Are Your PPC Campaigns Tagged for Success?

In the world of PPC, we are surrounded by tags of all shapes and sizes. Our landing page URLs have tags. Our websites have tags. And all of these tags, pixels, codes, and parameters communicate with each other. The proper implementation of these tags is paramount to successful PPC campaign management - without clean data, we can’t do our jobs.

Both Google AdWords and Bing Ads have implemented changes and are making announcements for future changes that directly impact campaign tagging protocol. Much like the search industry as a whole, the changes are coming at us fast. Are you keeping up? Are your PPC campaigns tagged for success? Let’s make sure…

AdWords URL Tag Update

Last week the PPC world was all abuzz about a soon-to-come AdWords announcement. On Monday, it was made official. In short, AdWords campaigns will migrate to a system where your destination URL (landing page) and tracking parameters are separate entities. Why does this matter? Your destination URL will only have to be entered once - and will not encounter future editorial delays when you upload new ads. This also creates some efficiencies for applying tracking parameters as well as making account-wide landing page changes.

This will be a forced migration, so be prepared. The feature will begin rolling out to advertisers starting this week. But everyone will be forced to upgrade by July 1, 2015. For those of you using third-party tools that tag your destination URLs, this stands to throw a wrench in the system. Now that Google has made its formal announcement, I fully expect PPC tool providers to follow suit with announcements of their own for development upgrades.

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Are these the three most important mobile PPC metrics?

Mobile and desktop paid search ads vary wildly in terms of the use case and the UX.

Fewer ads are displayed on the mobile screen and advertisers have less copy to work with.

Mobile searchers are also in a different frame of mind. They’re more likely to know what they want and are ready to take action rather than browsing.

Research shows that three out of four mobile searches trigger follow-up actions, whether that be further research, a store visit, a phone call, a purchase or word-of-mouth sharing.

As a result of these differences, marketers need to monitor different KPIs and metrics.

A new report by Bing highlights three PPC metrics that matter most in mobile PPC. Personally I would suggest that this list is a bit basic but then I’m not a mobile PPC expert. 

I’d be interested to hear other people’s opinions. Let me know in the comments.

For more on this topic, read our other post on important considerations for mobile PPC success, or book yourself onto our PPC training course.

1. Mobile click-through rate

Click-through rate is an obvious choice as it’s one of the most basic measures of PPC success.

However it’s important to be aware of the additional sensitivity to ad position caused by screen size.

This graph shows the expected CTR based on ad position for desktop, mobile and tablets.

The CTR from mobile ads drops off by 45% from position one to two, then drops to almost zero after position four.

As such, if brands want to achieve a decent mobile CTR they have to alter their ad strategy (e.g. spend more cash).

2. Mobile impression share

This refers to the market share of your searches, or how often you will appear in relevant searches.

So for example, if you have a 50% impression share then your ads are appearing 50% of the time that people search on the keyword terms you’ve expressed interest in.

The smaller screen size on mobile means impression share drops off much faster as your ad position drops when compared to desktop.

Mobile ads are much less likely to be shown even for the first position advertiser than they are on desktop, and when you get to position four the impression share is almost zero.

The recommendation is therefore to drop ‘informational keywords’ and focus on the key moneymaking terms.

3. Mobile cost per click

The third and final metric is the cost per click (CPC), which typically tends to be much lower than on desktop and tablet.

Unfortunately the sale may soon be over, with data taken from Webstream’s clients show that the gap is closing.

Mobile CPCs will likely pull even or eventually overtake desktop, so marketers will have to work harder to keep their own CPCs at a lower level.

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17 Keys to Success in Social PPC

If you haven't jumped on the social PPC bandwagon yet, it's time you gave it some serious thought. While social PPC won't replace Google AdWords any time soon, it's become an effective source of incremental leads and sales for savvy businesses.

What follows are 17 keys to running successful social PPC campaigns. The first four apply to all social PPC, then we'll talk about keys to success for each major social PPC engine.

Social PPC Keys to Success

1. Identify Your Target Audience

In search, the target audience is "anyone who searches using my keywords." In social, much more thought must be put into the people and personas you'd like to reach. Are they consumers? Business owners? Teenagers? What do they like to do? Where do they work, shop, play?

