Sudheer Kiran

Sudheer Kiran

Marketer, Musician, and Philanthropist

16 Google AdWords Ad extensions: What, Why and How?

Google AdWords is one of the most important channel in our digital marketing strategy in 2015 for every business because of it’s control, target, reach and most accurate results over other marketing channels.

You’re going to pay to Google only when someone clicked on your Ad, and you can target your customers by location, time and other demographic factors. The most important reason why everyone prefer PPC is, unlike organic search, PPC can show results very quickly

In initials days, we have very basic features to create an Ad, and even for targeting your customers. Later, Google had come up with some new features which make your Ad more efficient and accurate. In this process, Google introduced Ad extensions which are added some amazing additional features to your Ad.

What?

Ad extensions are a type of ad format that show extra information (“extending” from your text ads) about your business. Some can be added manually and others are automated.

A feature that shows extra business information with your ad, like an address, phone number, store rating, or more webpage links.

Google allows the insertion of additional text beside a standard AdWords pay-per-click ad. This text, called “ad extensions,” can communicate more information about your product, service, and business than the ad would otherwise permit.

Why?

Ad extensions create more reasons to click your ads. Give potential customers more reasons to click your ad by adding useful information about your business right beneath your ad text. Include your phone number, address, additional links, customer reviews, and more to help customers get right to the information they’re seeking.

Improved visibility: Ad extensions tend to improve your ad’s visibility. They often appear above the search results, rather than along the sidebar. If two competing ads have the same bid and quality, the ad with greater expected impact from extensions will generally appear in a higher ad position than the other.

Better return on investment: Extensions can help improve the click through rate (CTR) of your ads. More clicks means more customer traffic.

How?

Extensions

  1. Sign into AdWords and click+ CAMPAIGN.
  2. Choose your campaign type and targeting options and set your bidding.
  3. Under “Ad extensions,” check the boxes next to the extensions you’d like to include. You’ll be prompted to fill out more information, depending on the extension—a phone number for call extensions, for example.
  4. Click Save and continue and finish creating your campaign.

There are few ad extensions which are optimal for Desktops search and which are optimal for Mobile and Tablet devices.

Ad Extensions Optimal for Desktop Searches

  • Site Links
  • Review Extensions
  • Seller Rating
  • Social Extensions

Ad Extensions Optimal for Mobile Searches

  • Call Extensions
  • Location Extensions
  • App Extensions

There are two types of Ad extensions available in Google AdWords.

  1. Manual Ad Extensions
  2. Automated Ad Extensions

Manual extensions

1. App extensions:

App extension is purely targeted for mobile devices. App extension links to your mobile app from below the text ads. Visitors will redirect to your mobile app link when he clicks on app extension from you text ads.

App Ad extensions

This extension is a great feature for those who have a mobile app for their online businesses. This extension is an excellent option to drive increased downloads across mobile or tablet devices.

2. Call extensions:

Call Extensions allow users to click directly on the phone number displayed in ad copy from their mobile device. This is a great feature that gives to your customers to speak with you directly without redirecting to your landing page.

Call Ad extensions

You can also schedule call extensions to show only during business hours. This extension is only for mobile optimized text ads.

You have two options to selecting a phone number:

  • Google forwarding number and use call reporting
  • My own phone number (don’t use call reporting).

3. Location extensions:

Location extension allows people nearby you to find your nearest storefront or give you a call, and allow users get directions or a call option to call.

Location Ad extensions

Advertisers can add/update extensions in two ways:

  • Linked to a Google Places Account
  • Manually

One campaign can target multiple locations and the location closest to the user will appear within the ad.

This extension is very useful for local businesses who want show their location in their ads. From the recent reports, on average, ads with location extensions see a 10% boost in clickthrough rate. Location extensions show your business address, phone number, and a map marker with your ad text.

4. Review extensions:

This extension is one of the best features Google has introduced in AdWords. Review ad extension displays positive reviews from reputable third parties.

Review Ad extensions

This will increase your clickthrough rate by 13%. If you have great reviews out there, then this extension can add incredible weight to the relevancy of your organization

These reviews will be displayed in quotes below your text ad along with the source.

5. Sitelinks extensions:

This feature helps advertisers to add additional links to their text ads. These are links you can add under your text ad to certain pages on your site. You can add more links to your text ad to help people find what they’re looking for.

Sitelink Ad extensions

For example if you owned a restaurant, you could add a sitelink to your special offers, today’s special dish and your menu page

Below are few reasons from Google to use sitelinka extension

  • Show shortcuts: Link directly to popular or high-converting sections of your website.
  • Minimize work: You don’t need to make new text ads or edit them to include sitelinks.
  • Update easily: Change link text and URLs whenever you want, keeping them up-to-date for sales and special offers.
  • Flexibility: You can add sitelinks to a campaign or ad group, depending on which ads you want them to show with.
  • Detailed reporting: Find out how many clicks occurred on your ad when sitelinks appeared. Break down the statistics by campaign, ad group, or ad. Segment your statistics using “This Extension vs. Other” to see the number of clicks that occurred on the individual sitelink versus another part of the ad (e.g., the headline, other sitelinks, or another extension).
  • Data retention: Edit your sitelinks without resetting their performance statistics.
  • Customized sitelinks for mobile: Create mobile-optimized sitelinks to show on mobile devices, or disable specific sitelinks on the devices you choose.
  • Scheduling with start and end dates:Specify the dates, days of week, or times of day your sitelinks are eligible to show.

