8 Google AdWords ad extensions you should know.

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1 8 Google AdWords ad extensions you should know. Have you heard about the changes Google made to its AdRank formula? What do they mean, and how do they apply to you? Ultimately, what they mean is that you need to use ad extensions in your campaigns whenever possible. That s why we re giving you a summary of all the current ad extensions and telling you when you should use them for your business. First what are ad extensions? Ad extensions are added value that you can add to your ads that offer more information about your business your reviews, address or phone number. The majority of these only work on Google Search, but some of these extensions do work on the Google Display Network. There is no additional cost to do ad extensions, but if someone clicks on your ad and goes to your URL (or they call you), then you are charged. The different extensions available are: Location extensions Call extensions Sitelinks Social annotations Seller ratings App extensions Review extensions Callout extensions By Morgan Butler, Associate, Account Director at Brogan & Partners.

2 1. Location extensions This extension will show your address with your ad. The positive of adding this extension is that people can see exactly where you are located, and it can help increase foot traffic to your store, especially if you are a brick-and-mortar business. Even if you have multiple locations, you can still add an address.

3 2. Call extensions On a mobile phone, users can call your business right from your ad. In the picture below, you can see the Call button to the right of the ads. On desktops and tablets, you see the phone number. Another nice addition is you can track phone call conversions and clicks.

4 3. Sitelinks Sitelinks are great for promoting more than one landing page with your ad. As you can see below, not only can you go to the main landing page for Nordstorm s, you can go right to Boots & Booties or Sale items. Ads on desktops and tablets show anywhere from two to six links, and ads on mobile will show up to four links. Remember, this is all on Google.com, so mobile users have to be searching in Google with their Internet browsers. Sitelinks may have descriptions with them as well. Google recommends you add those descriptions when you are adding sitelinks, but if you don t, they will use information within your AdWords account related to those links. Some additional benefits are the ease of updating the site links. For example, if you can have a Halloween sale starting right after Halloween, and you just have to change out a link. You can also have mobile-optimized sitelinks that are shown on mobile devices. Lastly, you can specify the dates, days of week or times of day your sitelinks are eligible to show. But remember, just because they are eligible to show, doesn t mean they will. Google still decides based on your bid and quality score if your ad will show with or without site links.

5 Sitelinks continued... Here are best practices provided by Google that will help increase your chances of showing sitelinks: Your sitelink URLs within a campaign or ad group must each direct to a unique landing page with unique content. Sitelinks within a campaign that point to the same content won t show. Your ad should have one of the positions directly above or below Google search results. Your keyword should have a very high quality score. Your sitelink URLs must direct customers to pages that are relevant to your product or service. Add the maximum amount of sitelinks you can to your campaign. Your campaign needs a minimum of two approved sitelinks with different landing pages in order for sitelinks to appear with your ads on desktop or tablet, and one approved sitelink with a different landing page from your ads to appear on mobile. Keep sitelinks text short. Make sure your sitelinks are all approved. Edit or delete any sitelinks that are not.

6 4. Social annotations Social annotations allow users to see how many followers you have on Google+. See Dick s Sporting Goods example below the text ad. For users to see your Google+ followers, you need to link your Google+ page with your website. Google has a tutorial for doing just that. Other steps you need to take are that your Google+ page has to have a verified URL, the domain of your Google+ page URL has to match the domain of your ad s URL, and your Google+ page needs to have recent, high-quality posts and a significant number of followers at least 100. Some things to note, if a user clicks on a link to your Google+ page, you are not charged. You are still charged if they click anywhere else and go to your landing page. Annotation can appear on all AdWords ad formats.

7 5. Seller ratings Seller ratings allow users to view your business ratings in your ad. This is customer-submitted ratings information. Google matches the reviews by pairing the domain of the display URL to the domain on Google Shopping. Seller ratings show on desktops and mobile devices. To use this extension, you must be an advertiser who provides customers with paid goods or services and enable the buying or selling of products or services by way of a marketplace. Also, your business must have at least 30 unique reviews within the past year and have a rating of 3.5 or higher. (If you have lower than that, you probably shouldn t be using seller reviews anyway.) According to Google, The ratings are based on customer reviews collected by Google Shopping, which aggregates reviews from a broad base of sources across the Internet. Though the reviews are aggregated on Google Shopping, seller ratings extensions also include reviews for non-product retailers.

8 6. App extensions App extensions allow you to promote your ad right from your ad. This is only available on mobile phones and tablets. If a user clicks on the headline, they will be taken to your website. If they click on the Download from itunes, they will be taken to the App Store or Google Play, depending on the device, if you create an extension for each app store. App extensions allow you to see how many clicks your headline gets compared to the app extension. You can also customize when your ad extensions run. You will need the Package Name (Android) or App ID (ios) of your mobile app and the URL to the page within the app store where users can learn more or install the app.

9 7. Review extensions A review extension is the ability to put an endorsement/quote from a reputable third-party in your ads. These have to be approved by Google and may take several days to be approved. Example from Google: A paraphrase or an exact quote will work, you just have to attribute it to a published source. Reviews can show alongside all ad extensions. Google does say to make sure you are following their advertising policies for review extensions.

10 8. Callout extensions The newest ad extension allows for additional text to be shown beneath your standard text search ad to show off additional features and benefits your business can offer. Using callouts frees up your main ad text to focus on highly targeted messaging while callouts can show-off your broad product or service features, such as free shipping, price matching or 24/7 customer service. The best part about these extensions is that other than the standard CPC of the ad, there are no additional charges for the callouts, leaving no reason not to use these extensions. In summary, ad extensions are now necessary for every AdWords campaign, and Google+ is becoming a necessity for businesses.