
Google announced Monday its plans to acquire mobile display advertising company AdMob for a cool $750 million in company stock. The search giant asserts that “great mobile advertising products can encourage even more growth in the mobile ecosystem” and that together Google and AdMob will work on the future of mobile advertising.
The future looks bright. Mobile phones have rapidly become a main communication channel thanks to enhancements to mobile Internet browsers and the staggering app market boom. Another sign demonstrative of mobile’s emergence is the growth of AdMob itself – in just three years the company has surged to the top of the mobile ad market, serving more than 10 billion monthly impressions across 15,000 sites worldwide.
Here’s what Google says the acquisition will do for the mobile market’s three prime stakeholders:
This deal will help propel the mobile industry by encouraging mobile ad spend, which currently pales in comparison to other digital mediums, such as display. Yet given the discrepancies in spend, mobile usage continues to rise to dramatic levels, and advertising must keep pace.
Though the integration between Google and AdMob will not be finalized for a couple of months, the prospective implications of the deal loom large for marketers in the digital space. One thing we know for sure: Google’s status as an industry leader makes the acquisition an effectual vote of confidence for the future of mobile.
By David Levin, President of Design & Development at 360i
Last week 360i attended a Dynamic Logic and 4A’s webinar during which they presented best practices for display banners based on analysis of best- and worst-performing campaigns (you can access the press release about the study on Dynamic Logic’s Web site).
One key insight, which we have espoused for years, is that taking the time to develop strong online creative is critical. So much so that poor-performing banners don’t merely perform worse than better creative, they actually can negatively impact brand metrics such as awareness, favorability and intent.
Here are some key design and messaging recommendations from Dynamic Logic’s analysis and some of 360i’s thoughts based on our display creative experience:
1. Brand impact is only as strong as brand presence.
Specifically keep your logo on every frame. Intrigue rarely drives awareness and response. The longer the logo appears, the higher the lift in aided awareness. And consumers most likely will not see the logo if it only appears on the product and not prominently within the ad. For example, here is one of the ads we developed for a recent Panasonic campaign. Note that the logo is persistent throughout the interactive animations.

In an iMedia Connection article published today, Mike Dobbs — Group Director, SEO at 360i — outlines 10 tips for combining SEO & paid search in your digital marketing programs. We’ve provided a brief summary below, but you can read the full article over on iMedia’s Web site.
While search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search are often seen as independent processes by digital marketers, the consumer sees a search results page as a single experience, and research shows that paid and natural search do impact eachother. Here’s a look at 10 key force-multipliers that leverage search results pages to maximize the impact of both your PPC and SEO efforts:
1. Follow proven SEO best practices
There are many standard best practices, but avoiding duplicate content is a vital SEO rule for retailers. Duplicate content is a term used in the field of search engine optimization to describe content that appears on more than one webpage. Embracing the “canonical tag” is an elegant solution for avoiding duplicate content.
2. Evaluate your paid search campaign structure against your own site architecture
Following your site’s architecture when setting up your campaigns and ad groups can help reveal untapped opportunities for your paid search efforts. Do you have an ad group for each of your product categories and promotions? Walk through your site map and compare it against your PPC campaign to make sure you cover all the bases.
3. Take a holistic approach to PPC bidding and ad creative
Running paid ads that include timely promotions and a call-to-action alongside natural search results for your brand can actually increase overall click-through rates (CTRs) on natural search listings, providing higher ROI across your search efforts.
Results of a SearchIgnite study showed that natural search clicks were 17 percent higher on days when paid search ads were running, garnering more “free” clicks simply by running paid search ads alongside natural search results. In addition, total conversions and revenue on both paid and natural terms dramatically increased on days when paid search ads were running.
Digital Connections provides a look at new and emerging innovations in digital media and marketing. Courtesy of 360i.