Google on How to Get the Most Out of Callout Extensions
I think it’s fair to say that over the past couple of years Google has gone a little ad extension crazy.
It’s hard enough for us as digital marketers to keep up, let alone those of you who have other businesses to run.
But for anyone that can stay on the crest of the wave, these ad extensions give you a massive competitive advantage. And we’re seeing it in really high CTRs at the moment.
We’re finding some great success using the newer additions and callout extensions are a big contributing factor.
They haven’t been around that long. And we still regularly audit AdWords accounts that aren’t taking advantage of this powerful feature.
Here’s what Google says callout extensions are for, and how we should use them.
Here’s my take on this:
Every single AdWords campaign on the search network should be using callout extensions and fortunately for us, they aren’t.
And I love that Google has given us a bit more real estate to really sell the benefits of our clients and their products and services.
However, there’s one thing I don’t agree with in this video on. He said you shouldn’t repeat offers and bragging points that are already in the main body of your ad.
This is problematic for me, for a few reasons:
No Guarantees
1) You can never guarantee that your callout extensions are going to be shown. If you slip below ad position 3, then none of your ad extensions are going to be shown.
And even if you do appear in the top 3 spots, Google will not show all your ad extensions at the same time. And that means your callout extensions will not always be included in your ad.
If you omit your special offer from the main body of your ad and rely on it being shown in your callout extensions, your prospects aren’t always going to see it. And you’ll miss out on valuable clicks.
I Love to Repeat Myself
2) What’s wrong with repeating benefits and special offers?
You won’t find many successful marketers, that advocate promoting your special offer just once.
The vast majority of people searching for your product or service are going to skim the results page. And if you have your very best offer in your ad twice, you are more likely to grab their attention.
One USP Can Do It
3) What if you only have one special offer or one major bragging point? We have an award winning interior design client that offers free initial consultations.
Beyond that, they don’t have many other selling points and they don’t need them. We hammer those two points home wherever we can.
And repeating them in the main body of the ad and the callout extensions, continues to be a winning formula.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with callout extensions this is still a very useful little video. Google have posted quite a lot of these on their YouTube channel.
I’d definitely recommend taking a look if you are struggling with something.
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