• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 18, 2015

The ability to "boost" a product to the top of search query results on a retailer's mobile site and app became possible this week through a feature that Point Inside calls StoreBoost. The advertising tool allows a brand to boost its product ad to the top of the retailer's mobile site and app alongside organic results.

The tool comes as part of the company's StoreMode platform. Mike McMurray, SVP of marketing and business operations at Point Inside, declined to talk about the cost, but he says brands can "pay for a limited time to have their ads appear at the top of the results" on retail mobile sites and apps using the platform.

"With more traffic moving to mobile phones without a lot of real estate or space, marketers see the opportunity for revenue start to decline," McMurray says.

Retailers can offer brands the ability to purchase category-specific and product-specific keywords that it will boost within the retailer's branded mobile app search and autocomplete results, which allows the system to pair a boosted suggestion with a related term in the search type-ahead field.

"About 50% of shoppers will make a selection from the autocomplete function after typing in five letters or less," McMurray says, referencing internal data.

Since the advertisements are based on store-specific products, brands can target keyword, products, and the locations where they want to engage shoppers on mobile. The platform also supports engagement reporting, so the retailer and brands can monitor the frequency of when results are boosted and the impact on engagement with boosted products.

McMurray says Lowe's, and Target, among others, use the StoreMode, which allows consumers to search for products on the app within the store to find the product on the self, but declined to say if any use StoreBoost.