To help aid your own study material, here is the word track for the whole Ad Extensions section of the course.

Section 7: Ad Extensions - Overview:

In this section of the course, we're going to go through exactly what an ad extension is. We're going to look at the benefits of ad extensions, and the different types of ad extensions you can use on your ads. I'm going to show you how you can add an ad extension to your ads. And I'm also going to go through things to bear in mind when you're using ad extensions.

Let's get straight into it.

Section 7: What Are Ad Extensions And The Benefits Of Using Them:

So first things first, what is an ad extension? An ad extension simply expands your ad with additional information. It is really that simple. A lot of people like to over-complicate ad extensions and make it sound a lot more difficult than it actually is, but essentially an ad extension simply expands your ad with additional information. So to understand ad extensions a little bit better, let's look at a live example. So, I went over to Google and I simply did a search for the office desk and Google returned to me three different ads. We have an ad at the top for office furniture online. We have an ad in position two by planscape, and we have an ad in position three by furniture-work.co.uk Now, if you look at these ads, you're going to notice that the top ad is a lot larger than the bottom two ads.

And the main reason why is because the top ad is using what we call site link extensions, which are these parts right here, which is essentially a sub-menu of the main app. So as a result, this top ad takes up so much space on your screen. Where the ad in position two and position three, aren't using any site link extensions so as a result, their ads don't take up that much space at all on the page. Now, if you were in the market for an office desk and you went onto Google, and carried out a search, you are way more likely to click the ad at the top in comparison to the ads below. The main reason being is because this ad takes up more space on the page. So, this is just one of the benefits of using ad extensions. So let's head over to the next slide where I'm going to go through the five main benefits of using ad extensions.

So the first benefit, as I just covered, is when you use ad extensions your ad takes up more real estate on the page, which is going to make it more likely to get a click, which is obviously what we want as we are running Google ads. The second benefit of using ad extensions is shortcuts. So, as we just saw in that screenshot before, you can actually add site links to any page you want on your website. So in this instance, this website, office furniture online, it has direct links to pages on its site, talking about its bestseller, white vogue desk, the best sell next day desk. So, I'm assuming this company would have done some research and it found out these two pages are most likely going to be its most popular pages. So as a result, it's going to make it easier for customers to land on those pages.

Imagine if this ad didn't have those links right here and you wanted to find out the best sell next day desk. You'd have to click the ad, wait for the page to load and then find that option from the menu in the site. So, having the option below as a site link makes it so much easier for the customer and results in less clicks, which is going to result in a higher conversion rate. The third benefit of ad extensions is it's easy to update. So as you expand your business and you create and launch new products, you can very easily update all of your ad extensions, literally in bulk. So let's imagine you have 10 different campaigns and each campaign is using its own ad extension. You could literally update all of those 10 campaigns very easily. The fourth benefit of an ad extension is it increases your CTR and your quality score.

Now, this is a massive one as you already know, as the higher your quality score and the higher your click-through rate, the cheaper you'll go into pay-per-click. So, having ad extensions is really a must. I would never recommend you run any ads without using ad extensions. That is just how important they are. And if you are wondering how ad extensions help increase your CTR, it's simply because your ad takes up more real estate and the user obviously has more things to click as well. That's especially true if you're going for site link extensions. The fifth and final benefit of using ad extensions is, it makes your ads way more relevant. You can literally create ad extensions at the ad group level, meaning you can really tailor the text to suit the keyword you're targeting. This is going to help you a lot. And it's also going to contribute to increasing your CTR as well, which of course is going to increase your quality score, which on the whole is going to make you pay less per click as well. So, having more relevancy in your ads is definitely the way to go. So, now we've gone through the basics of what an ad extension is and the benefits of using them. In the next video I'm going to go through the main five types of ad extensions you can use when curating your ads. I will see you there.

