As mobile devices continue to outnumber personal computers, the user experience on a mobile device will need to adapt to these smaller screens. Advertisers who properly design and plan their mobile experience will develop more loyal and satisfied customers.

Mobile advertising design needs to account for a small screen with users who have a short attention span. When properly designed, this mobile advertising will engage the users with the advertiser’s product to increase conversion rates.

Desktop advertising or poorly designed mobile advertising result in lower conversion rates for the product and a negative perception of the advertiser. According to a Compuware report, “57% of users would not recommend a business with a bad mobile site.”

This image taken courtesy of Mobile Advertising Apps, shows Domino’s mobile optimized site compared to their standard site.

Aarki guidelines and tips:

• Resize the advertisement to fit the device as constant pinching and zooming causes hand cramps that take valuable concentration and time away from the user.

• Focus on the information that will aid in conversion. Resizing leads to less room for content. A mobile ad cannot have as much content as a desktop ad. Make sure users are not overwhelmed with information by reducing large blocks of text in exchange for easy-to-follow bullet points.

• Prioritize content and features for mobile users by using site analytics to learn the behavior and characteristics of mobile users.

• Use HTML5 for animation as Flash does not work on all mobile devices.

• Adapt advertisements for vertical and horizontal orientations.

• Reduce the number of steps required to complete the action. Minimize the amount of fill-ins for users and aim to imbed multiple pages with reminders of the positive effects users will receive from each respective offer

• Compress images to keep them small for faster site loading.

• Do not overlook the time it takes to load an ad. Users expect ads to load as quickly as its desktop version (three seconds or less). Ads that transfer users to a non-optimized site or desktop browser will not convert as well.

• Use check boxes, lists, or scroll screens to make data entry easy.

A mobile advertisement needs to capture the attention of the user at first glance. Users need to quickly see what is offered and have direct call-to-action buttons at their fingertips. By doing so, conversion rates for these advertisements will increase. Learn how Aarki can help such advertisers in Part II of this series later in the month.