Mobile Search

Organic's SVP of analytics, media and marketing optimization Steve Kerho discusses best practices and challenges in marketing's evolution.

Two-thirds of all purchases and half of transactions will occur on mobile devices by 2015, Google executives said February 4. Consumer coupons will also transition from their current rate of 80% push to 80% opt-in four years from now, said David Shapiro, Google's director of small business marketing.

To take advantage of consumers' desire for bargains this holiday season, search-focused sites are beefing up their price-comparison engines with enhancements such as better images, more reviews and easier-to-find coupons. TheFind.com has debuted a search format that helps consumers more quickly find coupons, while Ask.com has launched a coupon deals feature. Google Product Search, meanwhile, has updated its capabilities.

Microsoft is beefing up its mobile advertising offering with a destination called "Microsoft Mobile Marketplaces." Rolled out a month ago, the site was announced on a Microsoft blog this week. It aims to combine search and display ads to increase their performance.

Yahoo on Tuesday debuted a new feature that enables people to opt out of mobile ads that are based on behavioral targeting. The announcement was made on its Yahoo Policy Blog and is the Web portal's latest effort toward its commitment to consumer data privacy.

V-Enable, a local search company, has extended its partnership with InfoGroup in a push for growth. The company will now be appending InfoUSA's database — which includes more than 14 million US businesses and 137 million consumers — to its products in an effort to improve the accuracy and depth of its local search offerings.