1. CASE STUDY | GOOGLE MOBILE ADS
Corcoran Drives App Downloads Through
Advertising on Mobile Apps
Realizing Dreams for Living
AT A GLANCE
The Corcoran Group has grown and evolved since it was founded in 1973 by Barbara
Corcoran. Initially serving only Manhattan and Brooklyn, over the years Corcoran has
Goals expanded into other luxury markets in the Hamptons and South Florida. It is now the
• Grow audience for their new largest real estate firm in New York City with over 2,000 agents in more than 25
iPhone app and increase offices across its various markets.
downloads
Technology Thought Leadership
Approach
• Google Mobile Ads on Apps A true technology innovator in the real estate
targeting iPhones on the industry, Corcoran launched one of the first real
Google Content Network estate websites, corcoran.com back in 1995.
Today, it is an award-winning industry resource,
attracting over 3.5 million unique visitors per
Results
month.
• Click-through rates (CTR) 8
to 10 times higher than
desktop campaigns Staying one step ahead of the competition,
• Drove an estimated 20% of
Corcoran saw the opportunity to use mobile apps as
total app downloads a key marketing tool moving forward. In 2009,
they developed a location-based mobile app to
offer their clients rich location information such as
nearby properties for sale or rent, open houses.
“Developing a mobile app was really quite a natural
fit,” explains Matthew Shadbolt, the Director of
Internet Marketing who manages Corcoran’s online
advertising strategy, “We are in an industry that’s all
about location, location, location. We want
Corcoran to be accessible to our clients wherever
they are.”
Corcoran further populated the app with local lifestyle and neighborhood content,
providing users a real sense of what it’s like to live in the area, complete with
shopping, nightlife and dining experiences. Additionally, Corcoran made it easy for
users to get in touch with an agent directly from the application.
The Power of Online
Corcoran has an integrated marketing strategy that relies on both print and online
advertising. The ability to measure online campaigns with Google AdWords has really
demonstrated the power of online advertising. “Performance of print is hard to track…
online advertising allows much better tracking and intelligence,” says Christina Lowris,
Corcoran’s Executive Vice President of Advertising and Marketing.
To build out their mobile app audience, Corcoran knew that online advertising would
play a crucial rule in getting downloads for their mobile app. Shadbolt decided to
extend their existing AdWords strategy to the mobile platform. “We knew that mobile
[advertising] was going to be part of our strategy to grow our app user base. When we
started developing our iPhone app, we were already thinking about how to promote
within mobile.”
© Copyright 2010. Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.

2. CASE STUDY | GOOGLE MOBILE ADS
Optimizing for Apps
About Google AdWords
Based on Google Analytics data, Corcoran saw that the majority of their apps users
Google AdWords™ is a were based in the New York area. Shadbolt set up a geo-targeted mobile ads
performance-based campaign in AdWords for the New York City metro and targeted iPhones to promote
advertising program that downloads of their new app.
enables businesses large and
small to advertise on Google
Taking advantage of the entire
and its network of partner
websites. Hundreds of Google Content Network,
thousands of businesses Shadbolt tested mobile ads
worldwide use AdWords for placements across search,
text, image, and video ads content, and apps networks. Shadbolt discovered that mobile image banner ads on
priced on a cost-per-click mobile apps performed the best, “CTR was off the charts in terms of impressions
(CPC) and cost-per delivered."
impression (CPM) basis. Built
on an auction-based system, Additionally, AdWords provided Shadbolt the right performance information to
AdWords is a highly optimize their campaign, "we were able to shift ad dollars on the fly, allowing us to
quantifiable and cost effective
capitalize on what is absolutely working. I'm really impressed with the flexibility about
way to reach potential
what's possible with Google."
customers. For more
information, visit
http://adwords.google.com. Impressive Results
Tracking results from Corcoran's online campaign show that investments in mobile
have paid off. “CTR with Google mobile ads [for apps] is consistent and often even
better that what we currently see online [on desktop],” Shadbolt says, “CTR when
compared to desktop is on average 8 to 10 times higher.”
With the app being used over 50,000 times and downloads pacing about 1,000 per
week, even more notable was the number of conversions. Shadbolt explains,
“generating a number of clicks was great, but even more impressive, was the direct
effect on app downloads.”
With an estimated 20% of Corcoran app
downloads coming from the Google AdWords
mobile apps campaign, Shadbolt is thrilled, “we’ve
had a lot of fun doing the [mobile] ad campaign
and are happy with how it’s transitioned,” says
Shadbolt, “It complements everything that we are
doing.”
Corcoran continues to be at the forefront of new
ideas, looking to experiment with advertising real
estate listings in mobile apps. “We are learning
that [mobile] is a very powerful approach to
marketing the properties themselves,” says
Shadbolt of their desktop search ad campaigns.
“[Since] we’ve seen a really positive response
from advertising on [mobile] apps, [we] hope to
develop a similar strategy with [property] listings.”
© Copyright 2010. Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.