Defining your audience is critical to success in social PPC.

2. Identify the Marketing Challenge That Paid Social Solves

Think about why you want to use paid social in the first place. Are you active organically in social media, but need a larger or more engaged audience? Are you struggling to reach a B2B audience because consumers also search on your keywords? Do you need awareness of your product, service, or company?

All of these can be great reasons to use paid social – the key is to think about what problem social PPC will solve for you.

3. Define Your Paid Social Strategy and Objectives

If you've done the first two steps, this will be easy.

If your audience is B2B decision makers, and your objective is lead generation, then you'll want to define your strategy and objectives as such. If your goal is audience growth, build that in to your strategy.

Mapping strategy out ahead of time sets you up for good results.

4. Segment Your Audience Based on How You'll be Posting

This is an overlooked and yet important part of social PPC setup.

It isn't unusual for advertisers to have multiple segments within their target audience. You might have different types of businesses that you want to reach, or you may be targeting both men and women, for example.

Look at your current social posts to see what audience they're intended to reach – and then set up your social PPC campaigns accordingly.

LinkedIn Keys to Success

5. Carefully Identify Your Target Companies and Job Levels

LinkedIn's targeting options are great for targeting individuals at specific companies and job levels; it's especially effective for B2B. But think carefully about how you want to target.

Do you want narrow targeting with specific job titles and companies, or do you want to cast a wider net and focus on categories rather than specifics?

Be especially careful about seniority targeting. If you need to reach decision-makers, you'll probably want to exclude entry level people. But be aware that the higher level you target, the higher your minimum CPC will be.

6. Be Ready to Pay $5+ Per Click

Speaking of minimum CPCs, LinkedIn's CPCs run much higher than other social PPC channels. The results are often worth it, but be prepared to pay $5 or more per click and optimize accordingly.

7. Use Sponsored Updates if Possible

LinkedIn Ads have two types of campaigns: sponsored ads and sponsored updates. In my experience, sponsored updates perform much better than sponsored ads. Sponsored updates show in a user's news feed, giving you premium placement.

If you're actively posting updates to LinkedIn, use sponsored updates whenever possible.

8. Segment Your Audience Based on How You'll be Posting

Think about how you'll be posting, and segment your audience accordingly. The LinkedIn user interface isn't very user-friendly, so it's more efficient to set up segmented campaigns at the outset.

Twitter Keys to Success

9. Carefully Identify Your Target Accounts or Keywords

Twitter Ads often feel familiar to those used to Google AdWords and Bing Ads, because you cantarget using keywords. You can also target individual user accounts. It's important to decide which option makes sense for you.

If you want to reach consumers, for example, make sure the keywords or accounts you target are focused on consumer content.

10. Use Images and Hashtags With Caution

It's important to note that Twitter Ads are a pay-per-engagement, not pay-per-click, program. You pay for anything that can be clicked (links, @ handles, hashtags, and images), as well as for each reply, follow, and retweet.

Twitter Ads are great for driving engagement and leads, but be aware that you'll pay for much more than just clicks to your website.

11. Test Lead Generation Cards

Twitter lead generation cards enable advertisers to create a virtual "card" that attaches to a tweet. Users can take an action with one click, without leaving Twitter. The options for lead gen cards are nearly endless, and in my experience they perform very well.

12. Segment Your Audience Based on How You'll be Posting

You'll notice that segmentation is a theme here, because it's important. The Twitter Ads interface isn't much better than LinkedIn's, so it's easiest to think about targeting up front.

Facebook Keys to Success

13. Have at Least 1,000 Users in Your Custom Audience

Much has been said about Facebook custom audiences. They're a powerful way to reach specific users on Facebook.

Having a big enough audience is key to a successful campaign, though. We recently ran a test with about 150 users in a custom audience, and we got very few impressions and clicks. Hitting the minimum number of users is really important.

14. Use Sponsored Posts in Newsfeed When Possible

Similar to LinkedIn, Facebook offers both right-rail and sponsored post ads. Facebook has become so large that I'm not sure anyone looks at the right rail ads anymore – and they don't even show at all on most mobile devices. Make the most of your advertising efforts by using sponsored posts whenever possible.