Section 7: The Different Types Of Ad Extensions You Can Use:

The four main types of ad extensions. When you are creating your ads, there's four main types of ad extensions I recommend you use. The first is sitelink extensions. The second is location extensions, and the third is core extensions. And the fourth and final type of extension I recommend you use is going to be callout extensions. First up is sitelink extensions. This is the one we covered in the last video. As you can see, I went over to Google and I did a search for Nike or Nike, depending on where you are in the world is how you pronounce it. But essentially, as you can see, Nike have four different sitelinks in total, the first sitelink they have is directing users to a page on their website, which currently has a 50% sell. The second sitelink is directing customers to the page about running shoes.

Then we've got a yoga collection and then products for kids. As you can see, Nike has done this really, really well. Again, I'm assuming they've used their data from their website to figure out what pages are most popular. Then they've used that for the main sitelinks, as they know the majority of their customers and their visitors like to see these four pages. Having these four pages as sitelinks, it's just going to make our life a little bit easier, if we're looking for these pages. The second type of ad extension is what we call location extensions. These are primarily used for local businesses. However, they can be used for generic businesses as well, that sell products such as an e-commerce store. And as you can see in this ad example, we had the ad text at the top, Allen Edmonds official site, extra 30% off select boots.

And then on the bottom of the ad, we have this icon right here, a little map symbol, and then it has the address as well. Typically the address you see here is going to be pulled from the Google My Business listing. If you're not sure what a Google My Business listing is, it's essentially the listing every local business has. We can go into Google Maps, get directions, and check out the review that is at the Google My Business listing. To get an address shown on your ad, you need to make sure you have a Google My Business listing registered, and then simply connect it up to your Google ads account. But like I said, this type of ad extension is best reserved for local businesses as they get the most value from it. I'm actually not sure why this e-commerce store is using a location extension.

It could be a case where they simply don't know what they're doing, or potentially they might want to attract more customers into the actual store, who knows. But anyway, that is a location ad extension. The third type of ad extension is what we call the core extension. Again, this is really useful for local businesses. However, it can be used for general businesses as well. And basically, when you use a call extension, you literally list your number on your Google app. This is very handy if people want to get in touch with you. I've seen some businesses use this on the ads when directing traffic to their customer service page, which is a little bit smart as obviously when people get in touch with businesses, a lot of the time they actually want to get in touch via phone. Listing the contact number on the ad is a very good method.

However, I'm not too fond of paying for clicks when it comes to customer service. That is just my personal preference anyway, and a number of really good things about using call extensions as well as when you view the ad on a mobile device, that cool icon actually looks something like this. You have the phone icon like so, and then you have the phone number. Now, if you click this on your mobile device, this is actually going to trigger the phone call function on your phone and start to call that number. It can help really a lot when it comes to conversions, which is why I recommend using it for local businesses.

Let's just imagine you're an emergency plumber based in New York. Some of the keywords you might be bidding on could be emergency plumber, New York. And as a result, when someone types in that keyword into Google, they are looking for an emergency plumber. The reason being is because they have an emergency, they want to get in touch with someone as fast as possible. Giving that customer a way to call you before they even clicked your ad is going to have a massive impact on your conversions.

The fourth and final type of extension I recommend you use is going to be callout extensions. I like to refer to callout extensions as highlight extensions because this is essentially where you need to highlight what is unique about your business. As you can see, in this example, we have an ad from newbalance.com. They have the callout extensions below, which you can see highlighted, made in the USA, which could be really important to customers in the U.S. They might only want to buy a product from their local country. We established in 1906, again, just to help build more social proof and convince the user that this is a good business. They've been around for a long time, with free shipping over $125 and free return. These are all really good things about this company. Callout extensions are very effective if you get the text right.

