Mountain View, California – Fat fingers have literally…burnt holes out of advertisers’ mobile budgets. Well, how many times have you accidentally clicked on a mobile display ad, when you actually meant to hit the adjacent content on that tiny phone screen? With increasing number of touch screen devices over the past few years, mobile advertising has become a key marketing tool. Now, in order to avoid the untoward glitch, Google has launched a “confirmed clicks” attribute for all in-app image and banner ads on smartphones, in an effort to reduce the number of accidental clicks the ads attract.
With the recent boom of mobile devices, mobile advertising has become a key marketing tool. For people on the go, modern mobile gadgets like smartphones and tablets make it easy to surf the Web from anywhere, but the trade off on those smaller screens is that you sometimes tap a link or ad that you did not mean to hit.
Google feels your pain; and is trying to tackle the problem with new “confirmed click” functionality for its in-app mobile display ads on smartphones in order to minimize the likelihood of an accidental “fat finger” click. Users will be prompted to confirm that they intended to click on ads.
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Elaborating on the newly released concept, the company executive said, “Ads on smartphones are effective, but many of us have at some point clicked on an ad by accident, which ultimately is a bad experience for the user, the publisher, and the advertiser who pays for clicks that may not be valuable,” says Allen Huang, Product Manager, Mobile Display Ads. “Our team has been analyzing the types of ad formats where accidental clicks are more likely to occur due to ad layout and placement, and are constantly looking at ways that we can combat them.”
Regardless of an industry wide commitment to enhancing mobile advertising services, there is one problem that plagues all mobile marketing platforms: the way ads are designed. But, companies like Facebook, Apple and Samsung have all introduced their own mobile-based marketing platforms.
More so, Google not wanting to be left out of the party, has also embarked on to tap into the mobile marketing realm by adding mobile advertising tools to their web-based empire. In 2011, they launched Mobile Now!, an advertising initiative, while earlier this year they invested in a mobile analytics company.
Now, going forward, when Google detects that a person clicks on the outer edge of an ad unit – potentially meaning to click on adjacent content – the user will be prompted to verify that he actually meant to click on the ad. Google will display a “Visit site” prompt on a blue background that you will have to tap to continue to the advertiser’s website. If not, they will go back to whatever game they were playing or article they were reading. So no more accidental pop-ups or time-consuming redirects when you were just trying to scroll through a page.
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“We find that most accidental clicks on in-app image ads happen on the border of the ad unit, likely when you are trying to click or scroll to nearby content,” adds Huang. “Now if you click on the outer border of the ad, we will prompt you to verify that you actually meant to click on the ad to learn more.”
According to Web search giant Google, claims that initial tests has show that confirmed clicks “notably” raise mobile conversion rates, though click-through rates have substantially decreased, as accidental clicks are eliminated.
The company maintains that this is just the beginning in its fight against “the fat finger” problem, and that it will face new challenges as devices continue to converge.