This is Why You Need to Use Google Adwords Ad Extensions

If you’ve been advertising using Google Adwords for even brief time you’ve probably heard of Ad Extensions and why they are important. In the event you haven’t, ad extensions are additional information and links you can use to enhance your messaging, provide more direct web page links, click to call capability, social proof like reviews and more. They will display with your ad at times when you hit the top of page positions. (note: many of the same ad extensions are available in Bing AdCenter as well)

They are important for a variety of reasons, most notably because they take more visual real estate, offer more messaging opportunities and have been shown to result in higher click through rates. But today, we have another reason why you want to be using ad extensions; Mobile.

We’ve recapped the fact that the mobile revolution is here. So it’s not so much that more prospects are using mobile devices to search for products and services. That is a given. But it is about a change in the way that Google displays ad extensions on mobile search listings. Here is an example of a search I performed today.

Direct your attention to the blocks below the main advertisement. These are ad extensions, specifically site links. Notice how Google not only gives these the same height as the ad. What you may not have noticed is that you can scroll horizontally to display more of the site links and therefore your marketing messages. Users can click any of these to load up a specific page. In this case, if they want a quote or to get right to applying for financing.

Next, move to the call block below that. That’s right, what you are seeing is a big fat click-to-call button a prospect can use to get you right on the phone. Boom, Instant contact from a prospect conversion right to your sales team.

These are huge click through rate and conversion drivers that also provide an enormous presence that can’t be missed when you are the top of page listing in mobile. Analyse what are the necessary extensions to promote your ad. Deploy the ad extensions that make sense for your company and watch your mobile performance improve!