oOne of the most underutilized weapons in a number of AdWords accounts is ad extensions. Ad extensions allow you to take up more real estate on the SERP, providing additional links to your site, product images and other information that can draw people in and increase your click-through rates. In this guide, we’ll be walking through each of the AdWords ad extensions in detail, showing you how they work, when they work, and why you’d want to leverage them.
In this post I will provide a brief overview of each. Click the headings on each section for an in-depth look at each of the AdWords ad extensions.
They Are ---
Google AdWords Location Extensions
Google AdWords Product Extensions
Google AdWords Ad Sitelinks
Google AdWords Call Extensions
Google AdWords Location Extensions
The whole Call Extensions feature revolves around the “click-to-call” feature. This means searchers who see your ads on Google can simply click on the phone number to call you directly, instead of remembering the number and dialling manually. This not only gives your ad more visibility, authority, but most importantly, makes it easier for potential customers to contact you.
Two ways of implementing click-to-call feature
The click to call feature can be implemented in two different ways. You can use Location Extensions to add your phone number, it will display as a click-to-call link when the Location Extension is triggered, i.e. if they are currently close to your business location or is searching with a location keyword (e.g. solicitors in London). The Other way of enabling click-to-call, regardless of the searcher’s location, is to add your phone number in call extensions. I will be going through both methods below.
One advantage of having two different methods is Location Extension and Call Extension can work together, enabling you to show a unique number to searchers around your business with Location Extension, and another number for all other searchers with Call Extension.
Setting up Click-to-call with Location Extensions – searchers around your business
Source : WordStream
That’s it, this is really is the very last post in this unique four part trilogy! As always, please feel free to comment below with any questions. Check out other posts of Google AdWords ad extensions series below:
In this post I will provide a brief overview of each. Click the headings on each section for an in-depth look at each of the AdWords ad extensions.
They Are ---
Google AdWords Location Extensions
Google AdWords Product Extensions
Google AdWords Ad Sitelinks
Google AdWords Call Extensions
Google AdWords Location Extensions
The first post in our series on Google AdWords Ad Extensions will focus on AdWords location extensions. Location extensions are a feature within Google AdWords that allows you to add location data about your business to your ad:
In this post we’ll walk through why these extensions are important, how you can use them in your account, and when to use the extensions as well as how best to apply them.
Syncing your Google Places account is easy enough as you’ll be pulling already entered information about your business, and even starting from scratch with a location extension is a fairly painless process:
Once you’ve set up your location extensions, you’ll start to see data around specific extensions:
Getting too fancy with your company name or address can get you into trouble, but the one area you do have some flexibility is with the map icon and business image. Choose something clickable and consistent with your branding and landing page experiences (just like with any ad element) and you can have a better-performing location extension. The reporting here is nice because you can test different favicons and business images, if you have enough local volume in a given campaign to justify it.
That said people frequently have questions about how location extensions apply to different types of campaigns, such as:
You can include up to four locations per campaign, so if you’re including four different locations you want to make sure each location matches all of the keyword targeting set up in that campaign.
For instance if you have a campaign aimed at four different locations in reasonably close proximity of one another, make sure that all of the offers, specials, and products you’re including in your ad copy and keyword lists apply to all four, because Google will return what they deem to be the most relevant location for a given search. You should also consider how interchangeable these stores and locations and their messaging is – again if the volume and return for your work makes sense, there may be instances where you would be better off breaking out different locations into their own campaigns with keywords and ad text that better fit that location and product set (i.e., maybe your chain restaurant is actually a little pricey in a low-income area but is actually considered very affordable for a higher end neighborhood – even if they’re located nearby geographically, you might be well-served to create separate messaging for each area, depending on how much additional effort this would be to your business and how much extra return you can expect).
While in some instances enabling location extensions across a large and complicated campaign can require some strategy and leg work, in most instances if a campaign receives a significant amount of local search volume enabling the feature is well worth it.
How to add Location Extension to your AdWords Campaign
Call Extension is an AdWords ad extension that enables you to add your business’ phone number to the bottom of your ad copy. At the moment call extension only works on high-end mobile devices such as Apple iPhones or Android smart phones. In this post we’ll walk through why these extensions are important, how you can use them in your account, and when to use the extensions as well as how best to apply them.
Why Are Google AdWords Location Extensions Important?
Location extensions allow you to get more real estate on the SERP and provide more information to local searchers, including a clickable phone number on mobile devices. Given that AdWords location targeting is probably more aggressive than you think, this is a pretty powerful option. Marissa Mayer noted recently that roughly 20 percent of the searches on Google are for local information and roughly 40 percent of mobile searches are after local info. That’s a large swath of potential searchers, and there are a number of local businesses for whom getting additional real estate in a search result and getting easier access to a connection with potential customers is important.How Can I Use Google AdWords Location Extensions?