6. Callout extensions:

This ad extension is for those who feel not enough space to advertise all their features for their services through text ads. You can descriptive text to your ad to help people learn more about what you’re offering.

Callout Ad extensions

The callout ad extension lets you include additional text with your search ads. Callouts appear in ads at the top and bottom of Google search results.

You’ll need to create a minimum of two callouts per account, campaign, or ad group for your ad to be eligible to show with callouts.

You can add callouts when you create your campaign. You can edit your descriptive text, and see how ads that contain callouts perform in the Ad extensions tab.

Automated extensions

7. Consumer ratings:

Consumer ratings highlight industry-specific ratings based on consumer surveys. One or more of your best ratings show below the text of your search ads, along with a link to more ratings.

Consumer ratings Ad extension

These are automated extensions which need no setup. Consumer ratings show off your business’s highest survey ratings, emphasizing the areas where your customers notice you’re doing a great job.

8. Previous visits:

Previous visit extensions help people using Google Search find their way back to a website they’ve clicked through to from search results before.

Previous visits Ad extension

We have 2 benefits from Previous Visits extension:

  • Ads that show previous visits help searchers find their way back to your website
  • AdWords shows previous visits with your ads when it predicts this will improve campaign performance

These automated extensions appear just under the link text in your Search ad, and they require no set up.

9. Social extensions:

Social extension can show people how many Google+ followers your business has with your ads.

Social Ad extensions

These social extensions can appear with your ad without any setup if:

  • Your business has a Google+ page (you can create one using Google My Business)
  • Your Google+ page has a verified URL.
  • The domainof your Google+ page also matches the domain of your ad’s landing page. This means you can link to different pages, but they should be part of the same website.
  • Your Google+ page has recent, high-quality posts and a significant number of followers. For most businesses, this means about 100 followers.

10. Dynamic sitelink extensions:

Dynamic sitelink extension adds sitelinks by generating dynamically to help people find more relevant pages on your site.

  • Dynamic sitelinks are automatic extensions that show generated links below your ad text
  • These links send customers to a page on your website that’s highly relevant based on recent search activities.
  • Showing dynamic sitelinks can help potential customers reach key pages of your site more easily.

Here’s what an ad might look like with a dynamic sitelink:

Dynamic sitelink extensions

For Example: When people are searching on Google to complete a task, like buying a car or planning a trip, they might perform several searches and click multiple search results. Based on this activity, AdWords can determine which pages on your site are highly relevant to their current search. With dynamic sitelinks, we’ll show a link to those pages with your ads.

11. Seller ratings:

Seller ratings extension can show your online business ratings with your ad. Seller ratings can also help you earn more qualified leads and increase your ad performance.

Seller ratings Ad Extension

This is also an automated extension. Google will gather seller ratings from reputable sources that aggregate business reviews. This information helps people make more informed browsing and purchasing decisions.

Seller ratings may appear for certain businesses when their website, ad, or product listing appears across Google products.

Ad Extensions in Beta

12. Image extensions:

Image extension allows an advertiser to enhance its text ads with pre-selected Google approved images. This extension is a very helpful extension for the travel and food industries.

Image Ad Extension

Advertisers can choose the images that they want to be displayed and send to Google for review. Per the Google AdWords blog, “You must have the necessary rights to the images you wish to display with your ads.” Also, “It is more likely that your image extensions will show for a query like luxury car designs than locations of nearby car dealerships.”

13. “I am Looking For” extension:

I am Looking for Ad Extension

 

As if sitelinks weren’t enough, now Google allows advertisers to provide even more options. This “I Am Looking for” ad extension actually allows searchers to select from a drop-down menu of 10 specific sections to an advertiser’s site.

14. The Search Form extension:

This Search Form extension could be a powerful extension, in particular, for retailers advertising on category keywords. It places a text box within your ad to act as a search on your site, whether it be for a product, brand, service location, etc.

The search form extension

Here, your internal site search results become the landing page of your ads. After users types in a search query and clicks the “Search Now” button, they are taken to the product search results page on the advertiser’s site. It means, users can perform an internal site search of the advertiser’s web site right from the search results.

15. Communication Extensions:

Communication ad extensions allow you to generate leads directly from your paid search ad. It is currently being tested with a three different options: newsletter signup, request an email, or a call.

Communication Ad Extension

Communication Ad Extension

Once the user selects the form of the communication they would like, Google sends the advertiser a message, to complete the request.

16. Offer Ad Extension:

If you only have this extension, Google suggests you use sitelinks as well. Offer ads were created to drive traffic to brick-and-mortar stores.

Offer Ad Extension

The format of the ad allows you to upload a picture along with tailoring the headline, offer date, redemption date, distribution date, and offer type — i.e., percent, amount, or free.

Conclusion:

Ad extensions gives you more features to write an Ad more effectively to reach your customers. Writing an Ad without using a single ad extension is like a crime nowadays. Adding extensions to your campaign won’t guarantee that those will show with your ad, but you can keep track of when your extensions are appearing on the Ad extensions tab. AdWords can show one or more extensions with your ad when your Ad Rank is high enough for it to appear.

Ad extensions show with ads on the Search network, and depending on the extension might also appear with ads on the Display network. Make sure your Ad Rank is optimal for showing your ad extensions with your text ads.

 

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