If you invest in AdWords, you know how critical it is for your ads to stand out.
There’s a ton of competition. So even with an incredibly clever heading, paid ads need to make users want to click. You need to grab people’s attention.
A great way to do this is with Google AdWords Manual extensions. They’re the difference between a campaign that’s good and a campaign that’s great.
Today the team at LoudRumor (we’re a digital marketing agency) is showing you how to make AdWords extensions work for your campaigns.
Let’s get started!
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Google AdWords Manual Extension 1: Sitelinks
An obvious way to make sure that your ads stand out is to simply add more text and links.
That’s what sitelinks do.
Sitelinks act as bookmarks for your business. This manual extension allows you to showcase some of your website’s best sections so that you can link back to internal pages.
Here’s an example of one of our client’s ads (a roofing company) with sitelinks:
“Get Your Free Estimate,” “About Us,” and “Gallery” are the sitelinks.
Ads that don’t use this extension would just have the title, URL and text. In a sense, sitelinks also serve as additional selling points because they encourage users to click on our client’s “About Us” page and so on. The huge bonus here, though, is that sitelinks don’t use more characters in your text ad.
But what you’ll also want to do is test your sitelinks. It’s difficult to tell which pages you link back to in the ad will perform the best. So optimization is key with this extension.
For this roofing client, we tested 2 sitelinks “Get Your Free Estimate” and “Roofing Services.”
Here are the results:
As you can see, “Get Your Free Estimate” performed better than the “Roofing Services” sitelink based on the cost per conversion ($751.10 vs. $64.4) and conversion rate (1.77% vs. 28.42%), so we optimized with this in the final ad.
For our client, testing their sitelinks made a difference in conversion rate by 26.65% — that’s pretty big.
Google AdWords Manual Extension 2: Location
This AdWords manual extension is especially a must for local businesses. Essentially, the location extension provides users with your…
- business’ phone number
- physical address
- directions (on mobile)
….and so on. It makes it so much easier for people to find where you’re located without needing to click through to your site.
The location extension also links to your Google My Business page pulls your reviews and star rating. It also includes information from Google Plus like your hours of operation.
So, if you have multiple locations, you can have all of them in your account. Google will see which location is closest to users when they see your ad and they’ll show that address.
If a business is worried that their address will show but they actually serve the whole valley, Google will not show the address unless the person searching is close to the business.
Here’s an example:
So, once we set up the location extension for our roofing company, we wanted to see what kind of results it brought in.
Turns out it was responsible for a 21.94% conversion rate; people find this information about a business valuable.
Google AdWords Manual Extension 3: Call
The number one conversion that all businesses want is a phone call. Why?
Because phone leads are worth 5-10x more in revenue than form submissions. So a great way to encourage people to call your business from your AdWords ad is with the call extension.
This adds your business’ phone number so that users can directly contact your business from your ad. Again, just like the location extension, a potential customer won’t have to click through and investigate to find this information.
It’s convenience at its finest.
The call extension is especially great for users who search on their mobile phones. It allows them to click a “call button” on your ad that encourages them to directly dial your number.
Here’s what that call button looks like:
When you use the call extension, Google notes that this can increase your CTR by up to 8%.
When we added this to our roofing client, the call extension received a 19.00% conversion rate.
It was a huge go-to for people interested in our client’s services.
Google AdWords Manual Extension 4: Callouts
A lot like sitelinks, callouts allow you to highlight certain aspects or services about your business.
Callouts can point out credibility, offers, and so on.
Unlike sitelinks, though, they can’t be clicked. But they do allow for more text space other than the 35 character limit for the ad itself – so that’s a great perk.
Businesses can highlight certificates, specials, etc. that make them stand out more than their competitor’s ads. You get to dictate what users see about your company first.
In this case, we highlighted our roofing client’s BBB rating and more. And it worked – the callout extension was responsible for a 19.71% conversion rate:
Google AdWords Manual Extension 5: Apps
The app extension is built for businesses who have a feature through the app store or have created an app themselves. If this fits your company, the app extension can be a huge benefit because it allows you to highlight your app directly in your ad with a link.
And since there are 268,692 million projected app downloads by 2017, you really want yours to stand out amongst all the others. This extension is a great way to do that. Here’s how you can add the app extension to your campaign:
Setting this up drives traffic directly to the app so it’s easier for users to find. Essentially, this extension allows for fast access to whatever niche service you focus on in your app.
The app extension also enhances your potential customers’ overall mobile experience. The majority of people have used or at least heard of these popular apps:
- iHeartRadio
- Bump
- Flashlight
- Angry Birds
- Words With Friends
- … and many others.
It comes as no surprise that smartphone users spend 89% of their mobile media time using mobile apps. Take advantage of that with this extension.
Google Adwords Extension 6: Reviews
Why do business reviews matter? Because 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. This extension allows you to pull from third-party reviews and include them in your ads.
If someone who wants a Rolex watch searches for a local jeweler and they see these 2 ad options in search results, they’ll most likely choose the company that says “Excellent shopping experience” from a Google Trusted source — it adds instant credibility:
Ads that use the review extension are given a head start compared to other that don’t include reviews from their customers. But you may have noticed that these can be a little difficult to get due to the many regulations (from Google)…
- Must be from a third-party source (not an individual person)
- Can’t be a review from more than 12 months ago
- Reviews should highlight something rewarding about the business (certificates, awards, etc.)
- Cannot duplicate content in the ad with content in the review
- Must link directly to the third-party source where your review is from
- And more.
Once you do meet all of these guidelines, though, you’ll start to see a difference in your ad’s performance.
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