Google Boosts Mobile Ads (Again)
Google continues a long line of recent mobile advertising additions with today’s launch of Boost ads for mobile. This is essentially the mobile version of Boost, which it launched on the desktop in October. There it joined Tags in an effort to appeal more directly to SMBs with simple advertising.
The appeal will be much the same in mobile, and simply add a mobile component to the existing program. It will be available on Google search results on Android and iPhone devices, and ads will include a map and a phone number (like the desktop).
The interesting thing is how advertisers that take advantage of this could gain a great deal more value than they are getting on the desktop (just like mobile pay per call). This is because Boost generally places ads above the fold, where there is considerably less real estate in mobile.
To take advantage of Boost on the desktop and mobile, a Google Places listing is required. The Boost ad copy is essentially pulled from that content and targeted toward users in the vicinity of the business in question. In that way, the targeting and copy is not unlike Extensions.
Again, the bottom line is simplicity. Think of it as a dumbed down version of the relatively more complex AdWords dashboard for creating and managing ad groups. This follows the launch of mobile pay per call, Extensions and hyperlocal mobile ad targeting.
The Boost ads launch for mobile encapsulates Google’s mobile plans in a few different ways. It’s going first and foremost for simplicity to get the ball rolling. But it’s also slowly and carefully introducing new options. It won’t stop here.
