How Many Ad Extensions Should You Use?

Ad Extensions are incredibly important to any PPC account. Here’s just a few of the benefits of using ad extensions:

• Used to calculate ad rank (along with quality score and bid)
• Showcase additional information to the user
• Allow for more conversions types (calls, driving directions)
• Gives the user more information about the company/product
• Causes the ad to dominate more real estate in a search result

This ad is a good example of ad extensions in action. The ad itself takes up 3 lines of text. The extensions take up 4 lines. The ad more than doubles in size by using extensions:

 

This ad doesn’t even have all of its extensions displayed; and that’s the cause of a lot of issues for advertisers. For example, an ad might have 0 structured snippets displayed in one search results and then 2 snippets shown on the next result. At times you will have 2 sitelinks displayed and then other times there will be 3 or 4.

It’s been very difficult for advertisers to have a set of guidelines as to which, and how many, ad extensions should be used in a PPC account.

To help clear up issues; we’ve created a handy chart to use when creating your extensions.

Minimum number: In the case of ranges, the smallest number is the absolute minimum you should create. The larger number is the minimum if you want to test the extensions.

Level: This is the lowest level you should use as a best practice. However, some extensions (such as sitelinks) can be made at a more granular level (ad group) or higher (account level for callouts) within your PPC account.

Automated: If you don’t have some extensions, such as sitelinks, Google may automatically create some from your website and display them in your ad. You can see some of this data in the automated extension report.

This chart only includes the extensions you can manually control. Some extensions, such as seller ratings, are only automatic and you can’t manually control the extension (these are technically called annotations).

Every account should be using:

• Sitelinks
• Callouts
• Structured Snippets
• Review (if you qualify)

The other extensions are only useful based upon your business type.

You should regularly check your account (especially when you create new campaigns) to ensure you are using the extensions to their full effectiveness since they can help increase ad rank, CTR, and conversion rates.

With so many things to keep an eye on in your account, you can either use automated tools such as Adalysis Free PPC Audit to help you or run a PPC audit manually from time to time – this will help you ensure you are not missing out on any opportunities to further boost your PPC performance.