Seriously, should you continue to spend a fortune on mobile ads?
If so, make sure you give a ring to your SEO consultant first.
Mobile Landscape
This has become a hot topic in recent days also in the light of aggressive campaigns by market leaders in the mobile payment segment.
Lots has been going on in the recent times.
“You’re starting to see a lot of new interactions [on mobile]… We’re trying to spend a moment looking at some of these trends and imagining what they’ll look like in next few years,” Facebook (FB)’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, said at the Cannes Lions advertising festival last month.
“More Google searches take place
on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan,” Google said a couple of months ago.
Mobile Vs Desktop
According to data provider eMarketer, US mobile ads spending (which includes “classified”, “display” and others) will more than double to the end of 2019, reaching $65.8bn from $28.7bn in 2015.
FB and Twitter, to name just two companies whose fortunes greatly depend on mobile penetration, are growing in the mobile ads arena but are not having the best of times, in a way.
They have invested heavily in new mobile-related products — new ads format and campaign management features, for instance. In spite of that, most of their clients do complain because they are troubled when it comes to generating enough ads revenues that cover for the cost of the investment.
Blame Desktop
In most cases, the amount needed is so high that returns in the mobile ads channel are in negative territory.
Desktop isn’t dead, meanwhile.
Rather, several clients depend on it because desktop ads revenues still represent the majority of online ads revenues, although nobody can accurately predict when and if mobile ads will become the most important revenues contributor.
Why is that?
Quite simply, disappointing mobile ads revenues hinge on low conversion rates for several clients of all the major players (FB, Twitter, Microsoft and so forth) — a situation that is consistent with some of the findings included in Monetate‘s research (check out the 4Q14 paper), which was published at the end of 2014.
The Importance Of SEO
- Organic results are still predominant in terms of click-through rates (CTR), which means that up to 20% of your total online marketing budget must be allocated to SEO.
- With SEO, part of the budget is invested in a cash-accretive marketing tool that offers a steady yield.
- For most websites, organic traffic represents between 70% and 90% of their overall traffic. Consider that as mobile grows, organic traffic will grow accordingly, and SEO will become increasingly more important to preserve your most predictable cash flow streams.
- As mobile grows, and its importance reverberates throughout IT/design/marketing departments, bear in mind that mobile ads revenues will likely grow only if your website is properly optimised, all other things being equal (overall marketing budget and its split).
If you want to discuss this topic with our team, please email us at info@hedgingbeta.com