Smartphones Extend the Desktop Experience—Including Search: Google Study

Smartphone users pay attention to—and are moved to act by—mobile advertising: That’s one of the findings of a new study sponsored by Google, whose former CEO Eric Schmidt once announced that “mobile is the future.”

The survey, “The Mobile Movement,” found that 42% of users click on mobile ads they see and like over their smartphones. Of those, 49% go on to buy something or convert somehow, 35% later visit the advertiser’s Web site, and 27% actually call the business in the ad.

A full 82% say they “notice” mobile ads– although of course that notice doesn’t necessarily involve clicking, acting on or even actually reading the ad.

The survey was conducted for Google in late 2010 by market research firm Ipsos OTX and polled more than 5,000 U.S. adult smartphone users.

Ads also lead users to conduct searches over their mobile phones, the study found, although here old-school media holds an edge. Seventy-one percent of respondents said they have done mobile searches because of exposure to an ad. Of those, 88% said they were responding to a traditional offline ad in print or on TV; that compares to 27% who searched because they saw a mobile ad and 18% who did so after seeing an online ad.

This offline-online bridging is made possible by the fact that 33% of smartphone users have their phones out while watching TV, and 22% while reading a newspaper or magazine.

Living up to their reputation as pocket PCs, smartphones led 81% of users to browse the Web in the week before they were polled, and 77% to use a search engine over their mobile device. Sixty-eight percent said their opened an app on their device, and 48% watched a mobile video.

According to the study, mobile search sites were visited most often by respondents (77%), followed by social networking sites (65%), retail Web sites (46%) and video sharing sites (43%).

Smartphone use is also permeating the realm of shopping. Seventy-nine percent of respondents said they have used their smartphone for shopping activities, including finding store locations and checking local inventory (78%), acquiring product information (69%), contacting retailer (52%) and finding and using offers and discounts (48%).

Seventy percent of those polled reported using the devices while in the store, either for comparing prices, finding more product information, or actually making the purchase. The median spending on smartphone purchases in the previous year was $300 per shopper, with most of the buying happening in entertainment (48%), electronics (45%) and clothing or apparel (45%).

Smartphone are also driving local searches, and local shopping. The study found that 95% of smartphone users have looked for local information on their phones. And those local searchers are action-oriented: After a local search, 77% said they were led to contact a local business (61% by phone, 59% by walking in) and 44% eventually purchased something (36% in-store and 22% online).

The timeline for taking action after a mobile search is short. More than one third (36%) of those conducting a local mobile search say when they act on that information they do so immediately. Another 39% says they make a move within a few hours for getting those search results; and 14% say they act within a day. So when smartphone users search for local information, 88% of those who will act on that information do so within 24 hours.

As for the ad response, 45% of smartphone users say they “notice” banner ads, 43% see ads on the Web sites they visit on their phone, and 35% notice ads inside the apps they open. Thirty-four percent notice pay-per-click ads in mobile search, while 28% say they notice ads in text messages.

About one fifth of smartphone users say they have noticed ads either served up because of their current location or embedded in online maps.

Google’s recommendations to marketers based on these findings:

• Extend online ad strategies into mobile.
• Make sure to get found in mobile search, including local search.
• Implement cross-channel strategies to let prospects move from online to mobile to in-store contacts as they wish.