Digital marketing agency Razorfish and Starwood Hotels & Resorts began running hyperlocal Google mobile search ads in November 2009.

“We slowly began dipping our toe in the mobile space simply because it’s sometimes difficult to track performance as we do with desktop campaigns.” says Michelle Ogle, Digital Marketing and Affiliate Strategy Manager for Starwood Hotels & Resorts. “However, with our mobile search ad campaigns, we gained precise insight into the number and duration of calls to each brand.”

Working together, the Starwood Hotels & Resorts and the Razorfish team launched search ads with click-to-call (CTC) and location extensions, providing potential guests easy access to location-specific, clickable phone numbers to book their stay and map information to access directions to the hotel location. “Implementing click-to-call and location extensions simultaneously boosted ROI and improved user experience,” says Amos Ductan, Senior Search Manager at Razorfish. “Mobile users are 20 times more likely to click on a map than desktop users and people who make a call are much more likely to convert. Ad extensions improved both conversions and customer experience.”

Case Study Results

The combination of click-to-call and location ad extensions resulted in an increase in mobile paid search ROI, with CTC now driving a majority of Starwood hotel’s mobile search bookings. Additionally, Starwood hotel’s hyperlocal mobile search campaign resulted in:

• 20x increase in mobile paid search ROI
• Mobile booking growth of 20% month over month
• 200% increase in mobile traffic

Looking Forward

With the tremendous success of their mobile paid search campaigns, Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Razorfish are looking for innovative ways to engage with potential guests on mobile by making use of engaging ad formats such as video and other rich media. “With the effectiveness of the mobile platform validated, we plan to continue exploring all the ways mobile and Google can improve upon our customer experience through cutting-edge executions such as rich media,” explains Ogle. “We’re pleased with our results and are excited to continue to see the growth of travel planning and booking through mobile.”

Read more about the Starwood Case Study on the Google Mobile Blog or download the full case study.

If the internet is making brands more accessible, shouldn’t modern brands act like real friends, real partners, and encourage real dialogue? This is why modern brands must be “always on” or “always there.”

Traditional branding consisted of laser-focused messaging and execution according to a well-crafted, yet ever-changing, media plan, the brand-to-consumer bible of sorts. As in, we do our branding in these channels during these times (and we really hope our target consumer listens).

That’d be like calling up my most trusted friend and having him say, “Oooh sorry, Nick. I’m actually only flighted between August and November. Please check back then.”

If modern brands are built around purpose, then it’s time we act like it. Agencies and marketers, more than ever, are the modern brand. Our voices are the brand voice.

What are those moments that consumers turn to us? When must we be present, regardless of scale? For modern brands, which is more important: mass exposure to a passive audience, or always being there for a captive audience? The answer is both… for now.

Your “always there” brand does need to prioritize somewhat, though. To begin the modernization of your brand, you still have to allocate marketing dollars strategically. The following will lay out five stepping stones for the modernization of your “always there” brand.

To start, build a solid foundation for your modern brand in your website. Think of your website as your modern brand’s home. When you invite guests to your home, there are certain expectations from your guests and certain manners the host should demonstrate. Remember the above: you are the brand you “manage”, so these certainties should not change. Also remember, from a previous post, the concept of bridge mediums in Digital Branding, the mediums that take your consumer from their home to your brand’s home.

Next, a mixture of bought and earned media: Search, Display, Social, and Mobile. Why these four buckets? Because your consumer, almost regardless of demographic or industry, spends the vast majority of their time interacting in these environments. This enables your modern brand to meet the “always there” standards. Wherever and whenever your consumer is in need, your brand is “always there.”

Modern brand communication platforms are perfect blends of bought, owned, and earned media. And the key concept behind these platforms is the purpose to be “always there.”

So, when your brand receives a call from your consumer, are you there to answer the call?

The Wall Street Journal reports that the second iteration of the fastest selling Apple product of all time has begun production. After selling 14.8 million iPads in 2010, the technology giant needs to fend off an increasing amount of competitors like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, Motorola Xoom, and the HP Slate. IDC,  a Global Marketing Intelligence Firm, predicts 30 million iPads will be sold in 2011. According to WSJ, here is what “people familiar with the matter” had to say about a new version coming out:

“The new device will be thinner, lighter and will come with a faster processor, more memory and a more powerful graphics processor . . . It will have a front-facing camera for the first time for features like video-conferencing, but the resolution of the new iPad’s display will be similar to the first iPad.”

iOS 4.3 is expected to come out in this week with new features for both the iPhone and iPad. The developer pack eludes to wireless syncing, Photobooth, personal wi-fi hotspot and a front facing camera for the new iPad. Another exciting feature is photo streams that friends will be able to follow, much like Instagram and PicPlz. All of these features come together to offer high engagement with our mobile devices and opportunities for brands to connect with their customers. Advertisers will have no shortage of ways to engage customers but will need to pick the ones that will increase brand affinity and potentially lifetime value.

By now everyone knows that the Giants knocked out their fifth quarterback of the season Monday night. Dallas QB Tony Romo is out for the rest of the season because he broke his left clavicle.

As the story was developing during the Giants’ 41-35 win over the Cowboys Monday night, my group of friends debated what a clavicle was. And by debate, I mean that I was doubting my friend’s assertion that clavicle was the medical name for collarbone (because, let’s face it, why mess with the name collarbone).

My iPhone came to the rescue. I searched for ‘clavicle’ on Google and my argument was quickly put down: clavicle is indeed the medical name for collarbone. But what was most interesting about my search experience is that Google Latest Results showed Tweets about Romo’s injury – on the keyword ‘clavicle’ – I didn’t even have to search for “romo clavicle.”

Disclosure: the Search Shots blog editors are huge NY Giants fans.  We reserve the right to expunge any and all mentions of turnovers and interceptions in our NFL coverage.

He’s got flowers, one tooth and what looks like a green roof.

Announcing: the Updated Google SEO Starter Guide!

Google recently updated its handy SEO Starter Guide, first published in 2008.  The refreshed guide is very similar to its predecessor but with some timely, new additions and a cute new mascot.  It’s easier to read, with more images, better explanations, an SEO glossary and a new section devoted to mobile search.

Who’s it for?  The guide offers something for most experience levels such as SEO beginners, webmasters, brand managers or anyone interested in Google and how it works.  You can download the PDF offered by Google here.

What got better?  Enhancements can be found throughout the document referring to new tools and code that have been accepted since the 2008 publication.  The additions include:

• The canonical tag
• Adding image XML sitemaps
• SEO for mobile phones

The Canonical Tag

The canonical tag was introduced in early 2009 to help alleviate duplicate content problems – a core issue for many sites when more than one URL on a single domain hosts the same content (or largely similar content) forcing a site to compete with itself.

Example: <link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish” />

The use of a canonical tag is a hint to the search engines as to which URL should be returned in the organic search results and provide webmasters with more control over the URLs that are displayed.

XML Sitemaps

XML sitemaps were still somewhat new in 2008, when the original Google SEO Starter Guide was published. Now they are an expected way of informing search engines which URLs to index and recently are able to inform search engines of vertical search assets such as images and videos.

SEO for Mobile Phones

The SEO for Mobile Phones section is particularly helpful for anyone with a mobile site or considering the addition of one. Often, when mobile sites are created, they fail to redirect mobile users or search engines to the mobile-specific site. The guide offers good information on submitting a mobile site to Google as well as best practices for directing mobile users (and mobile search engine bots) to the right content.