15. Relentlessly Test Images

It's common advice for Facebook ads, and with good reason. The image is what really attracts the attention to your ad – the actual copy is almost irrelevant if you have a good image.

Aggressively test images to learn which ones work best.

16. Use Lookalike Segments

An added bonus of using custom audiences is the ability to build lookalike audiences. A lookalike audience is a larger audience that Facebook builds of users similar to your custom audience. You can further customize the lookalike audience with exclusions.

If you aren't getting the results you expected from custom audiences, try using a lookalike audience.

17. Use Custom Audiences to Build Lookalike Segments

I've heard from a number of people that they create custom audiences not for ad targeting, but for the sole purpose of creating lookalike audiences. This is a creative way to have both specific and broad reach.

Conclusion

Social PPC is becoming an important part of the online marketing toolbox. Use these tips the next time you launch a paid social campaign.

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PPC Management: Your Past, Present & Future

Managing pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns is like time travel. Without digging too deep into astrophysics or multi-dimensional theory, PPC managers need to reside in the future, past, and present simultaneously in order to get the full scope of their campaigns and optimize them successfully.

No, I haven't taken a bunch of mind-altering drugs. I haven't been communing with nature. There has been no meditation on the meaning of life. I wouldn't be able to type right now if I were wearing thumb cymbals while chanting to ancient gods.

I was simply running some analysis within Excel while building out a strategic plan for a client. I guess this process is spiritual from a certain point of view.

This may sound like an ominous warning spoken by a man in a black cloak during a B-grade science fiction movie: you must achieve a balance within the continuum or be doomed to a languid existence.

This means that PPC managers shouldn't have their feet grounded too firmly in any one place or space of time. You should achieve a harmony so that the future, past, and present all exist concurrently.

Your Past: Course-Correction Activities

Conducting analysis within your campaigns is critical. Running historical trends and averages gives you a solid idea on progress and optimization opportunities. You have to understand has been working well and what has not, and when you find things that aren't firing properly then you must take corrective action to set a better path forward.

These are tactics to fix issues within your account. These aren't standard tactics you complete on regularly scheduled basis. And they aren't forward-thinking, large-scale strategic initiatives. For example, maybe your Google Display Network (GDN) volume dips and you need to adjust bids or review placements in order to improve performance.

"The Past" in this example means you review performance history and react to the data quickly.

Your Present: Standard Recurring Tactics

As a campaign manager, you should have a task list of recurring tactics. The tactics on this list should maintain the health and structure of your account. Reviewing ad tests, regularly analyzing search query data, and various other tasks should be completed on a regular schedule.

These recurring tactics usually don't impact performance significantly, but they are extremely important. "The Present" in this example means these tactics aren't necessarily looking forward (proactive) or backward (reactive). Present-focused tactics are the bedrock of your account health management.

Your Future: Prioritized Strategic Initiatives

Providing strategic vision is what changes a campaign manager to a thought leader. These tactics are proactive. They should provide big ideas and strive to keep your account two steps ahead of your competition and on the cutting-edge.

You don't need a crystal ball to see the future. "The Future" in this instance is looking for those big forward-thinking ideas.

Unfortunately, this element of campaign management is often most neglected. The reason for this neglect is because urgent needs often take precedence over a campaign manager's time. There are almost always fires to put out or standard tactics that need to be completed – and if you aren't careful, these reactive tactics can occupy all of your bandwidth. This is why you must achieve a balance within the continuum or be doomed to a languid existence (says the man in the black cloak).

Summary

You can't get stuck in the mire of the present and always putting out fires within your account. Look back over the past 60 to 90 days of managing your account. Have you been striking a balance between past, present, and future strategies? Do you need to adjust your balance?

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How to Fix Your Basic Pay Per Click Advertising Troubles

There is really nothing more frustrating than having trouble with your PPC campaigns. SEO forces you to wait a while until you see results, and then you see a few, and then you make long-term changes, and then you wait some more, and so on. The process is slow. When it comes to PPC, everything is moving much faster and you should see results much faster. When you don’t, it can get frustrating and exhausting. Fortunately, there are certain tactics and methods you can use specifically for times likes these. If you’re ready to throw your PPC advertising out the window, take a deep breath and read on.

