Google click-to-message search ads help consumers text businesses
Google is tapping into the rising number of consumers opting to message brands with questions with the roll out of a new click-to-message option enhancing its AdWords offering.
Click to message ad
When consumers tap the contact node (pictured above), the default SMS app will open with a pre-written message for the brand – such as “I’m interested in a reservation. Please text me back with more information.”
The new layer of intimacy, stoked with the chat, can potentially increase conversion rates.
On this, Amit Agarwal, senior product manager for mobile search ads at Google, said: “Mobile users have more flexibility than ever to choose how they want to connect with businesses. Through messaging, they can initiate valuable conversations with them by tapping into one of their most preferred modes of communication.”
Phillip Dyte, strategy director at iProspect, said: "Tactically speaking, this is a relatively straightforward product move, designed mainly to fill in some of the smaller gaps in the market and ensure that no opportunity goes unmissed."
"[the output looks to be] is small volume, high yield, and well-suited to service businesses. Certainly the extension is unlikely to do any harm and brands should always make sure they have all the brilliant basics in place. They’d also be advised to test copy here as behavioural economics features lots of smart ways to minimise the chances of conversational dead-ends."
Dyte added: "As time goes by the chances of the AI, query and service layers collapsing into one get increasingly high. In this context, it’s possible to interpret this simple ad extension as a subtle sign of things to come – one of only a handful of companies that increasingly stand as the omnipresent gatekeepers to everything else in the world.”
It comes after the company earlier this year completely relaunched AdWords to better develop multiscreen solutions.