Now we've gone through the five different types of ad extensions you can use. You're probably wondering, which is the best one for me. Now, there's no simple answer to this. Do you need to have a think about what I've just covered and your business, and then pick the extensions which are the best for your business. For example, if you're a local business, you might want to go for the core extensions. If you're an e-commerce store, you might want to focus more on the callout extensions and the review extensions. The one type of extension I recommend that the majority of businesses use, is going to be the sitelink extension. Those are super powerful and will allow you to take up the most free impossible on the Google SERPs. Now, another thing I just wanted to highlight is that sitelinks don't always take the same form.

They don't always take up that massive space like I showed you. They can also look like what we see right here. New arrivals, women, new arrivals, men, MB women, lifestyle, e-cards and gift cards. These are also sitelink extensions. How your sitelink extension shows unfortunately is not up to you. It comes down to Google. Just a heads up. This is also how your sitelink extensions could actually look. However, it's still another line on your ad techs, which is going to make it thicker and take up more real estate and more likely to get more clicks. In the next video, I'm going to head back over to our Google ads account and I'll show you exactly how we can add these ad extensions to our ads. I'll see you there.

Section 7: How To Add Sitelink Extensions To Your Ads:

So now we've gone through the four main types of different ad extensions you can use, it's time to look at exactly how you can add those to your ads in your Google Ads account. So to add an ad extension, it's very, very simple. All you need to do is go over to ads and extensions on the left-hand side, give that a click and expand the menu, and then simply click "extensions," right here. You're going to want to make sure you click "extensions" and not "automated extensions," as that is going to take you to a different option. Just to add a little bit of clarity as well, automated extensions are essentially what Google adds automatically when you don't have any extension sets up. Now, Google doesn't always pick the best extensions, so I highly recommend you actually go ahead with extensions and create your own extensions.

So let's go ahead and give "extensions" a click. As you can see, we have three main options, create a sitelink extension, which gives you the sub-menu below your ad. We have created a callout extension and we have created a call extension, as well. These are the three that Google gives you by default. However, you can scroll down a little bit more and click this icon right here, "create ad extension," and then you can see the full list of extensions that you have available.

So let me go ahead and show you step by step exactly how you create an extension for the four types we've just covered in the last video. So let's start off with the first ad extension which we covered, which was sitelink extension. So let's go ahead and give this a click. As you can see, we have an example screenshot on the right, which shows you exactly what you are creating, which is obviously a sitelink. So let's go ahead and create some sitelink text. If we follow suit on our previous examples of using the website HSD Online to create our ad, we can go ahead and pick some other site links that would be relevant to our ads. If you remember, we actually created ads all to do with ceiling fans, however, I can have similar products as sitelink, such as a desk fan, extractor fan, pedestal fan, and so on, and so on.

When creating sitelinks, you want to make sure that they are relevant to the main search. So as my main search is about ceiling fans, what I'm going to do is include similar other products as the main sitelinks. I'll go for desk fans. So I'll go back to Google Ads, sitelink text, I'll put in "desk fans". Your sitelink text is essentially the text that displays on Google. For description one, below, I'm going to put in, "High-quality fans that cool you down." That is... Space right there. As you can see, I've gone over the character limit by one, so let's see if we can trim this down a bit. High-quality fans to cool you down. That works.

Description two, I'll put another description recommended. So I'll go for powerful, but small fans for cooling. Perfect, 35 out of 35. Then the final URL is going to be the URL the user lands on once they click this sitelink text, so that is obviously going to be the URL all to do with desk fans. So let's go ahead and click that, copy the URL, and then put that down as the final URL.

Now, this would be exactly the same process for every other sitelink you want to create. Now I highly recommend you have four sitelinks. The reason why I recommend you have four and not two is when you have four sitelinks, you essentially get so much more real estate on Google. The more real estate you have, the more likely your ad is going to get clicked, and the more users, inquiries, and sales you're going to generate. For the purpose of this training video, I'm simply going to go ahead and create three more site links, but I'm going to speed up the video so you don't have to sit there watching me and getting bored. I'll see you in just a sec.

