==This post has been previously published on Marketingfacts. ==

Last week I saw a TV commercial about a master class Mobile Marketing by business university Nyenrode and RTL Z, one of the biggest Dutch TV channels. In the commercial, a lady looked me straight in the eye and asked: "Do you want to know what kind of results online and mobile marketing can produce for you?". Given my profession, I was intrigued.

I couldn’t remember the specific URL mentioned in the TVC, so I started searching on my mobile device. My first query, ‘masterclass mobile marketing’ (master class is written as masterclass in Dutch), produced the results below. Two ads from a different university, but none from RTL Z or Nyenrode. I had to scroll down in the organic search results to see a hit for RTL Z.

To make the query a bit more specific, I added ‘RTL’. The results: still two ads from competing universities. In the organic results, I find a website by RTL. Just by looking at the title and visible URL, I can’t tell whether this is the page I’m looking for or not, but the text snippet leads me to believe this might be the page I’m looking for.

No harm done, but these are two lost opportunities in a row. By not buying ads for the non-branded term ‘masterclass mobile marketing’, a portion of the people searching for the master class will end up at one of the competitors’ websites, not at RTL Z’s.

Moreover, RTL could have made the title, visible URL and text snippet more appealing, if they would have advertised with the branded search query ‘RTL masterclass mobile marketing’. By doing so, they would have been able to optimize and regulate traffic for a relatively small budget. This could increase the CTR and the traffic to the website and, eventually, positively influence the amount of sign-ups.

If there’s a connection between your TV commercials and the number of search queries on your brand, I would suggest to at least advertise on Google around and during the time your TVC is broadcasted, using branded terms. Adjusting to your TVC broadcast schedule is very easy with custom ad scheduling. You can find the Ad schedule section at the settings of your campaign.

Using the adschedule button, you can specify the day and time you want your ads to be shown. Moreover, you can adjust your bidding price for device types. Research on TV attribution indicates that synergistic effects are best achieved when you combine TV with tablet and mobile. So that’s exactly where your ads should show up.

But hey, I found what I was looking for, or so I thought, so I clicked. Once again I got disappointed. The website was not optimized for mobile, nor was it responsive. Luckily, there was a video. A fine format for mobile devices. When I wanted to view the video, I got really sad. Instead of opening the video full screen on my iPhone, the thumbnail changed into a black box telling me to go download Silverlight. Not a hit, to be sure.

The text next to the video in the top image roughly translates to ‘75% of Dutch people use a smartphone. This offers marketeers plenty of opportunities to approach them in a new way.’.

I wasn’t expecting much at this point, so I wasn’t surprised to find that the sign-up form of the mobile master class wasn’t mobile-friendly either.

Of course RTL and Neyenrode aren’t the only ones that don’t have their mobile approach figured out. I see it happening all the time, and I could give you tons of examples. Even examples of big advertisers spending big on mobile advertising. But those parties aren’t advertising mobile marketing master classes on TV. You can organize master classes for all kinds of stuff, but you should really start with the basics yourself.

In conclusion: there is a lot to learn in the field of mobile marketing, but not from RTL and Neyenrode, so it seems.

Update: Nyenrode commented on this blog saying they are working on a new platform, and that the issues we pointed out will be fixed.

This post was translated by Siebe Hiemstra.