If you have a PPC account that’s doing well, chances are you’ll want to expand it at some point. One way to give yourself a better chance for more clicks is by using ad extensions.
Ad extensions are a great way to help make your ad stand out on the search results page. Ad extensions usually help your ads get a better click-through rate, which can increase traffic and conversions.
To have ad extensions display, ads must appear in the top 1-3 positions, above the search results.
Sitelink extensions.
Sitelink extensions are additional links that display below your ad, leading to pages on your website other than your ad’s final URL. Sitelinks are commonly used to show complementary products, FAQ pages, reviews, and other pages that you wouldn’t want to use for your main landing page, but may provide additional information to help the searcher buy. In the image below, sitelinks are highlighted in red.
Each sitelink must have a different URL from your ad’s final URL.
Callout extensions.
Callout extensions are similar to sitelinks in that they offer the opportunity to display additional text. However, callout extensions aren’t links. Instead, think of callout extensions as a way to give more information about your company. Using descriptive text such as “free shipping,” “24-hour service,” and other features that you want to share with the searcher is a good way to use callout extensions. Slogans also work well in callout extensions, especially if your slogan is well known.
Callout extensions are highlighted in red in the example below.
App extensions.
If you offer a mobile app, you can drive downloads via app extensions.
For e-commerce advertisers who offer a shopping app, encouraging searchers to download and use your app instead of buying on your website can help make shopping easier for the user, therefore potentially increasing your sales.
Call extensions.
Many businesses depend on phone calls to drive telephone sales or foot traffic to their store. Using call extensions allows you to include your phone number as an extension next to your ad. Here’s what call extensions look like on desktop:
Call extensions are particularly helpful for users searching on a mobile device. These searchers often have an immediate need, so making it easy to call your business will help generate calls:
All the user has to do is tap the “Call” icon, and a call is placed to your business. Advertisers pay a per-click fee for each call tap, just as you would for a click to your website.
Location extensions.
Location extensions allow advertisers to include their business address, directions to their business, a phone number, and a pin on Google Maps.
To use location extensions, you’ll need to set up a Google My Business account and link it to your Adwords account. Once the accounts are linked, just select Location Extensions from the Extensions menu:
The default is to add all business locations to your account. Location extensions can help drive both online and in-store traffic for your business.
What’s your favorite ad extension? Do you use extensions for all your clients without fail? Share your experiences in the comments!
Apart from all the aforementioned extensions, Structured Snippets can also be added. Though, there is somewhat rigid structure to it, often, you can squeeze in some additional information there.
Bing Ads additionally has image extension, but sadly, it doesn’t get as much visibility now.
Bing Ads (and AdWords) routinely experiment with some new ad extensions. If relevant to the account, they can make a meaningful impact.
Agreed! Structured snippets are a great way to get more info into your ad.
Just started implementing the price extensions for mobile as well. Not a ton of data just yet, but I like the look of them and the added real estate, especially on mobile, where there’s not much “above-the-fold room”
Great extension for ecomm PPC, for sure!
I agree on structures snippets. I’ve noticed that Google shows them instead of review extensions for more impressions. I’ve seen numerous examples of ads with two structures snippets showing, so I’ve taken to adding two when possible. And price extensions are great for ecom, but they should be watched carefully in non-ecom accounts. Since they only appear on mobile when the ad is eligible for position one, and they take up too much space for other extensions like for calls, their opportunity cost of may or may not be prohibitive.
*note- with the removal of the right hand rail, ad extensions may appear in any position including below organic.
Good point about price extensions. I agree, I probably wouldn’t use them for non-ecomm.
Outside of sitelinks (which are kind of a must-have now a days) I tend to focus on structured snippets and callout extensions. They’re SUPER easy to setup and especially since you can set them up via editor which makes life a million times easier. Also, they’re non-clickable so you don’t have to worry about making sure they’re tracking correctly, what LP they’re driving to, anything. They’re literally just there to show off your features/categories and take up more space on the SERP.
I’ve also started adding price extensions to my e-commerce accounts and (echoing what Mark said above), there’s not a ton of data yet, but man that is a really pretty extension.