Top 5 Ways You Can Help Revive Your PPC Advertising Campaigns

The very first thing you want to do when faced with this situation is determine exactly where the problem lies. It might sound obvious, but too many people are looking at month-to-month changes when sometimes it’s best to use more data and look from year to year. Compare your profits, orders, and clicks to see if you can determine an area that needs help. Once you do this, there are a few steps you can take:

1. Quality Score – I think this is one of the most important aspects of PPC advertising campaigns and a great indication of how you’re doing. For this reason, it is important to monitor your quality score so that you always know exactly when you have a problem. If you find that your score needs help, you should regroup your keywords to make them more relevant, improve your landing page to incorporate your keywords, and try out completely new ads.
2. Bidding Strategy – Although bidding may seem fairly simple, it’s very difficult to get it exactly right. If your campaign keeps failing, run an analysis on the keywords where you spend the most and determine if they are profitable. If this is the case, there are two different ways you can change what you’re doing:

Automated. It’s sometimes necessary to use automated bidding if you have a very large company and lots of keywords to target. If it isn’t working well, consider a different type. For example, you may want to use either target or max CPA bidding to help you adjust different factors that keep you under a certain number.  Simply make sure that your conversion rates aren’t declining and you aren’t changing your bids too frequently (the longer you keep them there the better your results).

Manual. If you have a small company that isn’t targeting many keywords, it might be best to ditch your automated bidding and do everything manually. This allows more control for you and could be the root of your problem.

3. Competition – A sudden change in your results could be as simple as an increase in competition. You will know if this is the case if you track your competition’s display ads as well as text ads. If it seems like they are ramping up their bidding and efforts, you could have yourself a battle to the top.

4. Placements and Ad-Group Setup – If your placements aren’t working, you might want to consider moving those that are “automatic” to give yourself a better chance. You’ll also want to review your ad group setup to make sure all of your ads are even running in the first place! It might sound obvious, but most often the most basic mistakes are the ones that kill you.

5. Campaign Settings and Negative Keywords – You definitely want to check and see if you have any negative keywords that are limiting your chances of success. On that same note, check to see if your campaign settings have a good budget cap ready to go. It’s all about double-checking that will help you get out of a slump.

PPC ad campaigns are ultimately about trial and error. If you’re getting tired of not seeing results, it is most likely an indication that you need to focus your energy on either a different keyword or on a different aspect of your campaign.

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3 Big PPC Mistakes Even Pros Make & How to Avoid Them

Everyone makes mistakes. You’ve heard that saying a thousand times, and yet it still rings true.

Even seasoned professionals make mistakes; and usually mistakes are the best way to learn.

Still, especially when you’re new at something, it’s encouraging to know that even the pros mess up at times. Every golfer loves it when Tiger Woods shanks a drive, for example.

With that, here are the mistakes people made, and how to avoid them.

1. Budget Mistakes

How to avoid budget mistakes: Have someone else double-check your entries, and put a reminder on your calendar for the last Friday of each month to reset your MDS budgets.

2. Bidding Mistakes

How to avoid bidding mistakes: It’s hard to completely avoid them, but using an offline editor like AdWords Editor or Bing Ads Editor helps, because you can check your work before the changes go live. Also, make sure to check your campaigns the next day – you’ll easily spot anomalies before they get too far out of control.

3. Network Targeting Mistakes

How to avoid network targeting mistakes: Make sure all new hires are trained in best practices for PPC settings, and be sure to check their work early on. Using a desktop editor makes it easier to double-check all campaign settings before pushing campaigns live. After the changes are live, check the settings again in the online interface to make sure everything is the way it should be. Schedule a report, segmented by network and campaign, to be sent to your email the day after the campaign goes live. If you’re seeing traffic in the wrong place, you’ll know what to fix.

Summary

Hopefully this post has taught you two things: that even the most experienced PPC managers make mistakes, and how to avoid those pitfalls!

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5 Reasons SEM Agencies Should Do Social and SEO

I'll admit it; I was wrong when I thought that social media was a stretch for SEM and SEO agencies and that a separate set of agencies would be required to fully tap the social media marketing opportunity for advertisers and marketers. And I was wrong when I assumed that marketers for whom PPC search was critically important would turn to boutique specialist agencies that excelled in PPC search either exclusively or primarily, not one-stop shops. After reevaluating both my decision-making process over the last decade with regard to focus, and by talking with clients, prospects, and fellow folks in the industry, I've become convinced that the benefits of a unified approach to search and social marketing handled through a team with high levels of communication with each other is superior to a fragmented approach.