Location extensions are relatively quick and easy to set up. You create location extensions at the campaign level, and you can create them by pulling from a Google places account or by creating a new listing:Syncing your Google Places account is easy enough as you’ll be pulling already entered information about your business, and even starting from scratch with a location extension is a fairly painless process:
Once you’ve set up your location extensions, you’ll start to see data around specific extensions:
Getting too fancy with your company name or address can get you into trouble, but the one area you do have some flexibility is with the map icon and business image. Choose something clickable and consistent with your branding and landing page experiences (just like with any ad element) and you can have a better-performing location extension. The reporting here is nice because you can test different favicons and business images, if you have enough local volume in a given campaign to justify it.
When Should I Use Google AdWords Location Extensions?
Location extensions are useful in a variety of different types of campaigns – if there’s a chance your ads may show in local queries, it’s likely worth the very short amount of time it takes to set up location extensions.That said people frequently have questions about how location extensions apply to different types of campaigns, such as:
AdWords Location Extensions & Mobile Campaigns
The AdWords click-to-call functionality means that on mobile display ads you can frequently have your number displayed in a “clickable” format so a searcher can quickly connect with your company. This point of differentiation between mobile campaigns and campaigns targeted at desktops and laptops is a good example of the need for businesses getting a lot of mobile traffic via AdWords to split out mobile traffic to lower CPCs and CPAs.AdWords Location Extensions & Content Network Campaigns
There are instances where content network ads will show location extension information, so it’s worth monitoring this data as well.AdWords Location Extensions & Campaigns for Multiple Addresses
So what if you have a chain or cluster of stores you’re promoting? This is where some of the location targeting functionality gets pretty interesting: in these instances you want to start to map your campaign strategy to how you can use location extensions (again – this is assuming you are drawing a sufficient amount of local traffic to justify this type of restructuring – you need to prioritize how you construct campaigns based on the levers that will have the biggest impact on your ROI, be they geographic, temporal, budget-related, etc.)You can include up to four locations per campaign, so if you’re including four different locations you want to make sure each location matches all of the keyword targeting set up in that campaign.
For instance if you have a campaign aimed at four different locations in reasonably close proximity of one another, make sure that all of the offers, specials, and products you’re including in your ad copy and keyword lists apply to all four, because Google will return what they deem to be the most relevant location for a given search. You should also consider how interchangeable these stores and locations and their messaging is – again if the volume and return for your work makes sense, there may be instances where you would be better off breaking out different locations into their own campaigns with keywords and ad text that better fit that location and product set (i.e., maybe your chain restaurant is actually a little pricey in a low-income area but is actually considered very affordable for a higher end neighborhood – even if they’re located nearby geographically, you might be well-served to create separate messaging for each area, depending on how much additional effort this would be to your business and how much extra return you can expect).
While in some instances enabling location extensions across a large and complicated campaign can require some strategy and leg work, in most instances if a campaign receives a significant amount of local search volume enabling the feature is well worth it.
How to add Location Extension to your AdWords Campaign
- Click on a campaign you wish to add location extension to.
- Click on the ad extension tab (see above), it is not on by default, so you will need to click on the drop down arrow and enable the tab yourself.
- Select “Addresses from Google Places” or “Manually Entered Addresses” and click on “New extension” once expanded (see above).
Addresses from Google Places – This is to link your existing Google places account to your campaign (they must be verified addresses), you can add up to 100 addresses per account through manual verification, and up to 1,000,000 addresses for verified bulk uploads.
Manually Entered Addresses – If you do not have a Google places account (highly recommended you create one), you can manually enter up to 100,000 addresses.
- Click Save once you are done.
Two ways of implementing click-to-call feature
The click to call feature can be implemented in two different ways. You can use Location Extensions to add your phone number, it will display as a click-to-call link when the Location Extension is triggered, i.e. if they are currently close to your business location or is searching with a location keyword (e.g. solicitors in London). The Other way of enabling click-to-call, regardless of the searcher’s location, is to add your phone number in call extensions. I will be going through both methods below.
One advantage of having two different methods is Location Extension and Call Extension can work together, enabling you to show a unique number to searchers around your business with Location Extension, and another number for all other searchers with Call Extension.
Setting up Click-to-call with Location Extensions – searchers around your business
- Setup Location Extensions with your campaign (See my other post on “AdWords Ad Extensions – Location Extensions” for a detailed step by step guide).
- Select the campaign to wish to add click-to-call, make sure you include your phone number when entering your location information.
- Go to settings tab of the same campaign and opt-in to show your ad on mobile devices – it is highly advised you create a separate campaign for mobile advertising only.
- Login to your AdWords account, click on the “Ad Extensions” tab, if it is not visible you will need to enable it in the drop menu.
- Select “View: Call Extensions” from the menu below the main tabs and click on the “New Extension” button.
- Select the campaign you wish to add Call Extension to, select your Country and enter your business’ phone number. “Call-only” format means only your phone number will be clickable, stopping people from clicking through to your website.
- Again, it is highly recommended you create a separate campaign for mobiles only – click-to-call only works on mobile devices. To do this, go to the settings tab of a campaign and change devices to “mobile devices with full browsers”.
Source : WordStream
That’s it, this is really is the very last post in this unique four part trilogy! As always, please feel free to comment below with any questions. Check out other posts of Google AdWords ad extensions series below:
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