Google has announced a new conversion tracking metric for AdWords: reporting for calls placed from mobile pages. As mobile usage skyrockets, and smartphone use in particular, this should be an increasingly important metric to track for many businesses. “Mobile advertising …

Google’s mobile display ads are getting +1 buttons, according to a post to the Google Mobile Ads blog, which came through the RSS feeds, but is not live on the actual blog. The button will appear on the left side …

Which platform dominates your state? For me, it’s iOS. But for most of my relatives it would be Android. Mobile advertising company Jumptap has released their Mobile STAT (Simple Targeting & Audience Trends) report for July. The report discusses mobile …

Millennial Media has released its latest monthly SMART report, looking at the mobile advertising landscape. The report looks at the top verticals (six of which had triple digit growth YoY).

The feature is available on Google Maps for Mobile versions 4.4 and above on Android devices. 

Google is talking about how the click-to-call ads it introduced earlier this year are reducing acquisition costs for advertisers.  The company points to a case study from Esurance.

Google has announced a new location extensions ad format with map features. Businesses can feature their locations and phone numbers on an expandable map ad that can appear on mobile sites and apps in the Google Display Network.

This format shows up as a banner text ad with a business icon that expands to show the business location on a Google map, including ad creative, a click-to-call phone number and an option to get directions.

A new report from Appssavvy claims that "virtual goods may be bringing the largest disruption entertainment, communication and e-commerce infrastructure companies have seen for a long time." The company’s research found that leveraging social activity around virtual goods has been successful in building brand awareness, influencing positive opinion about products, and even driving purchase intent.