What was my response after a reevaluation of the landscape that suggested a significant strategy change? I bought an agency that put me back into the one-stop shop business. But let's look at you and your strategies and how you should approach the tasks of resource and budget allocations across paid and organic search as well as social media.

Much of my earlier decision process supporting the boutique model was based on the behavior of IT departments at enterprise clients and the way mid-size marketers decided who should "own" the website (generally IT). IT departments 10 or 15 years ago were far more likely to have resisted the necessary changes to a content management system (CMS) or e-commerce site based on SEO recommendations.

However, in the last 10 years (when I made the decision to double-down on PPC search and make SEO more of a hobby), many IT teams finally learned that SEO is a necessary part of having an online presence. From 1996 through 2002, my recollection is that when we put together SEO priority lists and itemized the SEO initiatives that would be required in order for clients to reach their potential in the vast majority of instances, months would pass and progress of SEO would be slowed due to IT teams dragging their feet. That still happens to some extent, but far less frequently. In addition, Google and Bing rely more heavily on external ranking factors to break a tie between two sites, both of whom have great, relevant content.

That brings us to social media. It turns out that the evolution of social media advertising and earned social media (as some people call it) has several factors that make the expertise of the SEM and SEO agency and team relevant to social media. Regardless of whether or not the search engines are using social media signals in their ranking formulas (many people believe that it's already happening, if not imminent), earned social media is clearly a catalyst for coverage in the blogs and press, much of which includes links and citations. There's the SEO to social media link.

So, the first reason a holistic digital marketing agency with strong competence in SEM should be running social and SEO is:

1. Social media supports SEO. You need good social activity to maintain buzz and get links.
2. The lines between earned media social and paid media social are blurring. Facebook's Sponsored Stories ads work best when the brand has interesting things to say and is well-known within the social media ecosystem. So, paid social media advertising is more efficient when the social media strategy and tactics are coordinated with teams that are in regular communications.
3. Attribution. I barely need to say more. Brands that also invest in early buy funnel (that outdated yet very useful concept) marketing communications get more mileage out of social media and SEM campaigns even with last-click attribution. When digital "marcom" is handled either by a single team with access to all the data on paid and earned media social and search (including SEO), or information is shared freely, the results are better. Access to the full spectrum of marketing data allows for both experimentation and modeling, taking us one step closer to a marketing mix model (including earned social and SEO).
4. Targeting and audiences. SEM folks understand targeting and the various forms that targeting can take (beyond the keyword). An SEM team understands and can appreciate the differences between search and social media audience targeting and how best to combine targeting options.
5. Convenience. This seems like a trivial reason, but I've heard it far too many times from client-side marketing departments not to mention it. When a client-side marketer has only eight to 15 hours a day to work every repeated conversation about campaigns and their effectiveness, it slows that marketer down from taking on meaningful projects.

So, after having been a stubborn believer in the "boutique agencies rock" as the only solution for 10 years, I've decided that if a marketer can find an agency that is great at the most important channel and competent in the other important supporting areas of online marketing, then indeed the one-stop shop can be the right decision. Agencies that are great in a couple of areas often end up acting as general contractors themselves, farming out the tactical work to freelancers or other agencies. The client gets a single point of contact and responsibility. The alternative of hiring best-in-class boutiques and project managing those is clearly an option, but requires a commitment from the marketer to staff the internal teams appropriately.

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Mobile Landing Page Optimization - 10 Best Practices for Success

Landing pages can be used for PPC ads, mobile app downloads, promotional campaigns and more. Optimization tactics are intended to boost conversion, improve PPC quality scores, and provide a better user experience.

Yet with so many companies "not ready to do mobile", the mobile landing page experience has basically been ignored. With mobile web use dramatically on the rise, marketers can no longer ignore the impact. There are over 4 billion mobile phones on the planet, and Google estimates by 2014 more people will use mobile phones than PCs to go online.

How much of your web traffic is mobile? Ten percent? Twenty percent? Do you even know? 

