Expanded text ads – what and why?

Google AdWords recently introduced expanded text ads – designed to give advertisers more control over the content of their ads and provide potential visitors to your site with more information before they make that all important click.

Expanded text ads are, to quote Google, “the next generation of text ads”. Expanded text ads ‘expand’ on the familiar text ads format, giving you more freedom and creativity. You are getting a higher word count limit for your money. You now get two headline fields instead of one. This gives you a combined 60 characters to work with instead of the traditional 25. There is now just a single description field instead of two, but you get an 80 character limit instead of 70. You can add further text with the introduction of two path fields in your ads display URL. For example: www.example.com/p2plending/investors

Ok, but does this really affect my business?

The introduction of expanded text ads will affect the number of conversions on your website and the amount of money you spend – so yes.

The near 50% additional headline and description text space will allow you to be more targeted with your ads, thus increasing the number of relevant clicks to your site. This will therefore have a positive effect on your conversion rate.

Ok, I’m listening.

Expanded text ads will also reduce unwanted traffic to your site by better setting expectations to would be clickers. If potential visitors to your site have a better understanding of what they are about to click through to, then they will be a better quality of visitor. Many wasted clicks occur when they find that the information on the landing page wasn’t what they thought it would be. With the new expanded text ads format you can be clearer as to what people will see when clicking on your ad.

But I heard less is more?

I hear you. The temptation with the additional text limit is to try and use it up. However, this doesn’t necessarily translate into a better ad. If your existing text ads are performing well, don’t change them. There is no rule with the expanded text ads that you have to use the additional text space up.

Hey, what do I need to do if I am an existing advertiser?

On October 26th 2016, standard text ads will no longer be available. However, any existing text ads you have already will continue to serve past the 26th. Any new ads created up until the 26th October will default to the new expanded text ads format, but you can switch to the text ads editor. (If you're a client of The Marketing Eye, don't worry, we've got it covered!)

Google has given advertisers more freedom and creativity with expanded text ads, enabling a better experience for Google’s users. And if they are happy, your bottom line will be happy too.

Need help with Google AdWords? Why not get in touch and find out how we can drive quality traffic to your website.