Google ad extensions are additional advertising real estates that Google provide advertisers at no extra cost to showcase their offers and improve their ads' Click Through Rate (CTR), Return on Investments (ROI), and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). In some cases, a Google Ads Extension may contain a clickable link that takes your site visitors directly to a subpage on your website or a clickable phone number on your mobile devices.

 

On a regular Google Search Ad with no ad extensions, Google allows as many as 15 headlines. Each headline has a limit of 30 characters and you can only tag or pin one of the 15 or so headlines. Also, a regular search ad may contain up to 3 descriptions, each with a maximum of 90 characters. Ideally, you should complete at least 6 headline descriptions. Google algorithm will toggle the headlines and descriptions in response to a search query in order to display the three most relevant headlines for your search ads visitors.

 

However, with Ad Extensions, you can add more useful advertising real estate to your Google Search Ads. The real estate, which is at no extra cost to you, may contain information about your products or services. It may contain your contact details, phone numbers, hours of work, clickable links to subpages in your website, product or service pricing and promotional information, specific call-to-action, your unique selling proposition (USP) that differentiates your offerings from those of your competition and much more. However, your claims must be backed up on specific landing pages of your website, or your site visitor may quickly exit, which may attract sanctions from Google. That notwithstanding, Ad Extensions does influence customer engagement, ad performance, and click-through rate (CTR) because they provide more information about your business.

 

3 Key Advantages of Using Ad Extensions

When crafting your Google Search Ad, it is profitable to utilize the extra advertising-free real estate that Google provides the advertiser at no extra cost. Three main benefits of Google Ad Extensions are stated below:

 

1. Increased Ad Real Estate at No Extra Cost:

In the absence of Ad Extensions, a regular Google search ad could be 3 or 4 lines of uninteresting or uninspiring text ad lines with limited capacity to draw the attention and interest of a prospective customer. Therefore, taking advantage of the extra real estate of an ad extension to provide your prospects with what benefits your products or services can resolve has a very good chance of improving your ad's click-through rate (CTR) to a specific landing page of your ad.

 

2. Enhanced Opportunity for Engagement:

With Ad Extensions, you can dive deep into what you do and what you can offer. For instance, with price extension, you can state your products or service prices and describe in greater detail the nature of your products or services. With call extensions, you make it easier for your customers to call you instantly if they so desire. On mobile devices, call extensions are clickable and so your customer can call you instantly for inquiries and even for order placement.

 

3. Improves Your Ad Campaign ROI

As already stated, Ad Extensions increase or extend the real estate of your Search ads at no additional cost to you. For instance, Sitelink Extensions have the capacity to double or even triple your ad space real estate. Greater visibility of your ads means more eyeballs for your search ad and this increases the opportunity that one or more distinct sub-headlines (ad extension) can attract the interest of your prospective customers to click the particular sitelink extension, which takes the prospective customer straight to the landing page of your website. With a Call Extension on the mobile phone of your prospective customer, you may instantly receive an inquiry that may lead to a purchase.

 

Types of Search Ad Extensions:

There are as many as 15 Search Ad Extensions. A few require that you collaborate with the Google team in their setup, but you can manually set them up for most Ad Extensions. Not all Ad Extensions are created equal. Some of the most useful and common Ad Extensions are listed below:

 

1. Sitelink ads extension

This type of ads extension occupies a lot of advertising real estate of your search ad. It has the capacity of drawing the attention of your prospective customers directly to a number of different landing pages on your website as it can tell your story, for instance, the “About Us”, “Our Products”, “Our Services”, and this tells the prospective customer a lot about your business and your company.

 

2. Call extensions.

This is a type of Ad Extension that displays your phone number together with your ad. It encourages your ad prospects to call you directly without necessarily visiting your website. On mobile devices, like smartphones, Call Extensions are clickable.

 

3. Callout extensions.

Callout extensions are words and phrases that appear just below your search ad. They provide your prospective customers with more information about your products and services.

 

4. Structured snippet extensions.

In Google Search Ads, Structured Snippets are very useful as they provide tailored information about your business to prospective customers. For instance, structured snippets allow you to provide specific information about your business. The specificity of the information may include the following:

• The amenities you provide,
• Your specific brand,
• The courses you offer and the degrees or diplomas,
• The destinations you ply, if you are in the transportation business,
• The coverage you provide, if you are an insurance enterprise,
• The features of your hotel, like free internet connectivity
• The shows are available if you are in the entertainment business and so on.

 

5. Location extension.

In Google Search Ads, there are two types of location extensions. Google Ads location extension is used in search ad extension as an aid to help your customers find or locate your business address, business phone number, or a map of your business location. Also, with the aid of location extension, your business address, a map of your business location and the distance of your business location from an originating location of your customer can aid a customer in locating you.

 

6. Image extension.

Google Image extension was launched in 2020. In your search ad campaigns, image extensions usually appear just below the search ad just after the headline, description, and URL. They can be colorful and visually attractive images of your products.

 

Image extensions have some very strict requirements that are imposed by Google. For instance, your graphics must not include your brand logos, text, or graphic overlays in your ads.

 

The following image format requirements must be adhered to:

• File Formats: PNG, JPG, or static GIF image.
• Aspect Ratio: Square 1×1 (required) or Landscape 1.91×1 (optional, but recommended).
• Minimum Pixels: Square – 300 x 300 or Landscape – 600 x 314.
• Maximum File Size: No larger than 5120 KB.

• Lead form extension.

With a lead form extension, an advertiser is able to include a lead generation form directly in his or her search ad. In lead generation, a call-to-action is key to this type of ad extension. An early call-to-action helps in reducing the steps from awareness to conversion.

 

7. Promotion extension

Promotion extension is a special type of ad extension that you should use for the promotion of your goods and services by offering special deals like summer holidays sales, Mothers’ Day sales, and Seasons sales like Easter and Christmas promotional sales.

 

 8. Price extension.

In Google Ads, Price Extension is used to provide and promote your products and services on the basis of the price you offer. They are important for price-sensitive customers and even products. In many cases, Price Extension may take up a lot of promotional real estate in your Google Search Ads, especially on your customers' mobile devices like smartphones. Because Price extensions take up considerable real estate on the screen of mobile devices, they can have the added advantage of subconsciously “forcing” your customers to patronize your products or services.

 

Final Thoughts

For your search ads, it will be unwise not to take advantage of the additional free advertising real estate offered by Google. It provides you with the added opportunity to improve your search ad results. The number of Ad Extensions can be quite intimidating. However, as the goal of every advertiser is to optimize their ad performance, it is important to be well grounded in what benefits each ad extension provides and thereafter deploy appropriate ad extension(s) as occasion may warrant. It is advisable that you include all relevant ad extensions and let Google decide when and how to use them to improve your ad performance.