Google’s Free Gift to Online Marketers

Your Google ad will not only appear at the top of search results, but you’ll now get even more lines of copy with Extended Text Ads.[/caption] Christmas came early this year for online marketers: Anyone posting ads on Google will now get extra space–without paying an extra cent. You know those coveted top-three results on your search page, which look slightly different from your organic results and are marked (by law) as sponsored ads? They’re now getting extra lines of text, making them even more eye-catching. Because they seem to rank highest, and they’re now larger, they’re bound to grab people’s attention first. When Google first offered Expanded Text Ads in 2016, advertisers who took advantage of the extra lines of copy saw their click through rates improve by up to 20%. So you can imagine that people are pretty excited that they’re now getting even more room to post extra copy–as long as their websites are prepared to handle the extra traffic from those untapped target audiences! The decision, which went into effect in August, was primarily based on three factors:

• How the ads were displaying on mobile
• Other short-form communications were expanding (like Twitter, finally breaking its infamous 140-character-count limit)
• Plus, the longer ads simply tested better in beta

The latter reason is also why Google will be rolling out the highly anticipated Responsive Ads option next. But that’s another blog for another time!

What’s New for Expanded Text Ads?

Now, when your ad shows up as a sponsored search result on Google, you’re going to be able to take advantage of three rows of headline instead of two, with 30 characters each. Beneath that, instead of a single 80-character-long description, you can now use two blocks of copy that are each 90 characters long–for over double the total size. All in all, you’ll be getting 300 characters instead of the original 170. And yes, that does mean that you’ll want to revisit any existing ads and consider rewriting text or preparing extra lines. You don’t have to, because the previous size is still displaying fine! But the effort should pay off: Google’s preliminary testing showed that the new, bigger ads earned marketers 15% more clicks than the previous size. Before you get too excited, just remember: It’s not the size that counts. It’s how you use it. To implement the best keywords and clever copy that will get you those revenue-generating clicks, ask for vetted insights from Mad 4 Marketing. PLUS: You might also want to try some A/B testing to see which ads capture the best audiences for your business–because you don’t just want the clicks, you want clicks to actually convert to sales over time. We’ll strategically test your ads and prove which are bringing profit into your shop with a combination of audience insights and highly measurable KPIs using Google Ads.]]>