MLM SF: Google Co-Keynoters Focus on Optimizing Mobile

Google sees great usage and potential for mobile with features such as Google Maps, “which is one of the most popular apps on any phone,” noted Surojit Chatterjee, head of mobile search ad products, who was co-keynoting at MLM San Francisco.

Mobile “is an extension of the Web” and can get “better usage than banner ads,” said Chatterjee. But mobile also has many challenges, especially the siloization of apps. Google is working to point users to the right app, he said.

Some opportunities are more obvious. Click to call, for instance, has very strong adoption. It is getting even better as Google integrates more technology that provides better interfaces, better data for execution and better measurement. Chatterjee notes that the average call duration is six or seven minutes long, and provides ample data for measuring sales quality.

Co-keynoter Brendon Kraham, Global Mobile Sales and Product Strategy, noted that “mobile is changing the way that people interact. All mobile is new behavior,” he said. It is especially hyperlocal. Priceline, for instance, said that 65 percent of its people looked for deals within 20 miles, 35 percent within one mile and 85 percent of those searching for a deal with mobile used the deal within one day of a search.

“Discovery is critical,” he said. “If they build it, they will come.” Kraham also said that SMBs risk being left behind. Consumers are 18 months ahead of businesses in their embrace of mobile, he said.