How to Incrementally Grow PPC Transactions through Tablet Targeting

Posted by Danyl Herron on April 20, 2012 within Google Adwords, Mobile Marketing, Search Engine Marketing. | No Comments

If you own a Smartphone, it may come as no surprise that 79% of consumers use Smartphones to help with shopping (source: Google).  Whether or not you have actually made a purchase using your Smartphone, chances are at one point or another you have either browsed through product catalogs, comparison shopped or even searched for brick-and-mortar locations.   With the growing popularity of tablets however, a new phase of online shopping has been brought to the forefront.  According to a study done through Google, 41% of people say that their sole purpose for buying a tablet is for shopping.  With the ability to accommodate full browsers, a consumer’s shopping experience is arguably enhanced over mobile browsing and still offers the same convenience.

With Google now offering the capability to target tablets exclusively through AdWords and not just grouping them into mobile targeting like in the past (see image below), it is important to understand the impact of targeting tablets in their own campaign vs. grouping them in with desktop and/or mobile.

In looking at Google Analytics for one of our retail clients, we found 81% of the cost generated from our mobile campaigns (which targeted both mobile and tablet devices) was driven by traffic from mobile devices.  Based on this data, we had concern that mobile device traffic was monopolizing the daily campaign budgets and tablets were not getting a fair share of the traffic.   So, we removed tablet targeting from the mobile campaigns and broke out tablet-only.

Let’s take a look at the impact this had on the campaigns.

Prior to Tablet-Targeted Campaigns:

• Tablets were targeted in mobile-only campaigns (targeting included high-end mobile devices and tablets)
• Conversion rate of mobile-only campaigns: 0.13%

After Tablet-Targeted Campaigns:

• Tablets were targeted in tablet-only campaigns and mobile devices were targeted in mobile-only campaigns
• Conversion rate of mobile-only campaigns: 0.38%
  • 192% increase in conversion rate
  • Conversion rate of tablet-only campaigns: 0.82%
  • Mobile transactions increased 66% and tablet conversions increased 350%

By breaking out tablets into their own campaigns, we were able to allocate more traffic and spend to tablet devices which in turn produced incremental transactions.  Recognizing the importance of the growing usage of tablets and capitalizing on the opportunity to target highly-qualified, ready-to-buy consumers, will directly impact your bottom line.