Google Adwords has introduced many new ad extensions and improvements to existing ad extensions over the past year. Some are extremely useful (practically necessary), while others may be beneficial, depending on your industry and your goals with paid search advertising. I thought it might be useful to provide an overview of said extensions and how they can impact your Adwords management.
Author’s note: Previously I’ve written about 5 Ways to Optimize your Google Adwords Account in 10 Minutes or Less. These basic optimizations may be even more important than Ad Extensions!
- Location Extensions
Location extensions are absolutely necessary if you run a brick & mortar business and are trying to drive in-store sales (who isn’t?). One Adwords campaign can target multiple locations and the location closest to the user will always appear within the ad. You can set this up by linking your Adwords account to your Google Places account or by manually entering your business address(es) within the Adwords interface. I still recommend using location extensions even if you’re a service or consulting business, as clients or prospects stopping by your office may Google your business and expect to see an address. You’re only charged when searchers click through to the map.
- Call Extensions
Call extensions are another necessity for running an Adwords campaign in just about any industry. Cell phones are so ubiquitous in today’s society and there’s just no way around the fact that some people are looking to talk to a living, breathing human being. Not to mention mobile searches are on the rise! Call extensions allow you to display a phone number beneath your ad on desktop searches, and simply show a “Call” button on mobile devices. I recommend using a unique 800 number so you can attribute phone calls to your Adwords efforts, or Google can assign a forwarding number and provide a detailed report for you in Adwords.
One more pro tip: You can schedule call extensions so that they only show during business (or service center) hours. How cool is that?
- Sitelink Extensions
Up to this point I’ve made it clear that location and call extensions are necessary. Well, same with sitelinks, my personal favorite extension. They’re additional blue hyperlinks that show beneath your ad to send users to specific pages of your site. With the improved user experience, sitelinks have been shown to increase your CTR by up to 30%! And since CTR plays highly into quality score, sitelinks is an easy win. Some of the latest sitelink updates include:
- Sitelinks at the Ad Group level – formerly only at the Campaign level
- Scheduling sitelinks to run during the days/hours you choose
- Extended sitelinks – additional text beneath each site link (up to 70 characters)
- Seller Ratings Extension
The Seller Ratings extension is particularly useful if you run an e-commerce site. One of the best features of seller ratings is that you’re not charged for clicks on the review links. In order to serve seller ratings, your product or service must be rated in Google Product Search, have a composite of 3.5 or more stars, and have at least 30 reviews in the past 12 months. If you meet the above criteria, why the heck wouldn’t you use this extension?
- Mobile App Extension
As you probably figured out, this extension is only useful if you have a mobile app, as it will drive increased downloads across mobile or tablet devices. Clicking the ad will send the user to the app from either the iTunes or Android market. No need to worry about devices, as ads will only be shown on devices offering those apps (e.g. ads directing to iTunes will only serve on iPhones.) If your mobile app is driving sales (or you’re an app developer trying to sell your app) this extension is a no-brainer.
This isn’t a comprehensive list of every ad extension that Google offers, just the ones I can confidently say will drive results. In fact, there are nearly half a dozen ad extensions that are currently in beta and set to launch in the coming year. In the comments below let me know how some of the extensions I did write about have affected your results!
