AdWords Extensions Defined

From Smart Solutions

The world of AdWord extensions is a vast and varied one. In the old days of PPC, it was simple. A nice text ad, a few lines, a URL. Nowadays, Google offers a wide range of PPC extensions that can help your ad to stand out.

Listed below are Google’s current PPC ad extensions, as well as a few that they’re only starting to roll out.

AdWords Smartphone Call Extension

AdWords Call Extensions

In this ever-growing world of mobile marketing, the AdWords call extension has become an invaluable commodity. While the call extension can certainly work for big corporations, it’s ideal for small to medium-sized local companies. This extension shows up when a Googler is using their smartphone to research. All they have to do is click to call your business!

Pricing-wise, the price for a mobile phone call will be the same as if someone clicked through your ad to the website, and the extension costs nothing to run with your ad.

AdWords Call Extension Support

Location Extensions for Ads

As with the call extension above, location extensions cost nothing extra to run, only the regular CPC. What the location extension offers for your PPC ad is an option for the Googler to expand your listing and see where you’re located. Obviously, this extension is only meant for businesses with a physical location. Being able to see where your business is on the map is a great boost for Googlers searching for nearby businesses. This extension also offers a phone number and the options to get directions.

AdWords Location Extension Support

Location Extension from AdWords

Ad Offer Extensions

The ad offer extension is exactly what it says it is—the ability to attach an offer to your PPC ad, and market it to the people searching your targeted keywords. You can add your own offer dates and restrictions, but everything is of course subject to Google’s own rules and regulations.

AdWords Offer Extension Support

PPC Sitelinks

Sitelinks are a favorite AdWords extension. This extension appears at the bottom of your PPC ad, and shows links to whichever pages of your site you submit to Google AdWords. You can choose ot make these sale items, highly desired pages or latest blog posts—whatever you see fit for your ad.

The cost per click for sitelinks is the same as if they clicked the headline of your ad.

AdWords Sitelink Extension Support

AdWords Sitelinks

Social Annotations for AdWords

With all the focus that Google has poured into Google+ lately, they would of course offer a social media extension within Google AdWords—although only for Google+. There are several requirements for this particular ad extension—and it isn’t as easy to set up as the others.

You have to make sure that your company Google+ page is linked to your website (the same site you use for AdWords), and that you are fairly active within your Google+ profile. To Google, this means over 100 followers, recent posts and high quality photos.

AdWords Social Extension Support

Seller Ratings on Text Ads

If your site is active in Google Shopping, the seller ratings extension could be a great one for your AdWords campaigns! Google takes the reviews and ratings from Google Shopping, and aggregates them with other review websites on your ad. Distribution of this feature is automatic, based on different aspects of reviews your business has gotten and what your business sells. In order for this to work, your company name and business URL must be consistent across review sites.

AdWords Seller Ratings Extension Support

Seller Reviews in AdWords

New and Upcoming Ad Extensions from AdWords

Google AdWords has a few updates in the queue for their PPC ads, and these are two items that aren’t super well known yet. We can’t wait to use these in the future!

PPC Review Extensions

This new review feature in AdWords is clearly aimed toward larger companies that can get reviews from reliable 3rd party sources. This isn’t like seller reviews, like we talked about earlier—this is for written reviews, and sentences of praise to feature in your ad. The character limit is 67, and we still have no word yet on what sources would be considered reputable. Search Engine Land does a great job of explaining this AdWords extension a little more.

Picture Extensions for Ads

The new picture extensions that AdWords is rolling out slowly really caught our attention! This could grab a company a top notch spot on the Google SERP. It looks like these images currently appear above the other PPC ads, at the very top of the page. This would be a great way to get more interest to your PPC ad. Search Engine Watch explains this new feature more.

Picture Extensions on AdWords

AdWords offers a lot of options for extensions on your business PPC campaign, and it’s a great way to get more interest in your ad, and help Googlers find you more easily.

If you’re looking into building a PPC campaign, let us help! Give us a call, or contact the team, and we can get you started, or run your entire AdWords campaign for you!