The mobile ads are running in the WeatherBug iPhone application. Home Depot has turned to targeted mobile advertising in the past for season and event-specific promotions.

“I do think that mobile ads are effective in driving early year sales for the Home Depot as consumers are increasingly engaged on their mobile devices and many consumers may have purchased new mobile devices over the holiday season and are highly engaged to use their devices to explore and discover new goods and services,” said Simon Buckingham, CEO of Appitalism, New York.

Mr. Buckingham is not affiliated with Home Depot. He commented based on his expertise on the subject.

Home Depot did not meet press deadline.

Quick home repair?
The creative for the ad reads, “Happy Re-New Year.”

Consumers are encouraged to tap to learn more about Home Depot products.

A landing page is then brought up that promotes Home Depot’s ‘Start Fresh and Save’ sale.

The landing page features a swipable photo gallery that shows off some of the discounted prices.

When users click on a product, they are redirected to Home Depot’s mobile site to the specific product page from the ad.

From there, consumers can read reviews, view dimension information or add the item to a shopping list.

Users can either check-out to have the item shipped to them or pick it up at a nearby store.

A search bar also runs across the top of the page to let consumers sort through the company’s products quickly.

Home Depot’s mobile site

Build on mobile?
Home Depot has strengthened its mobile strategy in the past year.

In fact, a recent case study from Google found that the company’s mobile conversions doubled year-over-year from 2011 to 2012 as a result of refreshing its mobile site and app and continuing to invest in advertising. Additionally, the case study found that Home Depot’s mobile commerce sales quadrupled between the first half of 2012 and the first half of 2011 (see story).

Late last year, Home Depot also ran a mobile advertising campaign in the Weather Channel iPhone app that combined commerce and location-based technology (see story).

In this case, running an mobile ad campaign that encourages both in-store and online sales is a smart move for the retailer to net the largest group of users.

However, it is also important to keep the messaging simple.

“The ‘Happy Re-New Year’ mobile ad campaign from The Home Depot is generally well-executed as it is mobile optimized throughout,” Mr. Buckingham said.

“However, I think the campaign design could be improved — there are multiple different campaigns slogans used in the campaign from ‘Happy Re-New Year’ to ‘Start Fresh & Save’ to ‘Move saving. More doing’ to ‘New Lower Price,’ and I think the Home Depot could clearly think through which message it wants to include on its mobile campaign rather than utilizing so many different messages,” he said.

“The initial banner ad could be better served with a keyword such as ‘sale‘ — it is important to include a call to action and incentive to click on the banner ad to maximize the initial response to the campaign.”

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York