As online advertising becomes increasingly complex and competitive, businesses are constantly seeking new ways to enhance their visibility and drive more valuable actions from their target audiences. One highly useful but often overlooked feature is Google Ads Ad Extensions.
How and When Do Google Ads Ad Extensions Show?
To maximise the performance of your responsive search ads, Google Ads judiciously chooses which additional assets (also known as ad extensions) to display in response to each individual search. This is dependent on various factors such as ad placement, other ads on the page, past extension performance, and more.
By enriching your ad with more content, such as sitelinks and images, your ad gains greater visibility and prominence on the search results page. This increased visibility typically leads to more value from your ad and often an increase in the total number of clicks.
Google offers both manual and automated ad extensions. Manual extensions require some setup but allow for more control, while automated extensions are added automatically when Google Ads predicts they will enhance your ad's performance.
Ad extensions can be applied to all Search ads within an account, campaign, or ad group. They're not guaranteed to show every time your ad appears, but their display frequency is optimised by Google's algorithm to maximise your ad's effectiveness.
How Much Does Google Ads Ad Extension Cost?
The beauty of Google Ads Ad Extensions lies in their cost-effectiveness. There's no extra cost to add these additional assets to your campaign. You only incur costs for clicks on the components of your final ad, such as the headline, sitelinks, or images. The only exception is clicks on seller ratings, which are not charged. Google Ads charges no more than two clicks per impression for each ad and its assets.
Types of Manual Google Ads Ad Extensions
Sitelink Extensions: These extensions allow advertisers to add additional links to their ads, directing users to specific pages on their website beyond the main landing page. For instance, if you're a retailer, you can include sitelinks to specific product categories.
Callout Extensions: Callout extensions provide an opportunity to include additional descriptive text in your ad. They highlight unique offers and benefits, such as "Free Shipping," "24/7 Customer Support," or "Money-Back Guarantee."
Structured Snippet Extensions: Structured snippets allow advertisers to showcase particular aspects of their products or services. They highlight specific features of your products or services, for example, "Types: Convertibles, Sedans, SUVs" for a car dealership.
Image Extensions: Image extensions allow advertisers to complement their text ads with visually engaging images. Images can make your ads more appealing and help consumers better understand what to expect from your products or services.
Call Extensions: Call extensions allow advertisers to include a phone number or call button directly in the ads. This makes it easier for customers to get in touch, especially beneficial for businesses that value phone calls.
Lead Form Extensions: Lead form extensions allow potential customers to express their interest in whatever you're offering directly from your ad. When users click on the extension, a form pops up that they can fill out with their contact information.
Location Extensions: These extensions can help drive customers to your physical locations by showing your address, a map to your location, or the distance to your business.
Affiliate Location Extensions: If your products are sold at retail chains, affiliate location extensions can help people find retail locations that sell your products.
Price Extensions: Price extensions allow you to display your services or product ranges with their prices, giving users a sense of what they can expect before they click on your ad.
App Extensions: App extensions are used to link to your mobile or tablet app directly from your ad. These are useful if you want to encourage users to download your app.
Promotion Extensions: These extensions allow you to highlight specific discounts or promotions for special occasions, holidays, or events.
Business Logo: Business logo extension helps you add a logo to your ad. It makes your brand more recognisable and improves brand consistency. Business logo extension requires account verification.
Business Name: Including your business name in your ad strengthens brand identity and provides potential customers with important information about who they're doing business with. Business name extension requires account verification.
Types of Automated Google Ads Ad Extensions
Dynamic Sitelink Extensions: These automated extensions generate sitelinks to your website based on what Google believes to be useful to the user performing the search.
Dynamic Callout Extensions: Dynamic callouts are automated extensions that Google uses to highlight information about your business and products.
Dynamic Structured Snippet Extensions: These extensions automatically pull in and highlight industry-specific, structured information about your products and services.
Seller Ratings: Seller ratings are an automated extension type that showcases advertisers' star ratings, sourced from review websites. This can significantly improve your credibility and appeal to potential customers.
Longer Ad Headlines: Google may combine some parts of your ad to create a longer, more prominent headline when your ad shows in the top positions.
Automated App Extensions: Google might show an automated app extension when a search is related to your app, and it predicts that promoting your app could improve your campaign performance.
Automated Location Extensions: Google Ads can automatically pull information from your Google My Business account to show location extensions. This can help drive foot traffic if you have a physical location.
Dynamic Image Extensions: Google Ads may automatically create these from the images on your landing page. It can help improve your ad's performance by making it more visually appealing.
Should You Bother With Ad Extensions?
Given the multiple benefits ad extensions offer, the answer is a resounding yes. The most compelling reasons to utilise ad extensions are:
Increased visibility on search results pages: Extensions significantly expand the size of your ad, ensuring it captures more attention on search results pages. They will also present more data that your responsive ad might lack.
Potential to attract better leads: By providing more information about your business and offerings, extensions enable you to engage with users who are more likely to be interested in your products or services.
Enhanced Returns on Ad Spend: With the heightened visibility and propensity to engage more relevant leads offered by ad extensions, you can generally expect a boost in click-through and conversion rates. Consequently, this leads to an improved return on investment (ROI) for your advertising campaigns, making your marketing spend more effective and profitable.
Reinforce Your Message: With clever planning, you can highlight your desired message. For example, if you are running a promo, you can include the promotion details in your ad copy (1), promotion extension (2) and sitelink extension (3). That's great visibility for your promotion over merely an ad.
Google finds there can be a 10-15 percent uplift in CTR when implementing a new ad extension. So, regardless of your industry, there's a high chance that ad extensions can enhance the performance of your Google Ads campaigns.
If you're considering using Google Ads Ad Extensions, partnering with an experienced agency like Conversion Counts can significantly enhance your campaign performance.
Google Ads Ad Extension FAQ
Q1: What are Google Ads Ad Extensions?
Ad Extensions represent supplementary data about your enterprise that can be integrated into your Google Ads. This can encompass a variety of elements such as hyperlinks to distinct pages on your website, the physical locations of your business, contact numbers, among other useful details.
Q2: When do Google Ads Ad Extensions show up?
Google Ads chooses which ad extensions to show based on each individual search. Various factors like the ad's placement, other ads on the page, past extension performance, and more determine their visibility.
Q3: Are Google Ads Ad Extensions free?
Yes, there's no cost to add ad extensions to your campaign. You only pay for the clicks on the components of your final ad.
Q4: How do Google Ads Ad Extensions affect my ad's performance?
Ad Extensions can enhance the visibility of your ads, attract more qualified leads, and improve your ROI. On average, there can be a 10-15 percent increase in click-through rate when implementing a new ad extension.
Q5: What types of Google Ads Ad Extensions exist?
There are manual ad extensions like sitelink, callout, structured snippet, and image extensions. Also, there are automated ad extensions such as dynamic sitelinks, dynamic callouts, and dynamic structured snippets.