And just like that, I've now created four sitelinks in total. I've gone for desk fans, extractor fans, pedestal fans, and tower fans. So now before I scroll to the bottom and click "save," what I want to do is go to the top of my sitelink extensions and make sure I add it to the right place. When you create a sitelink extension, you can either add it to your account, which is going to add it to every single campaign, or you can add it to a specific campaign, or you can even add it at the ad group level. Now, as this is a brand new account and I only have one campaign set up with one ad group, that is going to be the ad group I'm going to add it to.

Now, when you add your site links, you're going to want to tie it to the ad group or the campaign which is most relevant to what the sitelinks are about. If I select a campaign, you can see it's going to ask me which campaign do I want to attach the site links to? I can go for domestic fans, which is going to be my only campaign. However, if I go back and actually change that to an ad group, you can see I have my campaign here and now I can select the ad group I want to apply to. However, do bear in mind that this ad group is all about ceiling fans. So for someone to see these ads, they would have to type in something similar to ceiling fans, which is quite specific. My sitelinks, as you can see, desk fans and extractor fans, are quite generic. In this instance, it's going to make more sense to add the sitelinks to the campaign and not the ad group. The main reason being is because I might have multiple ad groups all within this campaign.

So let me go back and then go over to the campaign, select my campaign and then click "done". Once you've done that, you then want to scroll down and click "save". This is now going to add those four site link extensions over to your main campaign. As you can see, the current status for the site link extensions is currently under review, which just means Google is reviewing the changes we've made, and they're making sure it all looks good, and it doesn't lead the user to anywhere dodgy, or not mentioning any bad words which you shouldn't be mentioning, and so on, and so on. So that is how you add site link extensions. In the next video, I'm going to show you how you can add a call extension.

Section 7: How To Add Callout Extensions To Your Ads:

In this video, I'm going to show you how you can add a callout extension to your ad.

So, it's the same process as before. Go over to the left-hand side of your Google Ads dashboard, and give that a click. Go over to Extensions, and click the plus icon. And then, go for Callout Extension. Now, Google actually gives you a bit of information of what you can use when using callout extensions, such as showing descriptive text, for example, free shipping.

Now, if you remember what I said in my slides, I like to use callout extensions to highlight things that are unique to my business. So, if I go ahead and click Callout Extension, I'm going to create a new one. And then, I'm going to want to select where I want to apply this callout extension to. So, in this instance, I'm going to apply it to the ad group all to do with ceiling fans, which is the only ad group I have.

So, as I'm applying these callout extensions to the ad group all to do with ceiling fans, what I want to do is make sure all of my callout text is relevant to ceiling fans. So, what I'm going to do now is simply go ahead and put in some callout techs, which is all relevant to ceiling fans. So, I can put in something along the lines of powerful ceiling fans that cool you down, to cool you down? Powerful ceiling fans for cooling, that can work. Actually, I've gone over, that's 25. Powerful ceiling fans, I think that will do for one. And then, we can have free delivery on all fans. That's okay. That's quite generic, but it's 25 out of 25, so I'll take that because it would take up more space. Callout text free. Again, let me try and relate this to ceiling fans, so I can go for reliable ceiling fans.

Again, this can be a USP to your company. Obviously, you will know your business better than I know this business as this, obviously, isn't my business. But, essentially, you just want to highlight USPs about your business. So, I can go back and put in free 24-hour support. So, if someone has an issue with the product it's good to know that they can get free 24-hour support. You can also click Add Callout Text and add as many as you want.

Now, typically, I add about four to six callout texts, and then what will happen? Google will select the ones which it believes are most relevant when someone types in a search phrase, which is similar to our keyword. So, let me go ahead and put in two more callout text ideas.

So, another idea I can use could be quiet ceiling fans. I can also go for something along the lines of modern ceiling fans. Now, just be careful although we want to tie this down to the main ad group, which is about ceiling fans. You don't want to repeat ceiling fans too many times as, if you look at all of your callout texts, it's just going to say ceiling fans, ceiling fans, ceiling fans, which looks a little bit spammy. We want to keep things natural, which is why I recommend we have generic ones in there as well, such as 24-hour free support, free delivery on all fans, and so on, and so on.

