Online travel companies often wonder if their mobile marketing campaigns are resulting in customer purchases.
Sometimes a real-world example can help show how mobile ads lead to conversions.
Starwood mobile marketing case study
In November 2009, Starwood Hotels & Resorts hired digital marketing agency Razorfish.
The companies analyzed the number and duration of calls to each brand, attributing a return on investment (ROI) to each brand campaign.
The companies also discovered how customers use mobile ads to call and find directions to properties. They used the information to use to place ads more effectively, so that they're communicating potential guests at the best time and place.
The breakthrough came when they began to insert click-to-call phone numbers and maps (with one-click driving directions) into their search ads.
These hyperlocal ads resulted in thousands of calls per month and boosted month-on-month mobile bookings by 20 times. Same-day bookings made up a sizeable chunk of these calls.
By 2012, click-to-call ads were driving a majority of mobile search bookings for Starwood, and mobile traffic to the company's branded sites had grown overall by about 200%.
By adding phone numbers and maps right in the ads, Starwood boosted its ROI on its mobile ads to a level that was higher than the company's ROI on its desktop marketing campaigns.
New calculator for planning mobile ads
You don't have to be the size of Starwood to need a mobile strategy, though.
Companies that buy Google AdWords sometimes struggle to figure out if their mobile advertising campaigns are leading to sales.
So Google has introduced an online calculator called "Full Value of Mobile" to help businesses large or small understand the ROI of their mobile ads.
NB: Images courtesy of Google's Mobile Playbook and Google's Starwood Case Study.