Clicks on mobile adverts constituted nearly 12% of all paid search clicks in June this year, according to a study by Performics. Interestingly over 13% of clicks on mobile devices came from tablets.

The question many small and medium businesses will be asking themselves is whether they should jump on the bandwagon and buy ads to be displayed on such gadgets?

Having a good knowledge of your target market is crucial to making this decision. If your product or service is directed at people who would not normally browse the internet on mobile devices, then it may not be the right investment for you to make.

However, it is probably fair to say that most e-commerce businesses right now will have some customers they want to reach through mobile advertising.

As with promotion geared towards PC or laptop users there are several companies you can use to help create and distribute your mobile ads. Both Google and Microsoft offer such services, alongside other, smaller providers. Ideally, you should use a company which is best able to reach your target consumer.

Remember to keep mobile campaigns separate from regular online ads. This is because people use mobile search differently than if they were using full screen browsers. Hence the messages you send out in some online ads may not have as much impact when displayed on smartphones or tablets.

When writing text ads you should remember that search queries on mobiles are usually much shorter, so your target keywords should reflect this. The actual paid search results and other adverts will also be much smaller, so the same design or length of slogans you use for PC’s may not work on phones or tablets.

Research has also shown that adverts for low-cost items which can be expected to be bought instantly work much better, so you may want to keep that in mind when choosing products to be promoted this way.

Knowing what your competitors do can help you devise your own strategy. You may want to avoid targeting the same keywords; you could however advertise on similar websites. When doing such research try and see how much you will need to spend to make a desired impact and make sure that you have the needed funds.

Additionally, you could start monitoring how many of your visitors use mobile devices and how many have used mobile search to find you.

Mobile advertising is set to continue growing and even if right now you think that it would not be beneficial to your business, you should nonetheless familiarise yourself with its possibilities.

Latest YouGov survey showed that a third of respondents currently using regular mobiles plan to get smartphones next time they upgrade. Sales of tablets also continue to soar. This means that even more people will be able to browse and purchase through such gadgets.

Now is surely the right time to really consider tapping into that pool of potential customers with targeted mobile advertising.