For years, Google has dominated the digital advertising space with innovative and exciting tools since their arrival on the online marketing scene in 1997. Google started testing Expanded Text Ads in Q2 of this year and the response was overwhelming. The first question on my mind, once I saw this new technology, was “Are Expanded Text Ads going to be a valuable marketing tool for our clients?” The answer was, a resounding yes!
1. Expanded Text Ads – More Advertising Real Estate
Simply stated, Expanded Text Ads provide twice the advertising space over original text ads. With a total of 140 characters, it would seem that Google took a page from the Twitter handbook concerning engagement length for savvy Social Media users.
2. More Content = Higher Engagement
Advertisers now have the ability to create two 30 character headlines, an increase of 140%, over the original text ads that allowed 25 characters in a single, super-sized, headline. You will also be able to utilize a single 80-character description field where the original ads provided two, 35 character, description lines. This is a 14% increase over the original ad space. This provides you the ability to create emotional ads where the right images, paired with the right message, create a powerful emotional trigger that drives engagement. As you can see below, more text in the headline grabs attention immediately causing the eye to follow to your message below.
3. Pay less for more
The Google Adwords system is an auction. You are bidding against competitors for ad placement. The price you pay is based on your Quality Score. If you bid $1.00 and I bid $1.00 for the same keyword you would think we both would be listed in the first position. But that’s not how Google thinks. What Google really cares about is your Quality Score because it wants to serve great quality content to its audience.
Quality Score is based on the relativity of your keywords to your ads and to your final landing page. The higher your Quality Score, Google rewards you with higher placement for less than what you bid. Expanded Text Ads provide you with double the amount of text to allow you more relevance towards your overall Quality Score.
4. More accurate URLs
In addition to these changes, Google has taken into consideration a common mistake that was made by advertisers when manually entering display URLs. Quite often, there would be a mismatch between the final destination URL and the display URL which caused ads to be disapproved. The final important change is the ability to add up to two paths in your display URL.
5. Optimized Performance Across All Platforms
The Expanded Text Ads are designed to optimize performance on mobile search results and maximize your presence in the desktop environment. Expanded Text Ads will display correctly across all devices and automatically wrap based on the device size. Google announced late in 2015 that Mobile searches had surpassed desktop searches and you should be prepared to capture that market for your clients.
What’s Ahead
While Google Adwords Expanded Text Ads are not the only changes that are arriving towards the end of 2016, they are the easiest to understand and leverage. Promoted Pins, Tablet Bid Adjustments, Similar Audiences for Search Ads and Shopping Ads on YouTube will be dominating the digital marketing realm in the months ahead. But that, as they say, is another story. Until next time, stay ahead of your competitors by joining our mailing list using the sign-up box at the very bottom of this page for exciting and innovative tips about things to come.
