When you see headlines like, “64% of Mobile Restaurant Searchers Convert Immediately or Within an Hour,” it kind of makes you want to reassess your mobile advertising budget, doesn’t it? Then there are the headlines like, “Mobile Advertising will Grow to $13 billion in 2015,” and you start to think that maybe investing in a mobile version of your site is worthwhile, after all.

But, a large proportion of businesses still haven’t made the mobile change and a distressingly large number of businesses aren’t taking advantage of mobile advertising opportunities.

Mobile consumption vs. mobile advertising

Paul Palmieri, Millennial Media CEO, says that consumers spend 10% of their time on their mobile phones – consuming mobile content – but businesses only allocate 1% of their advertising budget to mobile platforms.

These figures are backed up by the Mobile Marketing Association, which says that while businesses are reluctant to spend more than 1% of their advertising budgets on mobile campaigns, they should be spending at least 7% on mobile marketing.

But, you can’t just pump out a bunch of mobile ads and hope for the best. The basic rules of advertising haven’t changed.

• You need to consider the nature of the medium.
• You need to research your target market.
• You need to consider your product.
• You need to consider your marketing message.
• You need to plan your approach accordingly.

Phones vs. Tablets

Greg Sterling (Search Engine Land) cautions marketers against the assumption that all mobile users are the same. He says that there are key differences between tablet users and smartphone users.

For one thing, smartphone users tend to access information while on the go (which plays a vital role in the immediacy of conversions for restaurant searchers). Tablet users tend to search from home – basically, their tablets are more convenient to use in the bedroom or lounge than their laptops.

Also, based on the restaurant conversion findings (which, for the sake of simplicity, we’ll boldly generalise), smartphone users want practical information that they can use immediately, like locations and directions. Tablet users tend to be browsers; they want to find out about product details and hunt down special promotions and freebies.

Mobile apps

It’s important that you don’t forget about mobile apps, especially for users that value engagement.

But, as time goes by, operating systems are becoming increasingly differentiated, which makes it difficult to design apps that are compatible across all phones, operating systems and browsers. It might be that in the not-too-distant future, marketers will have to pick their platforms. Unless, of course, they have the budget to create multiple versions for cross-market pollination.

In the meantime, marketers would do well to pay more attention to the mobile sphere and start seriously investigating, and acting on, the opportunities available.

This guest post was written by Sandy Cosser on behalf of Elemental, a web development company that also specialises in mobile web development and Facebook apps. 

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