Pay Per Click Ad Extensions

We’ve been asked several times why some PPC ads have “extra” information in them. The simple answer is, the advertiser is taking advantage of free ad extensions that are available within Google Adwords and Bing’s Adcenter.

There are a variety of options that you can utilize. Unfortunately you can’t get them all to work at once. So you need to decide what is most important. If you’re a business that relies on people coming to your brick and mortar location, then a location extension connected via your Google.com/mybusiness profile is the most important one. If you’re not sure, fill them all out and let Google/Bing/Yahoo show what they think will make the biggest impact, and best click through rate.

Here is a list of options, and a quick reason why each ad extension is important.

Location Extensions: This allows your business address to not only show up in the ad, but to populate in the map section with an icon. This hopefully gets the end user to believe your location is an advantage to you. On the downside, the further away you and the user are from each other, the less likely it will be to show.

Call Extensions: This option really needs a post on all its own, but in short it allows for a phone number to appear in the ad. This allows for convenient click to call options and call tracking features. This is fantastic, if you have a better close rate when actively speaking with the end user.

Site Link Extensions: These allow for “short cuts” of multiple pages of your website to be placed in your ad. These are the blue hyperlinks that are shown under the ad. The advantage is it gives you more real estate in your ad, allows you to add in some buzzwords, and shorten the click path of a user to what they are looking for. The limitation to this is each site link needs to have a unique landing page. So you can’t keyword stuff!

Call Out Extensions: The last point of the site link explanation is why these were created. These are nothing more than buzz word stuffing opportunities. Learn to maximize the call out’s with the ad copy to really cover as much info as you can.

App Extensions: Have an App for your business that is just as vital as a visit to your website. Then direct them to a place where they can download it. This is only relevant to those with apps, and you have to weigh out if the click path to the website or app is more important.

Review Extensions: Do you have an e-commerce store? Then you should really make sure to take advantage of this easy, and Free, program via Google to give you an edge on your competition. Get the “credibility backing” of Google by joining https://www.google.com/trustedstores/ then linking to your Adwords account.

As you can see, there are several options of ad extensions that can be utilized for your pay per click accounts. Not all are relevant to everyone, and you need to determine if you have a priority option for you. There are two things that make these a no brainer. First, they’re free. Second, they’re designed to boost your PPC account performance.

If you’re looking for some pay per click advice from a Certified Google Partner, don’t hesitate to contact us for a free, no obligation review of your Adwords and Adcenter accounts.