So, once you're happy with all your callout text extensions, simply go ahead and click Save. This is now going to go through the same process where Google is going to review your callout texts. And, again, just make sure you're within the guidelines, and you're not using any hateful, or spammy texts, or things like those.

That is it for that one. And in the next video, I'm going to show you how we can add cool extensions. I'll see you there.

Section 7: How To Add Call Extensions To Your Ads:

In this video, I'm going to show you how you can set up call extensions. So it's the same process as any other extension. What you need to do is go to ads and extensions and then click the word extensions below. And then it's going to load the page, showing all of the extensions you have currently set up in your Google ads account. So once you're on this page, you want to click the blue plus icon like so, and then go down to call extension. Once you're on this page, you're going to see a few of the same options you've seen before, such as where do you want to add this call extension to? Do you want to add it to the ad group level or the campaign or the account level? In this instance, I'm going to go for the account level. So I want my number to show on all my ads.

The main reason being is that when you view this ad on a mobile device, it actually takes up a lot more space. So a lot more real estate on the screen is taken up. As you had this massive phone call icon right here below the ad. So I always recommend you add it like so. When it comes to the next option for your phone number, you simply need to enter your phone number. So for the example of this video, I'm just going to copy this phone number right here and copy that in like so. Just make sure you have the right countries selected for your phone number as well. And as you can see, it says call reporting is turned on. So what this means is that every time someone calls your phone number, Google is going to track that down as a conversion.

Now you're probably wondering how Google knows when someone calls my phone number as it's my personal phone number. Well, the answer to that question is, is because Google uses a Google forwarding number on top of your number. So although you enter your number like so in the backend of your Google ads account, this is not the number Google actually shows to the user. So what actually happens is Google shows a forwarded number. And when people call that, that number forwards onto the number that you put in your Google ads account. This way they can track all the phone calls generated from the Google ads. So once you put in your phone number, what you need to do is click advanced options. Now it's quite important to go through this because really and truly when you're setting up any call extensions, you want to make sure you create them in the most optimal way possible.

So you can actually determine when you want your call extension to show. Now, let's imagine you operate a business and it runs from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday to Friday. However, you also generate a lot of cells over the weekend. So you choose to show your ads on the weekends as well. However, no one's in the office on the weekends. So you don't want your core extension to show on the weekends. You only want your call extensions to show from Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM when you have employees in the office. So in this instance, what you can actually do is create a schedule that suits your business. So you simply come down to days and hours and you just select whatever applies to your business. So in this instance, it would be Monday to Friday. And you simply put in the time that you have people in the office to obviously answer the phone call, which would be from 9:00 AM down to 5:00 PM, which would be 1700. Like so, and then you'd simply click save.

And that would add a schedule to only show this call extension during the time that you show. Now, you can also have a bit of preference in regards to the device the ads are shown on it as well. I always like to tick the box right here that says mobile. And this basically means that Google is way more likely to show your ad to people on mobile devices rather than desktop devices. Now, if you remember, when you have your call extensions like so on a mobile device when you actually click this icon, it's going to trigger the call feature on your phone. However, if you're not on a mobile device and you're on a desktop, then your call extension is simply going to look like this. People are not able to call you from the desktop so it's far more effective just to show you a call extension on mobile devices. So once you're happy with all the settings you configured and the schedule for your call extensions to run, you can simply go ahead and click save. And that is simply how you create a call extension for your Google ads.

Section 7: How To Add Location Extensions To Your Ads:

So the fourth extension I covered was location ad extensions. So adding a location extension is exactly the same process as other extensions. You probably can do this with your eyes closed now. Simply go ahead and click ad extensions, go into extensions, and then give the big blue plus icon a click, and then simply scroll down and click location extension. Like I said in my PowerPoint slides, you are going to need a verified Google My Business listing to use this option. If you don't have a Google My Business listing, then you either need to create one and verify it, or you won't be able to use this extension.

