9 tips for mobile marketing success

It’s no secret that the world we live in becomes more mobile-centric each day. Now, more than ever, marketers must stay ahead of the game when it comes to reaching their target audiences through their mobile devices. To help you get savvy, read on to find out what it is and how you can reap the benefits for your business with successful mobile marketing tactics.

Simply put, mobile marketing refers to ads that appear on mobile smartphones, tablets, or other mobile devices.

With over 3 billion people world-wide owning a smartphone, mobile traffic continues to increase year on year, with mobiles becoming even more accessible. Over 50% of searches are now on mobile devices and this continues to grow.

As of 2020, 84% of UK adults own a smartphone, and on average, spend 2.5 hours a day online. The top 20% of smartphone users spend over 4.5 hours a day on their phones. 

Now more than ever, it’s important that businesses implement effective mobile marketing strategies; providing potential customers with what they need, exactly when they need it, even if they're on the go. That’s why we've put together some of our top mobile marketing tips, to help you optimise your campaigns and drive growth for your business. 

Ensure your website is optimised for mobile viewing

First things first, before you launch your mobile campaigns, you’ll want to make sure your website is optimised for mobile viewing. This includes:

• Ensuring your site loads quickly: Increasing your page speed will improve user experience and reduce bounce rates.
• Avoiding too many redirects on your website: Remove unnecessary plugins, and ensure your web-host can handle traffic. Compress and optimize your images and cache your web pages.
• Checking your site’s mobile friendliness: You can use Google’s mobile friendly tool. 

Now that you’re ready to start planning your campaigns, here’s a few things to bear in mind: 

Run mobile-only campaigns

This sounds simple but running specific mobile-only campaigns means you’ll target users who are searching from their mobile, as opposed to laptop or computer, where browsing behaviour can vary dramatically. This means you can send them directly to your mobile landing pages and let them know it’s mobile friendly. This also gives you a rough idea of their environment, be it on the move or perhaps relaxing on the sofa, as opposed to sitting at a desk where laptop / computer users will typically be. 

It’s also good to bear in mind that people tend to use mobile and laptop devices at different times of the day, so you can amend your bid adjustments for mobile vs. desktop campaigns.

Identify a platform that best fits your brand

Be it Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, or Snapchat, first assess the platforms to see if your customer base is there, whether they’re engaging with brands, and if the platform fits the personality of your brand. From here, you can identify those most likely to want your product or service and to whom you should serve your ads - your target audience.

This process is important for both desktop and mobile marketing, though most users accessing these platforms will do so from their mobile phone.

Tailor your ads to mobile viewing

Your desktop marketing, be it Google Ads or Facebook Ads, will display differently on mobile devices. There’s no ‘one size fits all’ format for this, and you’ll need to ensure your ads are structured and optimised for mobile; tailoring the copy and appearance to your business and target audience requirements. 

Use vertical video and animation

94% of smartphone users hold their phones in a vertical position, but so many videos are designed for a horizontal or square format as we’re used to seeing them on laptops and TVs. 

Remember to keep these ads lightweight so they can easily load on the user’s device.

Use captions/subtitles on video ads

According to Facebook, 85% of their videos are viewed with the audio off and 76% of their video ads require audio to be understood. Adding captions or subtitles will make it easier to catch and keep your audience's attention.

When creating your video ad in Ads Manager, you can upload your own captions or have captions auto generated.

Optimise for voice search

Approximately 50% of searches are carried out by voice search, with navigational queries and call functions the most common queries.  

With this in mind, ensure to incorporate long tail keywords into your site content and when it comes to building out your search campaigns, consider keyphrases aligned to how people speak, rather than type.

Keep business details up to date, given that most voice searches are about business locations.

Use ad extensions 

Ad extensions can increase click-through rate as well as quality score and ad rank. Extensions take up more space on the search results page, so use relevant extensions – such as:

• Business Phone Number- Enable calling
• Business Location
• App download
• Product prices
• Seller Ratings

Extensions are particularly important with mobile as they help drive more immediate action when a user is searching and creates a more seamless search experience.

Offer an incentive

Finally, relevant for both mobile and desktop marketing, incentives motivate your current and potential customers to carry out desired actions. Anything in the range of a discount such as free shipping, a voucher code, x% off your first purchase or for signing up to a newsletter. People love getting something for free or at a discount and small incentives can go a long way!

So there you have it. We live in a mobile-first world. Having long soared past desktop in terms of consumer and company mobile use, it’s now essential for businesses to implement effective mobile marketing strategies to drive growth for their business.