Ad Extensions, at their core, are additional text that help give more information to Google users that are served your ad. It’s universally accepted that taking up more real estate on the SERPs is a good idea, so running Ad Extensions should be a no brainer, right?
There are a few general things you should keep in mind when using Ad Extensions. The first is that they don’t ALWAYS show. Be sure to include the most crucial copy of your ad in the regular headlines and descriptions. There are also two types of Ad Extensions: Manual and Automatic. This post is going to cover the nuances of Manual Ad Extensions because they’re more customizable and see better performance.
Location Extensions
Location extensions show your business location, a call button, and a link to your business’ details page (which can contain a phone number, address, and website info). These ads are great getting shoppers into your physical store.
Affiliate Location Extensions
These ads help users find retail locations that sell your products when you don’t have your own store to sell them locally.
Callout Extensions
These let you add additional callout text to your ad like “free delivery” or “free trial”. These are great when trying to get users to make a purchase or convert online.
Call Extensions
Call extensions add either a phone number (desktop) or call button (mobile) to your ad to encourage users to call your business.
Message Extensions
These allow users to send you text messages from your ad.
Sitelink Extensions
These link to specific pages on your business website. Popular options include a product pages, hours info, and lists of retail locations.
Structured Snippet Extensions
Structured snippets let you select a predefined header and list items beneath the header. These are great for showing a range of specified products within a relevant category.
Price Extensions
These show your products or services alongside their prices. If your prices are competitive, this can be a very useful extension.
App Extensions
These ads show only on mobile (for both Android and iOS devices) and link directly to the relevant App Store for users to download your app.
When Do Extensions Show?
There are 3 main factors that influence when your ad extension will show:
Ad Rank: AdWords requires a minimum Ad Rank before showing extensions. If your extensions aren’t showing you need to increase either your bid or the ad’s quality before it will be shown.
Ad Position: Ads in higher positions get the first opportunity to show extensions. If your ad is in a competitive field you might need to work on getting it into a better position for the extensions to show.
Other Extensions enabled: Google will automatically show your top performing extensions and the ones it thinks will be most useful to users. If one isn’t showing, it’s probably because the others are performing better.
