Every Google Partners Connect event that we hold at our London, Ontario agency has a general theme. This event’s theme was focused on mobile and reducing friction to help your customer have an easy time navigating your website, whether it’s from their desktop computer or their mobile phone.
Regardless of the developments in technology, the thing that drives consumers remains unchanged – they ultimately want to acquire something or have something made more easy for them.
With that said, mobile devices have been the most dramatic shift in consumer behavior in recent history. It has been the fastest adopted piece of technology in recent history and it is growing at an exponential rate. We are constantly connected and we live online; this is why phones are so important to us. Fifty percent of people would rather go without a toothbrush for one week than without their phone. Google also gave us a stat that it takes almost a day to report a wallet that’s gone missing whereas it only takes about an hour to report a missing smart phone!
Now that smart phones are the norm, it’s important to target the people who use them and make their lives easier. One problem with traditional offline advertising is that marketers are spending a disproportionate amount of money on print advertising despite customers spending so much time on mobile.
Micromoments That Matter
Intent, context and immediacy – these are the micromoments that matter most to marketers. Mobile can help provide a frictionless and easy response to these micromoments to capture the attention of your customers. If you aren’t doing it well, someone else will and they will be the one who wins the customers’ business.
How To Do It
- 1. Be there – if you aren’t there to answer the question or query, there is zero opportunity to engage the customer.
- 2. Be useful – you need to think about frictions the customer is experiencing and how to remove them.
- 3. Be quick – consumers except a site to load in fewer than 3 seconds and the path to conversion should be seamless and thoughtful.
- 4. Connect the dots – advertisers measure marketing efficiency and effectiveness based on each specific channel or campaign.
User Experience (UX)
By not providing a great user experience on your website, it can have many negative ramifications for your business. It’s important to always consider how you can provide the best user experience possible for a potential customer.
A Google Partner or even your web developer can help you put together a plan to improve UX. Here are the top two things you should focus on:
1. Speed – “Speed is design’s best friend, not its enemy” – people expect a page to load within 3 seconds. Waiting just 5 seconds causes 3 out of 4 users to leave the page. A one-second increase in speed can increase mobile conversion rate by 27%. Speed equals revenue!
2. Design and functionality – this aspect of UX can be trickier because this is less scientific to measure. Sites that are mobile friendly are typically designed better and always perform better. No one wants to look at a full desktop site on their mobile phone. Remove these friction points to enhance the design and functionality of your website for your target customer.
If you have any questions about what was covered during our latest Google Partners Connect, please get in touch with us today. One of our specialties is Google AdWords and we’d be happy to answer any questions you might have about it.
