Google has been launching lots of products to carry its search dominance into a mobile world. Given that 4 out of 5 mobile minutes happen in-app, this sidesteps the very place where its dominance has been established: the browser. We recently had the chance to talk to Google about its vision (video below).

This ties in with things we’ve examined recently such as deep linking and push notifications. Google Now is also a key product the company is building for app-based local discovery and commerce. Many of these products were advanced and clarified during last week’s I/O conference.

Google’s Brendon Kraham is close to all of this, as the guy in charge of “building and developing Google’s next $1 Billion+ ad businesses.” That’s is obviously a big task and Kraham is examining lots of ways to extend Google’s capabilities, data and search dominance into this new mobile-oriented world.

In addition to the above products, this involves carrying forward Google’s legacy of innovation in performance-based local ads. In mobile, that translates to offline attribution, a la Estimated Total Conversions. This is just one way Google is planting its flag in the next decade’s ad equation.

“It’s still early, but I can see the future that is coming and even now we have the proxy metrics of ‘did somebody go into a store’,” Kraham told us, “and actually closing the loop with third party data partners for a store transaction. It just takes a bit more heavy lifting to get those insights.”

The video of his presentation and fireside chat is embedded below.

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We continue to see a shift from active search to passive discovery as smartphone usage itself grows. That’s especially true with local search, given that portability, location awareness and use case are more conducive to push-based content.

The ways in which this overall concept continue to evolve (and implications for advertisers) was the theme of a presentation I gave last week at Mobile Marketer’s FirstLook conference in New York. It’s being driven further by adjacent topics like mobile payments and push notifications.

One important area of this discussion is Google Now: the search giant’s most important and under-recognized initiative. It gets some recognition but not commensurate with the level to which it will determine Google’s ability to play in this discovery-based mobile world.

I plan to make my entire presentation (slides and voiceover) available here this week. In the meantime, you can read Mobile Marketer’s own coverage of the presentation. I’ve pasted a teaser and embedded video below, and the rest of the article can be read on Mobile Marketer.

NEW YORK – An analyst at Mobile Marketer’s Mobile FirstLook: Strategy 2015 conference said he expects Google Now to step up its use of targeted push notifications as search becomes more mobile application- and discovery-based to meet consumer demand for faster, more personal service.

The session, “Search: How Mobile is Redefining Search Across Smartphones and Tablets,” focused on how Google, rethinking its business model in the mobile context, as consumers searching via maps and voice commands, expect results to be instantaneous, local and clickable to a mobile site or phone number.

“Like Google does with a lot of things, I’m convinced Google Now will be more personalizing and pushing, really targeting messaging to users,” said Michael Boland, senior analyst and vice president of content with BIA/Kelsey.

“Google actually does the market a favor by experimenting on the scale it can do,” he said. “But it’s really worth watching for anyone interested in this kind of world of push-based notifications and more mobile signals to really get in front of users in more intuitive ways.”

Read the rest.

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We have all gotten used to looking at our phones and seeing several notifications on our home screens. From text messages, to emails, to sports updates, we are able to receive notifications for almost anything. More than ever, local businesses have apps that provide push notifications to consumers to encourage traffic.

— According to BIA/Kelsey’s Consumer Commerce Monitor ™, 35% of consumers who use smartphones when shopping locally regularly use apps to assist with their shopping experience. Most are not just using one shopping app either. On average consumers have 3.5 different apps they regularly use when shopping locally.

Push notifications have contributed substantially to app use in relation to local shopping due in part to the increase in engagement that happens once a consumer joins. According to the “Good Push Index” released by Urban Airship, on average mobile application users who have opted in to push messages have a long term retention rate that is 92% higher than those who have opted out of the messages. Not only is app retention substantially increased, but app engagement is also increased. Opt-in app users open retail apps 12.5 times per month on average compared with only 9.0 opens for those who opted not to receive push messages.

For marketers, the challenge is converting these consumers to buyers. In the local shopping space, according to BIA/Kelsey data, promotion and sales for local shoppers close the loop. Coupon reminders are a popular use of push notifications for retail apps.

According to BIA/Kelsey’s Consumer Commerce Monitor, 43% of local purchases made by smartphone users within the last six months were made through promotions or sales, such as discount deals, “daily deals”, coupons, or similar types of discount offers. Thirty-six percent of respondents to RadiumOne’s survey of women and their use of coupons on their mobile devices felt that push notifications of mobile coupon offers were useful.

Geo-targeting these coupon push notifications is important to drive purchases from local shoppers, especially smartphone users who are using their phones for local shopping in a variety of locations. Most importantly this includes 68% of smartphone users using their phones in the store, according to BIA/Kelsey data. We can also see that smartphone users are often on their phones when they are out and about. With 68% of smartphone users using their smartphones in public and 60% using them in transit, geo-targeting would prove to be highly effective in encouraging nearby consumers to pay more attention to the local businesses around them.

While the future of mobile push notifications is uncertain, BIA/Kelsey’s Mike Boland gives us his prediction in his blog post, BIA/Kelsey Mobile Outlook: 5 Predictions and a Wild Card.

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