introduction to google adwords ad extensions

Ad Extensions

What you will learn• What ad extensions are.• The types of extensions that are available.• When an ad extension is not an ad extension.• How to set up ad extensions.• The ad extensions we might see in the future.• Tips for checking the performance of

extensions.

Ad extensions give you more real estate in the search listings, and give customers more reasons to buy.

Sitelinks

Sitelinks

Reviews

Sitelinks

Seller ratings

Seller ratings

ReviewsSocial

Google doesn’t display ad extensions for every ad, and they’re at liberty to choose which extension they show. It’s all determined by how well they perform and which is most likely to lead to more clicks – and so, more money for Google!

Types of Ad Extension

• Sitelinks• Location extensions• Call extensions• Review extensions• Social annotations• App extensions• Seller ratings• Previous visit annotations

SitelinksSitelinks are the leaders of ad extensions – a true superhero that will help you to beat your competition. Adding them can instantly boost CTR and almost every account could benefit from the addition of sitelinks.

Traditional sitelinks on desktop

Sitelinks are additional links to extra pages on your site and can act as “ads within an ad” giving you extra room to sell your product/service. They come in several different formats:

Extended sitelinks on desktop

Mobile sitelinks

Extended sitelinks include an extra 70 character description resulting in a super-powered ad-within-an-ad

Location extensions

Location extensions offer laser targeting in local areas. They show address information or the option to get directions within an ad. Particularly useful for businesses with multiple locations as they allow you to guide users to their closest branch, which is a feature that Google loves for mobile users.

Google can either pull addresses from a Google Places account or they can be entered manually.

Right hand side Mobile ad

Top of page

Clicking the location extension takes you to Google Maps to find directions – on a mobile or tablet you’ll go to either the Google Maps app or to Google Maps on the web, depending on your device settings.

Call extensionsCall extensions are a reliable extension that gets the job done. They give you the chance to display your phone number alongside a link to your website.

On mobile phones this can be taken a stage further and you can set up a mobile extension that allows users to click to call your business, making it easier for them to get in touch with you.

Right hand side Mobile ad

Top of page

Review extensionsReview extensions let your ads harness the power of positive press.

You can directly quote a positive review, paraphrase it or highlight an award that you’ve won, but this extension must link to the source of the positive accolades.

Desktop ad

Mobile ad

App extensions

These are genius extensions for the right advertiser, enhancing what your ad can do, but they don’t play well with everyone.

This allows you to direct users to download your app instead of visiting your website, which is particularly useful for companies that don’t have well-optimised mobile sites, preferring to create an app instead.

This ad extensions type is only available for mobiles

It should not be confused with an app promotion ad, which is a specific ad type designed to drive app downloads and sends all traffic to an app download page.

Social annotations, Seller ratings & Previous visit annotations

These extensions are completely out of advertisers’ hands – they show up when Google thinks they should, but can help advertisers to smash the competition.

Social annotations show your Google+ followers, as long as your site is linked to Google+ and you have more than 100 followers.

Mobile ad

Top of page

Seller ratings show star ratings from a variety of sources, for businesses with ratings of 3.5 or higher.

Right hand side Mobile ad

Top of page – 2 different formats

Previous visit annotations simply show people if they’ve clicked through to your site from Google before.

When is an ad extension not an ad extension?

When it’s an activation step for a specific ad type. You’ll find these listed in the ad extensions tab, but they don’t affect standard text ads at all:

• Dynamic Search Ad Extensions• Product Extensions

They have to be in place for Dynamic Search Ads and Product Listing Ads to run, but they aren’t true ad extensions.

Setting Up Ad Extensions

The Ad extensions tab is where you’ll set up the ad extensions – it is also where you’ll see stats about performance. These appear at the top of the tab, before the option to set up new extensions.

Setting up… Sitelinks• You can add up to 6 sitelinks, a

minimum of 4 is suggested.• Sitelinks must all point to different

URLs.• Sitelinks can be at either ad group or

campaign level.• Sitelinks have a 25 character limit –

with the option to extend the link with 2 extra lines of text, which each have a 35 character limit.

• Sitelinks can be scheduled – so you can create a link for a limited offer that will automatically stop showing on a set date.

