By now everyone is aware that Google will be including AdWords advertisements within Google Mobile Search results. But having already tested mobile beta services for Google Mobile Adwords – BKI Media can show that this apparent “free” upgrade which will require consumers to “opt-out” is nothing more than clever revenue driving technique.

In our (BKI Media) mobile AdWords campaign** the average PPC rate is merely USD 0.05 to USD 0.07 per click. This implies that almost no other campaigns were bidding on the same keyword (mobile, mobile search, mobile analysis, ads…) which is why we can see a rank of 1.1. The inverse of this is that it clearly shows that Google’s collection of advertisers is sufficiently small and that there is very little competition.

Moreover, and more concerning,

1. The creative chosen by the advertiser to being edited by Google, without opt-in by the advertiser.  Google ads are three lines of text plus the URL.  On 98% of phones, Google will only show the first line and the URL. 

2.  The landing page is being edited by Google.  So far, the word “adapted” from Google has been viewable via their transcoder.  So if the advertiser’s page doesn’t include a lot of Flash or isn’t just a PDF, it’s “adaptable”.  Thus the advertiser loses control of the look and feel of the click-through behavior.  That’s what the advertiser is paying for!

3. If this were opt-in, and if that opt-in checkbox was clear in the true “adapted” experience from a feature phone, then this might not look so unethical.  Certainly this is far from not being “evil” to Google’s half million customers, a.k.a. advertisers.  This is equivalent of the New York Times (or any newspaper) charging their print advertisers extra for the number of online readers, and simply shrinking the print ad into a banner.  Or CNN charging their TV advertisers for viewership from CNN.com, and showing 30 second TV ads on CNN.com video snippets.  Advertisers, like most customers, like to agree to what they are buying, the polar opposite of having to opt-out being charged extra for unwanted goods.

If anything, this shows that Google has been unable to duplicate its success at signing mobile advertisers or converting online advertisers to create mobile campaigns.  It reminds me of their updated mobile search offering, which merged Mobile Web into Web, as they couldn’t seem to come up with a good Mobile Web engine given PageRank doesn’t work in mobile yet.

More in AdMob vs Google Mobile vs Decktrade…. In Mobile 2.0 (formerly Mobile Advertising and Marketing Analyst).

** because this chart shows all our bidding and impressions and payment summary – I will publish it on our Mobile 2.0 site and not in the blog.