Google Ad Extensions: What Are They?

Google Ad Extensions are features that highlight important aspects of your business and website. So, they appear with your main text ads and often below them and help make the ad look more relevant to the search queries.

 

Adding Google ad extensions has many benefits including increasing click through rates. Visitors are more likely to click through to your website if they see that there is more information that is relevant to what they are looking for.

 

Also, you should add as many ad extensions as possible that are relevant for your business. This will give you more prominence in the search results and potentially increase your quality scores and conversions.

 

However the ad extensions you use depends on the campaign type you’re creating, but they are mainly associated with Search campaigns. So, here are the main Google ad extensions you should consider adding in your campaigns.

 

Sitelink Extensions

 

This is one of the main ad extensions to use in your Search campaigns and other campaign types. And it’s one of the three along with Structured Snippets and Callouts that you should add to your campaign. Sitelinks point to other relevant pages on your website that visitors will find useful when they see your ads in the search results. Some pages you can can include are, your About page, Delivery page and many others that are relevant to what you’re promoting.

 

 

For each sitelink, you will add a headline and Final URL which are required. The headline has a 25 character space limit and you should check how it will appear on both mobile and desktop as you create it and adjust accordingly. The description lines which are two and have a 35 character space limit are optional. But they help to highlight your offers more, and when your ad appears at the top, these usually appear too.

 

 

Call Extensions

 

The call extension is there for you to add your phone number so you can get calls directly from your ads for mobile users.

 

 

And you can use a ‘Google forwarding number’ to track all calls that you get from your ads. For this to work, call reporting should be turned on, so you can find out when calls were made and received and the duration of the call and the caller’s area code.

 

 

Structured Snippet Extensions

 

These help to highlight specific aspects of your products or services. A hotel for example can promote amenities that they offer like WiFi, a Pool, Fitness Centre and so on.

 

 

Like other extensions, you can add structured snippet extensions at the account, campaign and ad group levels. Just make sure that the extensions you add at whatever level are relevant to the products or services you’re promoting there.

 

 

Callout Extensions

 

Callouts help you to show descriptive text that is important to your visitors like “Free delivery”. They can be added at the account, campaign and ad group levels and you should ensure they are relevant to whatever you’re promoting.

 

 

Also, consider how they will appear. If they are too long, for example, your ad might not always include all of your text and some shortening may also occur in some formats.

 

You should add at least two Callouts and as many as possible, to give the system many options to show the most relevant, based on the search context.

 

Image Extensions

 

This new extension allows you to show an image of your product or service next to your ad. It’s a powerful extension that gives people a good indication of what the ad is about and what they will see when they click through to your website.

 

 

Just make sure you assign the right image to the right ad. Google has image quality standards and you’ll see these as you add your images and they include avoiding blurry or poorly cropped images and adding any logo or text overlays on your images.

 

Lead Form Extension

 

This helps you to get leads from people who submit forms on your ads. They are easy to create and you will add things such as headline, business name, description which make up your ad, and then add questions that you want people to answer.

 

 

The standard questions to add include name, phone number and email. And you can add many others but try not too make the form too long because that reduces the number of responses.

 

And you will also include a call to action like ‘learn more’, ‘visit site’, ‘download’ and more.

 

Location Extensions

 

To use location extensions, link to your Business Profile Manager account, that has the addresses that relate to your business. Or you can request access to another  Business Profile Manager account and when they approve it, the locations will be there to promote in your ads.

 

 

Location extensions are important for many businesses and especially for local businesses that want to drive people to their stores or shops.

 

Conclusion

 

There are other Google ad extensions like price extensions, affiliate location extensions, app extensions and promotion extensions. So, you should pick the ones that are most relevant for your campaigns and try to use as many extensions as possible. That helps to boost your ad performance and you’ll see better click through rates and quality scores.

 

Get in Touch

 

I’m a Google Ads specialist and PPC expert and I help marketers, business owners and entrepreneurs setup and manage effective Google Ads campaigns. Contact me below to discuss any requirements you may have for your campaigns.