Google warns publishers: ‘You’ve got one shot on your mobile website’
The global director of online partnerships for Google Scott Sheffer has warned Australian publishers only have one shot at getting their mobile site right or they will lose out to their competitors.
Speaking to Mumbrella during a short visit to Sydney, Sheffer also highlighted advercasting, where advertisers and users come together to create content, as the new battlefield for publishers to master.
Scott Sheffer
“It’s a multi-device multi-screen world and if you don’t have a publishing strategy to reach your users wherever they are, whenever they want, you’re going to fall behind,” he said.
“Often, and especially for our small and medium partners, you’ve got one shot on your mobile website – the first time when someone comes to visit – and if it’s not a good experience, they might never come back.”
With Australians spending around 77 per cent of time browsing the web on a tablet or mobile device, Sheffer said it is important publishers have an app, mobile site or responsive design to ensure users have a “great experience on their website”.
He also claimed consumers are expecting more personalisation and targeting for their adverts, and said publishers should be making more use of programmatic technology with just 15 per cent of digital display sold through programmatic, compared to 28 per cent in the US last year, although Sheffer said he expects this to grow to around a third within two years in Australia.
Google is the largest player in the programatic space in Australia with it’s DoubleClick offering, while plans between the four biggest publishers in Australia to launch a rival exchange appear to have fallen through for the time being at least.
“You don’t necessarily have to go the whole hog,” he said. “We’re not suggesting at all that you want to eliminate your direct sales team because there’s a huge amount of value that your direct sales team drives from these customised sponsorship deals from a high value inventory.
“But find some way of testing out programmatic and use the controls, the targeting and the capability.It’s a matter of finding which model works best for you as a publisher, what works for your vision of what your publication actually is. So experimenting with it and finding how it will work for you is probably my piece of advice.”
Another key trend in digital advertising is advercasting, Sheffer said, as it invites people viewing the ad to also become part of the conversation about it. And to illustrate that point he gave the example of the Nissan Juke music video campaign, which saw the carmaker engage with fans for an interactive Instagram video (see below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iejeXAgEFyM
“As an Australian publisher, I would be thinking; how do I engage with my users and how do I invite advertisers in for that conversation?” he said.
“If you look at the three trends from a publishing perspective you have got to be aware that everyone is out there trying to connect with your users and you need to find a way to engage with your users.”
When asked how Google sees itself and its relationship with publishers Sheffer said: “There wouldn’t be a web without our partners, so clearly this is a collaborative game for us. We want to make sure that our publishing partners succeed and part of that is to figure out a way that we could work together to make the web successful for everybody.
“In every sphere of commerce there’s going to be friction points, but what we’re trying to do, especially with the DoubleClick platform, in this case, is to find a way to help partners succeed with their business and to grow their business in this new world. The era of acceleration where everyone’s always connected.
“So we compete in some areas and we collaborate in other areas and I think our partners recognise that and respect us for it. We certainly have a huge amount of respect and admiration for what the publishing partners are able to do with the creation of content and engaging our users.
“So from our perspective it’s an ecosystem and we want a thriving ecosystem and Google and our publishing partners are absolutely essential parts of that business.”
Megan Reynolds