A Case for the Mobile Landing Page...

When it comes to landing page optimization, a simple A/B test may yield a 20-30 percent increase in conversion. Although this is positive, such small incremental improvements don't make much sense if a significant number of mobile visits are being ignored.

For example, let's say 1,000 users visit your landing page, and 2 percent (20) of them convert. You do an A/B test, which improves conversion by 25 percent (5) users. Meanwhile, the mobile 15 percent (150) of your traffic visitors are virtually ignored and presented with a far-less-than-optimal experience. It's logical to recognize that focusing on the 150 makes more sense than the 5 new conversions, especially since mobile users are more likely to convert.

"88% of mobile searchers take action within 24 hours. 

About 70% take action within 1 hour."

~ Google Mobile Movement Study, 2011

10 Ways to Make Your Landing Page Mobile-Friendly

It's time to adapt your strategy. Instead of just designing a traditional landing page, plan to uniquely consider landing page content and layout for various devices and screens of all sizes – desktops, tablets, smartphones and beyond. Here are some tips to assist with planning:

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1. Be Accessible

Ensure your content is available and visible for mobile devices. Flash, frames, PNG-24 images, and numerous plug-ins are not accessible for mobile.

Update your site with mobile-friendly alternatives like HTML5, jQuery, and JPG or GIF image formats.

"40% turn to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience."

~ Compuware, "What Users Want from Mobile", 2011

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2. Be Fast

Your mobile pages should be lightweight (less than 20 KB total) and minimally load in under 5 seconds.

The top slowdown factors for mobile pages are the number of requests (loaded images, scripts, etc.) followed the number of bytes (page size), so strategize accordingly.

Consolidate or eliminate scripts, resize and save mobile-optimized images, leverage image sprites to enable caching one image versus many, use CSS in place of images, and apply additionalmobile web performance optimization tips to your code and content as needed.

Tools like W3C Mobile OK, mobiReady, or Mobitest can be used to determine the load time and size of your landing pages.

"43% are unlikely to return to a slow-loading mobile site. 

74% of mobile users wait up to 5 seconds; 60% wait 3 seconds or less."

~ Compuware, "What Users Want from Mobile", 2011

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3. Be Orderly

For smartphones, present a single-column layout with the priority content at the top. Mobile users are goal-oriented versus the more benefit-oriented desktop users, so always feature call-to-action task completion content (e.g., click-to-call, find a store) "above the fold" or within the top 100 pixels for smartphones.

If your call-to-action (CTA) is potentially lower on the screen, be sure to present a teaser like "scroll down for offer" to retain engagement.

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4. Be Brief

Depending upon the verbosity of your traditional landing page, there's a good chance you'll need to cut copy in half for mobile optimization.

Screen size varies, so reduction may be about 65 percent for tablets and 35 percent for smartphones. 

In other words, trim six-word headings to three or four, and trim five bullets to two or three.

Tip: Plan landing page content with mobile first to avoid the need for variations across screen sizes.

Mobile headings should ideally be only 3-4 words.

It's still important to sell the content. Leverage creative copywriting and consider visualizing benefits as icons to replace or reduce the copy.

Every single word should add value or get cut.

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5. Be Legible

Users should be able to read the page without zooming. The minimum font-size should ideally be about 16 pixels, the 100% default for browsers.

Google recommends an arm's length as a legibility guide for mobile.

A simple color palette, strong contrast between text and backgrounds, and adequate negative space between elements also play a large part in legibility.

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6. Be Call-Friendly

The top mobile user action for both SEO and PPC is making a phone call, so ensure your full phone number is visible at the top of the page.

"61% of mobile users call after a local business search."

~ Google Mobile Movement Study, 2011

Users should be able to tap/click the phone number to initiate a call, so enable click-to-call functionality by making the number a hyperlink with the tel: protocol. (See RFC 3966 for tel URI specifications.)

