Sonicko Consulting

Google today announced that Adwords now has the option to target customers on mobile devices such as the iPhone and G1 which offer HTML rendering of web pages. Specifically they state:

To target ads for G1 and iPhone, go to your campaign settings tab in your AdWords account. Then for the “Device Platform” option under “Networks and Bidding,” select “iPhones and other mobile devices with full internet browsers.” As additional devices that use full browsers enter the market, your ads will show on those phones, too. You can visit the AdWords Help Center for more detailed instructions and watch my video below for a quick demo. If you currently have an AdWords campaign running, by default your campaign will show ads on desktop and laptop computers, as well as iPhone and G1.

I have an iPhone, use it everyday and love it. I’m also an active Adwords advertiser and love the functionality that this offers, but don’t like the fact that I was automatically opted in with no notification of it occurring. Had I not been a blog reader this could have gone unnoticed until I looked at campaign settings. Here is a screenshot of what you’ll receive upon logging into your account:

Notice that the iPhone is automatically checked upon login. This is great if you have a particular client/site that it would work for. You do need to keep in mind that if you have flash on your landing page that the iPhone won’t render it properly and that e-commerce or lead generation may be difficult on such a small device. In that case those sites may want to create iPhone sites such as Walmart which automatically detects your browser and serves up a user experience unique to that phone. I see this as a great tool for local business ads, movies, or other brand awareness type of campaigns. My recommendation would be to create a separate campaign for the iPhone and see how it performs to be able to accurately measure the effectiveness of this form of advertising.