Introduction
Give customers more reason to click your ad by including extra information about your business — by adding an ad extension. This course will show you how ad extensions make your ad more eye catching and encourage higher clickthrough rates.
What you’ll learn:
What ad extensions are and how they increase the value of your ads
How to choose ad extensions for your business goals
What would you do?
Your boss shows you a mobile ad for a competitor that has an option to click to call the competitor’s business right from the ad. Your boss wants to know how the competitor is doing this. What do you say?
Why extensions?
Extensions expand your ad with additional information—giving people more reasons to choose your business. Extension formats include call buttons, location information, additional links, additional text, and more.
By adding more content to your ad, extensions give your ad greater visibility and prominence on the search results page. That means more people may notice your ad!
With extensions, you tend to get more value for your advertising investment. Ad extensions often increase your total number of clicks, and can give people additional, interactive ways of reaching you—as with maps or calls. In fact, research shows Ad extensions yield an average 10-15% increase in click-through-rate for each type of extension implemented. (Note: Performance will vary by client, business type among other factors, and Google cannot guarantee results).
There's no cost to add extensions to your campaign! Clicks on your ad (including your extension) will be charged as usual. (The exception is clicks on review extensions and seller ratings, which are not charged). So you’re charged a click when someone calls you from your call extension, or when someone downloads your app from your app extension.
Extensions in action
Fareena is new to town and has just opened a flower business with two locations and a new online ordering system. Eager to get the word out, she has decided adding extra information about her business via ad extensions could really enhance her campaign.
Although there’s no limit to the number of ad extensions she could add, Fareena decides upon four types to include — specifically: sitelink, callout, structured snippet, and call. A maximum of four extensions can show across a Google Ads campaign at any given time, so by adding these four, she’ll increase her chances of showing extensions and getting more interactions with her ads. There’s no fee to set up extensions. Each time someone interacts with her extensions — to place a call or click through to a specific page on your website — she’ll pay the same amount as if someone had clicked on her ad.
First, she adds sitelink extensions, which can show six to eight additional links to different pages on her site. She comes up with six that will give customers quick access to pages they might be interested in — things like store hours, location details, and popular bouquets.
Next, Fareena adds callouts and structured snippets to highlight general information about her business. With callouts, Fareena highlights what makes her business unique: “Local flowers, Online ordering, Free delivery”. With structured snippets, she can highlight specific aspects of her business, like the different types of plants she sells: “Bouquets, Indoor plants, Succulents”.
Finally, time to add that call extension — information that Fareena is sure will make it easier for her forgetful customers to place last-minute orders. With a single click — either on a call button or directly on her phone number — they can get that bouquet started right away.
Fareena has invested time in improving her ads’ visibility with manually added extensions. Now for the easy part – there are other extensions Google Ads appends to your ads automatically when it predicts they’ll improve your performance. For example, Google Ads might show seller ratings next to her ad to highlight how highly regarded Fareena’s shop is by her customers. These are called automated extensions.
To see how things are going (and how those ad extensions may be helping to turn more clicks and calls into customers), Fareena can check her account’s Extensions section and note how each extension is performing. Looking good!
When do extensions show up?
Adding an extension doesn’t mean it will show with your ad all the time. Google Ads selects which extensions to show in response to each individual search on Google. Extensions show with your ad when:
The extension (or combination of extensions) is predicted to improve your performance.
Your ad’s position and Ad Rank is high enough for extensions to show. To show extensions, Google Ads requires a minimum Ad Rank. Unsure what this Ad Rank is all about? Sit tight, and we’ll cover it later in Google Ads Basics.
Make extensions work for you
Since Google Ads selects which extensions to show in response to each individual search on Google, it’s a good idea to make use of all the extensions relevant to your business goals. Remember some automated extensions are applied to your account automatically to improve performance. Below, we’ll focus on the extensions you’ll set up manually.
There are three extensions that can support all business objectives. We call them universal extensions. They also happen to be three of the extensions Fareena used to promote her flower shop in the previous example. Here they are:
Sitelink extensions Link people directly to specific pages of your website (like “hours” and “order now”).
Callout extensions Add additional text to your ad, like “free delivery” or “24/7 customer support.”
Structured snippets Highlight specific aspects of your products and services. They show underneath your text ad on search in the form of a header (ex: "Destinations") and list (ex: "Hawaii, Costa Rica, South Africa").
If you want to direct people to your physical locations (like stores or restaurants), consider location extensions, in addition to the universal extensions. Location extensions: Encourage people to visit your business by showing your location, a call button, and a link to your business details page—which can include your hours, photos of your business, and directions to get there.
If you want people to call you or send you a text message query, use call extensions or message extensions in addition to the universal extensions:
Call extensions Encourage people to call your business by adding a phone number or call button to your ads.
Message extensions Encourage people to send you text messages from your ad. Available globally at the campaign or ad group levels.
If you want to direct people to your website, use price extensions, in addition to the universal extensions:
Price extensions Showcase your services or product categories with their prices, so that people can browse your products right from your ad.
Promotion extensions Highlight specific sales and promotions across your ads (e.g., 30% off rose bouquets)
If you want to get people to download your app, use app extensions.
App extensions: Available globally for Android and iOS mobile devices, including tablets.
Recap
Google Ads is always checking to see which extensions could improve your performance and automatically applies these to your ads. You can help further your business goals by adding manual extensions to give potential customers more reason to click your ad.
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