When creating a mobile campaign in AdWords, it is important to approach it the same way any new campaign should be approached. By this, I mean that you should separate your campaigns and create one that targets exclusively mobile devices.

From a network perspective, just like with any other campaign, you can target both the Search and Content networks. Also, we recommend having a separate campaign for each network.

However, you don’t have to target both Networks. Obviously, by targeting both networks you will have a bigger audience to reach, In the end, it all depends on your strategy and what you are trying to accomplish by going mobile- or by getting mobilized as I like to call it. With the Search network, you can have great features such as click to call on your ads. While in the Content Network you are still able to display banners on sites that relate to your business.

Another nice feature when creating your mobile device campaign is the option to get granular as far as mobile devices and carriers. For example, if you are a retailer and you sell iPhone accessories, you might want to target only iPhones. You do this by checking the “iPhone/iPod Touch” checkbox under the “Advanced device and carrier options” section. In this scenario a good idea would be to also target carriers that provide iPhone services. You can do this by checking the different carriers options provided under the “Carriers” section,

Once you have your campaigns created, remember to analyze your data and optimize based on performance.

Google AdWords Interest categories allow advertisers to reach targeted audiences across the Google Display Network by allowing advertisers to choose from a list of categories – from Yoga & Pilates to Sports Memorabilia or Vehicle Shopping – and Google will show ads to people who are interested in those categories.

Users are targeted for interest categories based on their browsing history. So for example, when a user visits a partner website, Google analyzes the content of the page and site to show contextually relevant ads. Google then associates the interests with the user’s cookie. Google says that they may also use the websites a user visits, as well as third-party data, to infer the user’s gender, age category and other demographics. If the sites that a user visits have a majority of male visitors, Google may associate your cookie with the male demographic category. (Google does not associate sensitive interest categories such as those based on race, religion, sexual orientation, health or financial categories with a user’s cookie).

Interest category campaigns are a great way to increase visibility of your products or services because you can target a specific audience. Ads using interest categories reach users when they are visiting websites that may not be related to the interested category you are targeting. In other words, you can target someone who has been on yoga related websites while the user is on a website that is not related to yoga.

Interest category campaigns are a great way to supplement keyword or placement campaigns because you can reach users who are interested in your products or services even when they are on unrelated pages. This means you can reach a wider audience and generate more qualified traffic to your site.

If you follow the trends of digital marketing you know that targeting mobile devices is really hot at the moment. Everybody talks about mobile campaigns and how fast mobile is growing. For these same reasons, I will show you a practical approach to mobile marketing or as I like to call it – to get mobilized.

Before going too far into getting mobilized you should check your traffic to see how many visitors you get every week via mobile devices, and then compare these numbers to your total amount of visitors. Monitor how they move through your site. By gathering this data, you will be better to assess if going mobile is the right choice for you.

The strategy you set will depend on what you want to accomplish. Ask yourself the following:

• Do I want to be mobilized in order to drive sales through mobile devices?
• Do I want to increase brand awareness and drive more traffic to my site?
• Do I want to increase the number of calls I receive?
• Am I going to be using a mobile application and is my goal to generate downloads?

By answering these questions you will be able to prioritize the objectives of your mobile campaign; which will help you implement the right strategy.

If you are thinking about directing mobile traffic to your desktop site, you might want to reconsider and invest in a mobile site instead. Even with the best smartphone your desktop site might look too busy and may be hard to navigate. Believe me, there is nothing worse than putting together a great campaign only to send traffic to a page where the user will get frustrated due to a poor experience. Optimize your landing pages and make sure they are mobile friendly. Remember, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to convert on your goals.

From here, it is just a matter of setting up your AdWords campaigns and following their best practices.
 
Once you are mobilized, remember to track and analyze your mobile data to measure the effectiveness of your new efforts.