Now, do bear in mind, as I said, this extension is typically used for local businesses or for businesses that would simply like to generate more customers into their actual shop. So as you can see, once you click location extensions, we have two main options: find a Google My Business account, or you can link to a Google My Business account I know. So you either need to own your Google My Business account or link to someone else's; but either way, the Google My Business account needs to be verified.

And just to add a little bit more clarification for those who don't know what a Google My Business account looks like, it's simply one of these. So let's go over to Google and type in ClickSlice, and you can see on the right-hand side of the page, that we have a big Google listing, which is for our agency website ClickSlice. You can visit the website, and get directions. This is essentially what a Google My Business listing is. So to use a location ad extension, you will need one of these. That is something very important, and something to take into consideration before you go ahead and try to add a location extension.

Now, my personal view on location extensions is that if you do have a Google My Business listing, then definitely go ahead and add it to your ads as an ad extension. If you don't have a Google My Business listing, then I wouldn't worry about it as it's not one of the most impactful ad extensions you can use. Out of the four, I showed you, location extensions are probably the least effective. However, as I said, if you have the listing, definitely go ahead and get it connected.

Section 7: Things To Bear In Mind When Using Ad Extensions:

So, now we've gone through what ad extensions are, the different types of ad extensions you can use, and how to add ad extensions to your ads. I just wanted to go through a couple of things you need to bear in mind when using ad extensions. The first one is there is no guarantee Google will show all of your ad extensions. So, I've got an ad in front of me from a company called John Lewis, which is a massive company, and as you can see, the ad looks very, very basic. It just has the free titles, desk fan, views the latest range, shop online, and then it has a description below. And above that, next to the URL, it has a cool extension. Other than that, there's literally nothing else to this ad.

Now, John Lewis is a massive, massive company. It's very unlikely that they don't have any ad extensions for this particular ad. So, in this case, it's extremely likely that Google just chose not to show any ad extensions. Now, what you have to bear in mind is that we will never find out the reason why. It's just something to be aware of. At the same time, I've created so many ads in the past, I've had call-out extensions, call extensions, site link extensions, and then when I go ahead to another browser and Google one of the keywords I'm bidding on, and actually look at the ad google is showing, Google literally she shows just one of my extensions. Where if I try it again an hour later, I can see all three extensions on the same ad.

So, there's not really any magic formula you can use or follow to make sure Google shows all of your extensions. The best thing you can do is create as many ad extensions as possible, as that way, you are putting all the favor and the ball in your court. Meaning, if Google sees an opportunity to show multiple ad extensions, then it can at least do so as you've already set your ad extensions over in your Google ads account.

The next thing to bear in mind when it comes to ad extensions is to avoid repeating yourself. So, as you can see from the ad in front of us, we have a description right here which talks about hoops of every shape, color, and size, and free shipping. Great. We have the call-out extensions below, free shipping. And then, we have two site links below, and the one says free shipping, as well. So, I mean, it's super obvious that this company offers free shipping, and actually, everywhere you look in this ad, all you see is free shipping, free shipping, free shipping. Now, this comes across as very spammy and very unnatural, so it's definitely something to pay attention to when it comes to creating your ad extensions. You really want to avoid repeating yourself. We've actually taken on a lot of clients who have done this in the past, and as soon as we swapped out the repetitive words, we actually saw a massive increase in their CTR, which had a positive effect on the quality score and, of course, which actually brought down the cost per click.

So, that brings a section to an end. And in the next section of this course, I'm going to cover every single thing you need to know when it comes to conversion tracking, which is extremely important when it comes to Google ads, as if you can't measure how many conversions your ads are generating, then you can't really tell how profitable your campaigns actually are. I'll see you in the next section.