LOS ANGELES ? A Microsoft Advertising executive who keynoted the Mobile Marketing Association's Mobile Marketing Forum stressed the importance of shaping a mobile search strategy to help consumers make decisions.

Consumers spend 13.1 hours a week on average using mobile non-voice services. Comparatively, consumers use the PC Web for 19.5 hours and watch television for 16.2 hours a week. Jamie Wells, director of global trade marketing at Microsoft Advertising, Redmond, WA, said that in order to get the most reach, a multiscreen engagement strategy is ideal.

?PC and mobile equals total audience immersion,? Mr. Wells said. ?Web access peaks during the day when people are at work in front of their PC and mobile access peaks after hours, when people are not in front of their PCs.?

Search is important in mobile 
There are fundamental differences between mobile search and PC search.

The most obvious difference is the context that mobile brings.

PC searchers are at their desk and mobile searchers are in the car, on the go or even in a store.

Mobile technology advances, and features such as touch screen, voice search, location data and visual camera search really change the playing field.

But there are constraints as well. Screen size, battery life, processor speed, memory and network bandwidth are constraints.

Another difference between PC and mobile search is the time it takes a consumer to begin and complete their search for specific information. Mobile consumers tend to act quickly.

?Mobile search usage is more local and commerce related,? Mr. Wells said. ?More so than the PC searchers.?

Mr. Wells stressed the importance of shaping a mobile search strategy to help consumers make decisions.

?For someone searching for a restaurant to go to on a Friday night, if you are a restaurant, your SEM for mobile should connect the searcher with restaurant reviews, your menu, anything that is going to help them decide to come and eat at your restaurant,? Mr. Wells said. 

?But also, the mobile search results need to be location aware,? he said. ?If you are in New York, you don?t want info on a restaurant in Santa Monica.?

For retailers this strategy works as well. Retailers need to use mobile search to connect consumers to price comparison information, product information, anything to help move a consumer through the purchase funnel.

Mobile search needs to help consumers make decisions.

RW Lynch
RW Lynch is a firm of local personal injury attorneys.

Per Mr. Wells, they are big buyers of search inventory online.

The aim for them with mobile search was to gain incremental reach for the InjuryHelpLine program and drive increased consultation sign-up for their network of local personal injury attorneys.

Microsoft?s Bing encouraged the company to use both a click-to-call and click-to-Web mobile search in a campaign that centered on mobile-focused keywords to drive inquiries.

Bing for Mobile achieved a cost-per-acquisition that was 30 percent lower than other mobile search providers.

GMC Terrain
With GMC Terrain, the brand wanted to increase brand favorability and purchase intent.

GMC sponsored the MSNBC mobile application across multiple devices.

The brand ran behavioral targeted banners on Windows Live Hotmail and Messenger. Mobile media was also placed on the Verizon deck and on the Business and Money sections and MSN mobile.

The campaign resulted in a 44 percent lift in purchase intent.

Also, the banners were seen by 1 million unique users resulting in 77 percent of those users expressing interest in purchasing a GMC terrain.

?In-app ads let brands target consumers that are tech savvy,? Mr. Wells said. ?Behavioral and geo-targeting is available in-app as well.

?To download an app in Windows Phone Marketplace, you have to register and that info is then used to serve targeted and relevant ads to consumers,? he said.