Google Ad Extensions (now called “Assets”) can be a great addition to any Google Ads campaign. They can help improve the performance of your ads, thus decreasing your CPCs (cost-per-click) and making your marketing budget go further. Today, we’ll look at our three favourite Google Ads extensions.
Google Ad Extensions (aka Assets) are additional elements that advertisers can add to a Google text advertisement. These are the ads found at the top of Google search results.
These text ads are a huge source of income for Google because they’re incredibly effective. Users enter millions of search terms into the search engine daily. With the right keyword targeting, advertisers get to place ads at the top of these search results and grab the attention of a highly relevant audience.
These Google Ad Extensions add extra information (e.g. phone number) into your Google Ad. This extra info increases the visibility of the ad by making it physically bigger, but it also adds value to the user by including relevant info/links.
In the following example, you can see a Google Ad with the the sitelink extension applied, which shows users additional links. In this case, the shop is showing their product category pages.
Source: The Crofthouse
Setting up your ads extensions can bring a lot of benefits to your online shop.
Here are a few of the biggest benefits for e-commerce shops:
There are a lot of different extensions that can be used in a Google Ad. Some of these are added by Google automatically. Some others require manual setup. Depending on the types of products/services you sell, some of these extensions will become available to you while others won’t.
Source: shutterstock/Graphic and Photo Stocker
Here are some of the most common ad extensions for e-commerce owners:
Recommended reading:
5 Ways to Spend Your Free Google Ads Credits
Once again, please note that the availability of these extensions may vary by campaign type, location, and other factors.
We won’t get into the nitty-gritty details for all of them today, but we will share our 3 favourite extensions for e-commerce shop owners. But first, let’s quickly look at how to add these extensions to your Google Ads.
Adding Ad Extensions to your ad campaigns can be done fairly easily:
Source: Google Ads
Tip: Google ultimately decides automatically which (if any) Ad Extensions will appear in your ads. Because of this, it is advisable to add as many relevant Ad Extensions to your campaign as possible.
There are many to choose from and you should feel encouraged to dive a bit deeper into any of the Ad Extensions that we mentioned earlier if they seem interesting to you. With that said, here are three of our favourite Google Ads Extensions:
Your prices will almost always be a factor for your shoppers. It will in many cases, get them to click on your ads and enter your shop and that’s often the first step, isn’t it?
Recommended reading:
12 Tips for Creating Perfect Google Shopping Ads
Stay transparent while giving your audience more information right on the spot.
This can work particularly well with product category searches. In the example below, a search for “self-watering pots” leads to this ad. Combined with the Structured Snippet Extension in the first row of links, the bottom row shows users the pricing for one of their products with the Price Extension. Clicking on “More” reveals other products that may fit the user’s search terms along with their prices.
Customer reviews are a really important part of the consumer journey. Sure, price is an important factor when buying online, but being able to trust a shop you’ve never heard of is also something users try to calculate.
With the Seller Rating Extension, you can display your seller rating directly in your ad. This can be a really effective way to make a good first impression with your audience. If they see a high rating along with a high number of reviews, they are much more likely to trust you.
Source: PuzzleYou
What’s important to note is that you should be using a Google-certified reviews partner (like Trusted Shops). With the Google Integration tool, sending your reviews to Google for your ads is done automatically.
Either way, remember that you only get one chance to make a first impression. And shining stars are a great way to inspire some first-time clicks.
Tip: Make sure you display your reviews throughout your website as well (both service reviews and product reviews).
The Sitelink Ad Extension is the number one on many lists and for good reason. It’s essentially a juiced-up version of Structured Snippet Extensions, which only share a few links below the ad.
With Sitelink Extensions, not only do you share a few extra links, but they’re bigger and contain extra room for descriptions of each of those pages. This means you’re taking up a lot of “real estate” on the screen. This is particularly true for mobile devices, where screen space is even more limited.
Source: Future Shop
If your website consists of more than just a homepage, it probably makes sense to implement this extension. For example, if you sell clothes, you might divide your product categories into many pages: Men, Women, Boys, Girls, etc.
If you sell electronics, it could look something like this: TVs, Smartphones, Computers, A/V
If you work in a specific niche, you might want to display your About Us page.
The point is that you’re being more transparent about your offer and you’re giving them more options to click. Users who see your ad will get a better feeling for whether or not your ad is relevant to them and click on the appropriate link.
Google Ad extensions can be a great addition to any campaign you are running. By increasing trust, being more transparent, and providing more information, you’ll not only take up more screen space, but you’ll give users more reasons to click on your ad.
