How Independent Practices Can Leverage Google’s Growing Mobile Ad Formats

By JOHN SUNG KIM Google’s stock price recently jumped by nearly 15% in a single day based on results that showed its intensive push into mobile ads is starting to generate meaningful revenues. This is important for doctors as recent stats from the company show that the majority of searches are now conducted on mobile devices, a medium that Google previously displayed very little paid advertising on. The mobile ad format represents a new opportunity for some specialties, and a potential threat to those that ignore these growing trends as more independent practices begin investing in online advertising and Google Adwords (a pay per click advertising platform that accounts for the bulk of Google’s revenues). In this example of a Google mobile search for dentists in the San Francisco area, there are a number of local practices competing for advertising space. The mobile ad format is obviously different than desktop-based ads because the real estate for eyeballs is so much smaller on a smartphone. Here, we can see that the ads take up nearly the entire screen on a regular sized iPhone 5. Notice that Google has a link to the local listing on Google Maps, as well as an easy way for the patient to ‘Tap-to-Call’ a practice. For the dental specialty, due to the sheer volume of practices competing for such a small dimension ad format, the price per click can be quite high. In the San Francisco market (a highly competitive locale) the price per click can be as high as $14 per cl...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Tech THCB John Sung Kim Source Type: blogs