Google AdWords — Ad Extensions

I mentioned last month how important ad extensions are when using Google AdWords (in my opinion, Google AdWords should be compulsory for any company trying to advertise a presence online).

Whilst ad extensions have been around for a number of months, it’s surprising how few advertisers use them, so it’s a big opportunity for you to dominate your keywords. You see, ad extensions make your ad at least twice as big, meaning your competitors’ ads get ‘pushed’ further down the page.

For example, the screenshot on the right shows the search results for the keyword phrase ‘adwords agency’. Note the top two agencies are using ad extensions well, but the third advertiser isn’t (see ad inside red circle). They are only using a ‘call’ extension.

Bear in mind they should know all there is to know about advertising with AdWords, it’s not impressive but demonstrates the point that not that many advertisers are using them. So that’s your opportunity (while it lasts!).

Interestingly, not that many people click on the site extension links, but nevertheless they do improve your click-through rate—meaning you get more clicks.

Using ad extensions is therefore a great ‘optimization’ technique for you. And remember, the better your click-through rate, the more Google rewards you. It’s a win-win.

So a very quick overview and then I’ll explain how you add them to your campaigns…

Sitelinks give the user more information about your website, allowing you to deliver further marketing messages. ‘Location’ and ‘Call’ extensions add the address and phone number to the ad, making it look even bigger.

The great news is they are really easy to set up once your AdWords campaigns are running.

Here’s how you do it…

SITELINKS 

Steps

1. Click ‘all online campaigns’.
2. Then select ‘ad extensions’ from the main AdWords page (we want to add campaign-level sitelinks – duplicated for all campaigns).
3. Then select ‘sitelinks extensions’ from the view dropdown box.
4. Click ‘+new sitelink’ in the campaign section of the page then select all of your active campaigns from the campaign-level dropdown list.
5. Click ‘+ new sitelink’ towards the bottom and then add your sitelinks one by one.
6. Add a benefit-based description in the ‘Link Text’ field (see screenshot on the next page).
7. Then add the page URL where you want your website to direct people to. The URL should go to the most relevant page on your website.
8. Click ‘save’.

Your sitelink ad extensions are now complete and will go live immediately.

CALL EXTENSIONS 

Now repeat the whole process for the ‘Call’ extension (obviously, enter your phone number here) by selecting the different extension type from the view dropdown box.

Going through this whole process is laborious and time-consuming but, remember, once it’s set up, all you then have to do is optimize and test your ads, which really is the fun part.

Before we finish on this, I just want to add that for 12 months we have been using one of the UK’s top PPC agencies to run our AdWords campaigns, but we took ‘control’ back last month. I made the mistake of believing that an agency would help us get better results whilst freeing up our time to do other things. But no matter how good the agency is, they just don’t put their heart and soul into managing your account. Results have been good, but not impressive. You see, they just manage the campaigns. They tweak but they don’t spend hours making sure the right keywords, ads, extensions, etc., are being used. The moral of the story is simple…

You are the best person to manage your marketing. Whilst using agencies has its benefits, they never really ‘love’ your business like you do, and ultimately they charge a monthly fee which is linked to the time they spend on your account! That’s not the formula for results. And that, my friend, means one thing: your results using an agency will never be as good as the ones you can generate.