Google’s Expanded Text Ads – What, When and How?

 

Do you have your text ad running on Google? Are you thinking about investing more on your ad? Then this is the perfect time for you as Google has come up with one of the biggest changes in text ads that are now being called Expanded Text Ads. People first heard about them in May 2016, when Google announced that the most creative change in AdWords is about to roll up. And now they are here.

What Are Expanded Text Ads?

According to Google, “Expanded Text Ads are the next generation of the standard AdWords text ad”. It’s the longer version of standard text ad, with more space to include the details about your product. It comes with two headlines that are separated by a hyphen. You can have thirty characters in both the headlines. It means there is more space to show your offers and features and attract more attention of the users. For double width characters like Chinese, Japanese and Korean, you will be allowed to include 15 characters in each headline. With Expanded Text Ads, you can have a single headline with a limit of 80 characters. When it comes to URL customization, you can put only the final or the destination URL and it will be shown as the display URL. The changes will also be beneficial for those who have mobile friendly sites as there’s a space for mobile final URL to redirect mobile users to your mobile site whenever they click on ads.

7 Tips to Get the Most out of the Expanded Text Ads?

As Google suggests, the introduction of these ads is meant for enabling you to drive more qualified clicks to your website. To get maximum benefit from this new feature you have to optimize your ad properly. Here are few tips for you.

• Create Fresh Ads

If you already have an AdWords account and are running campaigns, it’s time to have a fresh start. Think about new words to represent your business in a new manner; don’t just add another new headline. It’s a fact that nobody would want to change the entire ad if it’s working well and you would also feel the same. Therefore you may think that it’s better to add the second headline. But it would not be that much beneficial as you are using more words to show the same ad. That means you are simply wasting the words used for the creation of the second headline. It’s better to get rid of the temptation and try to get full benefit of the change.

• Add Your Essential Message in the Headline

Though, you can add 80 characters in your headline, they are not enough to attract the attention of the users. Therefore, you should spend most of your times to make full use of the two headlines. It’s quite natural that you would face several difficulties to understand how people are responding to your ads. This is why you have to change your ad frequently to come up with the headlines that can improve the CTR of your ad the most. You need to keep in mind that Google hasn’t changed its ad policies. Therefore, the rule regarding what you can and can’t add in the headline remains same.

• Pay More Attention to Headline 1

Technically, both the headlines include thirty characters each but there’s no guarantee that the second headline will appear the way you wish. It may happen that the second headline is shown in two separate lines. Even, Google can truncate the headline if it’s very long. Therefore, it’s better to include most important information about your product in the first headline.

There are three ads shown in the above picture. You can see here that only in the first ad both the headlines have been written with proper information. The first headline perfectly matches with the keyword searched and the second headline also reveals one of the most important qualities of company. But none of the second and third ad matches the keyword and moreover the second headlines in the two ads have been filled with unnecessary information. There’s no need of mentioning the URL of a website in the headlines as it will be mentioned in the ad.

• Don’t Remove Your Old Ads Instantly

It’s true that Expanded Text Ads have been introduced to help you earn more potential customers but like Classic Ads, they also need to be created wisely, or else they will fail to perform. And it’s not possible to become expert in these ads overnight. Keep in mind that everything is paid here and just because these are new, they will not outperform the old ones. It can happen that your old ads are doing better than the new ones. Therefore run both old and new ads simultaneously. Meanwhile, do some research and when the new ads start performing well, remove the old ones. But your deadline is 26 October, 2016. After this, Google will not support the old ads.

• Your Ads Should Address Users of Different Devices

At the beginning, internet usage was restricted only within desktops and laptops but now, with the introduction of the smartphones and tablets, half of all searches are done from mobile devices. Previously, marketers have to create different ads for mobile devices and desktops so that most number of users can be reached. The new expanded text ads are meant for all devices, relieving you from the additional task of creating two different ads. But you have to remember that your ad should be able to address both mobile and desktop users as you will not get the chance to create different ads.

• Insert Your Targeted Keywords into the Paths

The paths included in the expanded text ads are optional but there are a lot of benefits of it if properly used. With the insertion of your targeted keywords in the paths, you will not only assure your viewers that they are making a perfect search, but also you will be able to display a customized URL in Google results instead of the lengthy and difficult to understand URL of the product page.

• Change Your Ad Extensions

If you are aware of Google AdWords and have your ads running, you must have heard about the Ad Extensions. These are really advantageous features of AdWords. You can include some additional information like your address, call to action and more relevant pages with location extensions, call extensions and sitelink extensions respectively. You can use these extensions with Expanded Text Ads but you have to change them if they become redundant. Google will not show your ad extensions if they are meant for repeating the already written text in your ad.

Google has brought some great opportunities for you with its Expanded Text Ads. If you use it properly, it can yield fabulous results for you. All you need to take care of is writing attractive ads and the rest is upon Google. That is all for now. Try these above-mentioned methods. And don’t forget to share your experience with us.

Google has come up with one of the biggest changes in text ads that are now being called Expanded Text Ads. People first heard about them in May 2016, when Google announced that the most creative change in AdWords is about to roll up. And now they are here.