assume that Ipad & Android users seem to have an acceptable experience/conversion rate on your website. These mobile visitors site usage mimics average desktop visitors, the mobile devices purchase at the same rate. Time to drive more of that converting traffic and quit leaving cash on the table!
Google Adwords lets you choose the devices you want to target. In our example we know that with our current metrics around Ipad & Android we want as much traffic from those devices as possible. Thankfully we can take a phased approach at marketing to mobile. Select your best campaigns in Adwords and create new mobile campaigns focused around those keyword themes, keeping in mind the nature of shorter search queries on mobile devices.
You could take the lazy approach and just turn these devices loose on your existing campaigns, but suffice it to say, it is not recommended. Once you have your new mobile campaigns created specify the devices you want to target. Time to sit back and collect data.
Adwords allows you to collect data quickly especially when you are testing your best performing campaigns through the new medium. Monitor them closely for conversion rate & user behavior tendencies. This new source of traffic should be meeting or exceeding the original mobile device visitor data used to drive this project. Keeping a watchful eye will mitigate surprises and cost overages.
Marketers have a very real opportunity to affect a meaningful change on their day to day revenue by leveraging the data at their finger tips. The new Mobile site project will come soon enough and increase the rewards of the effort you have just undertaken. There is no debate that mobile is a very REAL part of today's marketing landscape and that it will only continue to become a larger component of the space search marketers operate in.
A Mobile Contingency Plan:
Lets say as a search marketer you have reviewed your data and it shows mobile visitors are incapable of using your existing website. You might feel that you are at the mercy of your mobile deficiency. Fear Not Good Citizen!
Google allows you to run mobile campaigns that display only a contact phone number for your mobile search ads, called Click to Call set to Call-only. Perspective customers will see your ad among their search results with a Click to Call option applied allowing them to ring your phone room where a sales person can complete the consultation or sale. With the stellar close rates through phone rooms in some industries it makes this option a veritable "no brainer".
Check out this link from Google explaining the option further: http://www.google.com/ads/mobile/advertisers/adformats/ctc.html
Remember: This strategy is a patch, a band-aid, and essentially still leaving opportunity on the table. Failing to complete your mobile site and embracing mobile best practices means you're not only falling behind the pack but leaving the bulk of the opportunity mobile presents on the table.
This strategy however will allow you to gain incremental income over your current mobile position. Finding and capitalizing on opportunity is the mark of a good search marketer, why should mobile be treated any differently? Find the mobile opportunities that you as a search marketer can execute without development assistance & with a small amount of sweat equity. Reap the rewards & continue to drive your organization toward Mobile best practices.
Tyler Young
Search Marketing Manager
StreetSideAuto.com
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