• You can create sitelinks specifically for mobile-devices, which Google recommends that you do.

• Sitelinks do not have to point to your website.

1. Fill in your Link text.2. Input the Link URL.Optional extras:• Select the preference to mobile.• Add a description.• Set up a start/end dates.• Set up a custom schedule.3. Click Save.

This sitelink can now be applied to any campaign or ad group in the account.

Setting up… Location extensionsLocation extensions can be Upgraded or Not upgraded – there is a chance that the Not upgraded extensions will be phased out at some point.

Upgraded: You must use a Google Places account, they are account level and will apply to every campaign, unless you set up a filter. This is good for speed and ease of creating extensions.

Not upgraded: You can either use Google Places or manually enter addresses. This is good for businesses that can’t have a Google Places account.

UpgradedTo set these up, link the Places and AdWords accounts – there is the option to sign into a different Places account, so be sure to choose the right account.

You’ll have the option to filter locations to ensure that only appropriate addresses are eligible to appear.

You can leave the extension as is, or edit it for specific campaigns or ad groups.

To edit specific campaigns/ad groups:1. Select the

campaign or ad group tab.

2. Click +Extension.

3. Choose the campaign/ad group you want to edit.

4. Click Save.

Use the drop down menu to disable the extension if desired.

Add a filter if desired.

Edit device settings if desired.

Not Upgraded

1. Click the + symbol next to either Addresses from Google Places or Manually Entered Addresses.

2. Click +Extensions

1. Choose your campaign.

2. Select extension or click +Create new extension.

3. Customise the location in any way that is appropriate.

4. Click Save.

Addresses from Google Places

Manually Entered Addresses

1. Choose your campaign.2. Fill in all the relevant

details.3. Click Save.

Setting up… Call extensionsNew phone numbers have lots of options – but once set up are applied to multiple campaigns in the same way as sitelinks.

1. Select the appropriate country.2. Enter the phone number.3. Choose either a Google forwarding number or your

own number.4. Choosing “Just the phone number” will mean ad clicks

will result in a phone call.5. Choose if you want to count calls as conversions.6. Select the device preference.7. Set up your schedule.8. Click Save.

Setting up… Review extensionsNot all websites will be accepted as trusted sources for reviews, e.g. trustpilot won’t.

1. Choose your format.*2. Enter your text and the

source.3. Input the Source URL.4. If needed, add a schedule.5. Click Save.

*Reviews have a character limit of 67 for both quote and source – so if you can’t fit an exact quote in, or are referring to an award, choose Paraphrased.

Reviews are added to multiple campaigns in the same way as calls and sitelinks.

Setting up… App extensionsIf the main purpose of your ad campaign is to drive app downloads you may be better off creating app promotion ads instead of using the app extension.

1. Choose your Mobile OS.2. Either enter your App ID

to automatically find the Link URL, or manually enter the Link to the app’s page in the Apple App Store/Android Market.

2. Set your Link text.3. If needed, add a

schedule.4. Click Save.

Apps are added to multiple campaigns in the same way as reviews, calls and sitelinks.

Ones to watchImage extensions

Currently in beta.

Communication extensions

Currently you have to be whitelisted to use this, it remains to be seen whether Google will roll it out to all advertisers.

Ad extensions performance

Ad extensions were always a pretty cool way to boost ad performance, but now they have a direct effect on ad rank too.

Ad rank used to be Bid x Quality Score = Ad rank. Your ad rank determined your ad position. Now the expected impact of ad extensions has also entered into the ad rank formula – but we don’t know how. We just know that good performance matters.

Understand what really works

AdWords will display extension data in aggregate – so it will show data for the whole account unless you make sure that you are reviewing data for an individual campaign – or ad group if appropriate.

On the Campaigns tab, segment your data by Click type to understand how your extensions perform overall.

To get a true understanding of how the individual extensions perform, segment your data by “This Extension vs Other”. “Other” includes all other clicks on the ad – whether it’s on the headline or a different extension.

While you can’t control the social annotations, you can see how they’re affecting your performance by segmenting campaigns by +1 annotations. Personal annotations show a viewer how many people in their circles have +1’d your page. Basic annotations shows how many people in total have +1’d your page.

Now you know how to easily knock out your competition using ad extensions go out and do it!