If you are a PPC buyer, or even thinking of starting in the PPC game, you need to have mobile ads on your mind in a big way. Here’s a short checklist to get your mobile PPC game plan ready.

1 – Start With The User

Create a landing page specifically for mobile users. Plain and simple. If you have never experienced your landing page on a smart phone browser, borrow someones phone and take a look at it. As an alternative you can also test your lander on a mobile emulator such as Opera Mini’s Simulator and TestiPhone.com. How was the user experience? Did you feel prompted to take the call to action you created for your user or did you just want to GTFO? Was the page rendered for native viewing on the device, or was it a case of multi-touch zoom and scroll that nightmares are made of? Was it easy to enter all data required, or did your form of 50 required fields suddenly seem a lot more tedious than it does on a desktop workstation? These are some pretty heavy questions that can make or break a PPC campaign for a mobile device. If if you aren’t buying mobile PPC yet, take a look at the types of browsers being used in your analytics tool or weblog analyzer and you may be surprised at how many mobile users are already visiting your pages. Get a mobile version of your site ready as soon as possible.

2 – Extend Current Media Buys

If you already have a history with Google Adwords or Microsoft Advertising, leverage that relationship to get started with mobile advertising. The reps of both companies have been working hard at preparing tools and resources for mobile advertisers knowing this was the future of marketing. Contact your rep, let them know you are interested in mobile advertising and ask for some direction. The materials and advice they give you directly are worthwhile and can potentially save you time and money in preparing a campaign and testing. With their help you’ll be able to create new PPC campaigns exclusively for mobile traffic within your existing accounts.

3 – Advertise Within Apps

Recently Google acquired AdMob, a PPC and display based advertising network within mobile apps and mobile pages. Eventually it is expected that AdMob will be integrated into the AdWords platform, but in the meantime you can still create an account and get started within their network. Ironically, Apple also acquired a mobile ad network: Quattro Wireless. While it’s still undetermined whether or not Apple will combine their new advertising company with their app developer community, any advertiser can still get in and create an account. There are several other advertising networks out there, some focus specifically on certain smart phone platforms than others, but if you get up and running with AdMob and Quattro, you’re reach will extend into the majority of the mobile user base.

4 – End With The User

After all your campaigns are setup and running, test and test again. Test different ads and optimize your conversion page. See Rule Number 1.

As a PPC marketer, it’s easy to dismiss mobile ad buys. I know, I did it. But with margins beginning to shave and click costs still on the rise in the current PPC ecosystem, it would be very smart for marketers to prepare and adapt in advance of the upcoming shift in PPC user behavior, instead of waiting until the last minute and trying to play catch-up to those who already evolved. Traditional PPC will always be around, but the mobile space will be the larger play in PPC marketing within the next 5 years. Bank on it.

Jason Murphy