Google Ad Extensions Explained
There is no denying that Google ads are a great way for businesses to tap into new and previously unexplored sources of traffic to their website, increase awareness of their brand and ultimately make more sales. But as competition for keywords increase and so too do the winning bid prices, smart businesses are always looking to get more for their money when it comes to their Google ads.
Much of this can come down to the bid strategy you use, but it can also be massively impacted by how well your physical ad is put together and a number of small additions that you can add to make it more ‘clickable’ for your potential customers.
One of the ways you can make your ads better is by exploring the Google ad extension option. In this article we run through the basics of using this tool, giving you details on exactly what is and what types of extensions are available. We will also run through exactly why you should use them and why doing do will benefit you.
What is a Google ad extension?
A Google ad extension is a smart way to include further key information in your ad through an expansion to the ad itself. Using this tool lets you give viewers more reasons to choose your link to explore and your business to work with.
Typically speaking using ad extension will increases your ad’s click-through rate by several percentage points, which if leveraged correctly can mean huge benefits to your business. Extensions can contain a number of pieces of information including your businesses location, phone number, business rating and many more that we will go into more detail later in this article.
What types of extensions are there?
Google provide you with a number of extensions that can make your ad more attractive and valuable to those viewing them. Some of these extensions are manual and require you to input the information yourself. However other extensions allow you to set up automatic updating meaning that the information stays up to date even if you don’t go in and manually update it each time it changes.
To give an example of some of the extensions available, we have highlighted them below:
Location extensions
By using a location extension you are making it very clear to those that see your ad where you are based and encourage them to visit your business. This extension also includes a call button and a link to your business details page which can be used to highlight your opening hours, photos of your products or services and precise directions of how to get to your premises.
This is a very powerful tool if you are a local business and are advertising to those in a local area. Not only is this useful for helping customers find you, but it quickly highlights that you are close by, appealing to them as a business that will be easy to deal with.
Affiliate location extensions
On some occasions you will not have a physical store or business premises that you want customers to visit, but instead have resellers in local areas where you want customers to be going to purchase your product. On these occasions you can use an affiliate location extension.
This works in a similar way to the location extension, but instead of the details directing visitor to your business you can connect to other affiliated businesses that resell your product or service. For example, you may own a business that produces tasty nutritious snacks and make all of your sales through key supermarket chains. The affiliate location extension will allow you to direct customers to the closest store to them that sells your snacks.
Callout extensions
Using a callout extension allows you to add more information to your ad through a text input. This type of information may include a key deal you are running such as 2 for 1 or highlight a key selling point such as free delivery, 24/7 customer support or 100% satisfaction guarantee.
This is a useful extension for those that want to communicate additional information. However, ensure that the most important information is always in the ad text itself as your extension will not always show in search results.
Call extensions
By adding phone numbers to your ad using a call extension encourages people to get in touch with your business and increases your click through rate with an easy to use contact option.
This extension may be set up automatically by AdWords if your website includes a phone number and one of your business goals is set to getting people to call you. This is a powerful extension if your business is set up in such a way that you can quickly engage or convert callers into customers.
Message extensions
If you fancy trying something a bit different and focused specifically towards engaging mobile users then a message extension is a good option. This type of extension allows people to click on a button within your ad and then automatically send you a text message as a result.
This is a great tool for businesses that want customers to get in touch to book an appointment, get a quote, ask for information or request some other type of service. Again Google will often set this type of extension up automatically if your website contains a mobile number and your business goal is to get customers to message you. However, this extension will only show when someone sees your ad on a device that is set up to send text messages such as a mobile phone.
Sitelink extensions
You can use sitelink extensions as a smart way to add additional and important links to your ads. These could include anything from your opening hours through to a very popular product page. These extensions are so powerful as they allow you to promote high value links and helps you to target those seeing your ad with the content that they are going to find most valuable.
Structured snippet extensions
If you want to highlight really important aspects of your product of service you can do so through the use of a structured snippet extension. This tool allows you to add information below your ad in the form of a header. Practically this means you may add a header such as ‘Services’ and then list value after it such as ‘Copywriting, PPC, Social Media Marketing’ etc.
This tool is useful for adding a concise level of context to your ad and will likely increase the value to your business of those that engage with it.
Price extensions
If your business sells awesome products or uses price as one of their competitive advantages then using a price extension is a great idea. This allows you to pull out the key products or services from your website and display them in more detail below the ad itself. Google allows up to 8 cards with details to be included and when someone clicks on the card it will take them directly to that product or service page.
App extensions
If you have an app that is linked to your business then using an app extension is a great way to promote it. Using it allows you to add an additional link to your ad for tablet and mobile users. People can then select either to visit your website or to click the link and download the app.
What else do I need to know?
Using ad extensions brings some great benefits to your business. Firstly, using them allows you to increase your quality score and your ad rank without any additional cost, meaning you spend less to get more traffic to your site. It also facilitates better conversions as a typical ad extension will generate a massive 10-15% more clicks than your average ad.
It is however important to remember that your ad extension is not always guaranteed to show and therefore must not contain the most useful and impactful information that is going to get people to click on your ad. Instead they should contain ‘nice to know’ information that will increase the power of your ad if included but not destroy it if it is not.
In this article we have run through everything you might need to know about Google AdWords ad extensions. This has included a brief overview of what these extensions are, as well as detailed run down of the different types of extensions, how you might use them to improve the strength of your ads and ultimately increase the profitability of your business.
We have also provided some further information on the benefits of using these ads for your business and some important aspects which must be considered when using them. Clearly ad extensions are a great, free way to improve the performance of your paid ads. However, it is important to ensure you are only using them to communicate details that are highly relevant to those that may click on the ad.
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