Example hyperlink value:  "tel:            +16515551212      "

Example HTML:

Call Now!             (651) 555-1212      

Click to Call (CTC) Tips:

• 
  Always include the international prefix (a leading "+" character followed by the country code) to ensure it works for users outside the home country
• Include a phone icon for quick visual association
• Include a call-to-action in the link text 
  (e.g., Call Now, Contact Support, Tap to Call, etc.)
• Keep the phone # in the link text for transparency and easy verbal sharing
• Display office hours as nearby (It's extremely frustrating to make a call only to find out a place is closed!)
• Include useful and/or enticing context (e.g., guarantee, promotion, testimony, etc.)
• Style the link as a button in a complementary color so it stands out (Use CSS3 buttons that don't require images for lightweight responsive design)

All of these CTC tips are good factors to consider for A/B testing!

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7. Be Thumb-Friendly

Small, compact content is challenging to click for mobile. Don't give users a fat-finger weight complex! All actionable targets should be clickable without zooming.

Design your clickable targets (links, buttons, icons, form fields, etc.) to be touch-friendly – fully and easily operable by fingers and thumbs.

Minimum target area suggestions:

Microsoft: 38x38 pixels (0.25"), Apple: 44x44 pixels (0.30")

Note: Pixel resolution varies across handsets, so buffer and test accordingly.

• Add padding to links (e.g., 0.85em or 85% for text)
• Ensure clickable images (e.g., social icons) are sized near the minimum target area
• Use margin (negative space) between clickable areas to avoid a misclick
• Pad fields and check boxes to make selection easier
• Leverage JavaScript (jQuery) plug-ins with touch swipe gestures (e.g., Flexslider,Photoswipe)

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8. Be Local

A mobile user's geolocation can typically be determined within 5 to 20 miles based on their IP address without the user explicitly disclosing their location. Based on an IP address (a.k.a. geoIP), several details of a web user's location can be calculated – country, region (state/province), ZIP code, metro area (e.g., Twin Cities), city, latitude, longitude, area code, weather station, and more. Yup. This is a gold mine for personalizing content to convert!

The MaxMind GeoIP City Database accuracy in the US is 99.8 percent for country, 90 percent for state, and 81 percent for city. Although not perfect, this data is awesome for dynamic suggestions and defaulting contact fields.

Leverage geoIP data to provide faster, locally relevant, and personalized landing page experiences.

• Personalize headings with city or metro area names
• List a nearby representatives or locations (e.g., "Stores near Minneapolis")
• Regionalize “voice” to use local terms or slang (e.g., y'all, coke/soda/pop)
• Re-center and zoom maps to the user's location
• Pre-populate location fields on web forms 
  (Tip: Default ZIP code from geoIP and then compute HIDDEN city, state, and country field values from the ZIP!)

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9. Be Form-Simple

Mobile landing page forms should be extremely short. Target seven or less fields (one to three is ideal) anticipating each additional field to potentially reduce conversion by 50 percent. Never include non-required fields.

Only show fields imperative for urgent data collection, and evaluate options to otherwise capture or compute data at a later time. The key is to get users to submit the minimum lead data (like name and email) necessary for you to respond.

If you must have several fields, consider a two-step form process (see pictured example) since it appears like fewer steps. It also comes in handy for segmenting content specific to step-one selections.

HTML5 Input Types

To aid usability, leverage HTML5 input types – number, telephone, URL, and email – for their unique data input keyboards. These render as basic input text for older systems. View this HTML5 input types test page from your mobile device to see it in action. (Scan the provided QR code or visit http://j.mp/html5inputtypes as a mobile shortcut!)

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10. Be Action-Compelling

The purpose of the page should be obvious, compelling and readily visible as an action.

To optimize landing page conversion, limit the number of "actions" to three or less for mobile. An "action" constitutes any task the user could do on the page – a link, a like, a share, a video view, a form submission, a menu expand, or any other tap/click/swipe gesture.

POP QUIZ: How many "actions" are visible on the pictured Comcast landing page?

Regardless of a total action count, the landing page should only haveone goal. Copywriting and imagery should all support completion of the one goal. If practical, postpone display of other actions until the primary action has been completed.

"One page, one purpose." ~ Oli Gardner, Unbounce (Landing Page Rehab)

Mobile Call-to-Action Examples:

Call Now Find a Store Watch the Video Contact/Email Us

Get Map Directions Add to My Calendar RSVP Download

Rate It Like It Vote Share (Be specific)

Tip: Don't autoplay videos. The user must click/tap to play the video in order for the "view" to be counted.

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