Sean Quadlin shares Google’s best practices to guide advertisers through the migration process of Expanded Text Ads, utilizing its benefits, setting up the expanded text ads, how to go about testing and optimizing the creatives to utilize its full potential.
Here are the 5 videos and their transcripts to help you move forward with Expanded Text Ads.
Moving from Standard to Expanded Text Ads
Sean: Hello to internet. Welcome to our video series “All about creating Effective Text Ads in AdWords”. My name is Sean Quadlin, I’m a Product Marketing Manager here focusing on AdWords Best Practices, and right now, we’re going to talk about how to make the transition from Standard Text Ads to Expanded Text Ads.
So, earlier this year we introduced Expanded Text Ads to AdWords. Expanded Text Ads are optimized for the screen sizes of the most popular smart phones. They feature two Headlines, each with 30 characters, and one long 80-character Description Line. It’s a lot more space for you to highlight your products and services.
Now, as you make the transition from Standard Text Ads to Expanded Text Ads, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Test multiple versions of Expanded Text Ads, remember lessons learned from Standard Text Ads, focus your ad tests on your headlines and leave your Standards Ads running until the new expanded versions perform.
To start, you’ll want to test the multiple versions of Expanded Text Ads. You’ll most likely spend months, or even years, crafting successful Ad Text under the old character limits. A new expanded version isn’t guaranteed to win just because you have more text to work with. You should experiment with multiple different approaches to your new text. Ideally that’ll mean three to five new Expanded Text Ads per Ad Group, especially in your high-volume places.
Next, remember the lessons that you learned from your Standard Text Ads. Although Expanded Text Ads are an opportunity to rethink your entire creative, use previous lessons learnt in earlier ad tests. Consider mimicking elements of your Standard Text Ads in the new expanded template. For example, you can promote Description Line 1 from your Standard Text Ad into Headline 2 of your new expanded text.
Similarly, a successful ad text contains numbers or pricing; retain those as you rethink that entire creative. You have a chance to be more compelling, which may simply mean that you add a little bit more context to your already very compelling ads. Next, focus your ad tests on your Headlines. Headlines are important, and it’s crucial to test that additional space first. Your Headline is where someone clicks on your ad, so you should ensure that you’re doing a good job with that space.
Finally, leave your Standard Ads running until the new expanded versions perform. If you find that shorter, standard versions are performing better, compare that ad side by side with your new Expanded Text Ad, learn from what’s working, and expand on that success with your additional text. You want to take the time to see that your Expanded Text Ads are high quality and that they’re going to perform to your expectations.
So to recap on making this transition, test multiple versions of Expanded Text Ads, remember the lessons learnt from Standard Text Ads, focus your Ad Tests on your headlines and leave your standard ads running until the new expanded versions perform.
Thanks for watching this video and please check out the rest of our series “All about creating Effective Text Ads in AdWords”. Thanks.
Take advantage of expanded text ads – Google Best Practices:
Sean: Hello to internet and welcome to our ongoing video series “All about creating Effective Text Ads in AdWords”. My name is Sean Quadlin, I’m a Product Marketing Manager focusing on AdWords Best Practices, and right now, we’re going to talk about how to take advantage of Expanded Text Ads.
When taking advantage of Expanded Text Ads, you want to follow these guidelines. Create ad text that appeals to users across devices, use your character limits and then focus on your Headlines. To start, create ad text that appeals to users across devices. We found that a compelling call to action on one device tends to be compelling on other devices as well. Find out what’s most compelling about your business, and then build your ad around that insight.
Here’s an important consideration now: Tie those creatives to your keywords. You want to indicate that you have what someone is looking for by speaking directly to her search terms. Customizing the experience for mobile users can still be a great thing though. Direct them to pages of your site that deliver a great experience through mobile-specific URLs. And if you know that any Calls to Action or offers that work particularly well on mobile devices, take advantage of Ad Customizers to speak directly to mobile users.
Next, take full advantage of your character limits. You have two 30-character Headlines, one 80-character Description Line and two 15-character URL path fields. Use that space. Perhaps most importantly, longer Headlines increase the clickable space of your text ads. But speaking of those Headlines, the final piece of advice when it comes to taking advantage of Expanded Text Ads is to focus on those headlines.
Your Headlines are the clickable space on your text ads. You now have more than twice as many Headline characters as were available before. What you put into that space will be a big indicator of how enticing your ad text is. Big, blue Headlines are more prominent than your Description text. The content and quality of your Headlines matters, and will determine how well your ad performs. Your Headline should receive the majority of your testing attention.
To recap “How to take advantage of Expanded Text Ads”, create ad text that appeals to users across devices, use your character limits, and focus on your headlines. Thanks for watching this video but please check out the rest of our series “All about creating effective Text Ads in AdWords.”
Write compelling genuine ad copy – Google Best Practices:
Sean: Hello to internet. Welcome to our ongoing video series “All about creating Effective Text Ads in AdWords”. My name is Sean Quadlin, I’m a Product Marketing Manager here focusing on AdWords Best Practices, and right now we’re going to talk about how to write compelling, genuine ad copy.
As you adjust to the new mechanics of Expanded Text Ads, there are certain things to consider when writing your ad copy itself, namely, you want to show value to a user without coming across as pushy. But how can you do that? Rethink your entire ad creative, craft messaging that focuses on user needs and benefits, and avoid generic sales language in your ads.
To start, Expanded Text Ads are an opportunity to rethink your entire creative. Your ads have a lot more breathing room, which means you can reveal more about yourself to prospective clients. Whatever ad copy was more successful for you in the old world can and probably should instruct what you do with that new expanded space. Put another way, you can now say things that you couldn’t even say before.
Next, craft messaging that focuses on user needs and benefits. The best way to show value to a user is to think about what their needs are. Users respond to ad that includes concepts that are important to them. Focus on what a user gets by visiting your site – things like reliability or trust-worthiness, a wide selection, and whatever someone could want before visiting your site. Although those specific benefits will vary from industry to industry, start the ad copy process by thinking about your users.
So aside from knowing your knowing your business and knowing your customers, one crucial way to get insight into what users care about is to connect the terms you see in the Search Term Report with what ad copy you’re serving. See what they’re searching for, and how you actually speak to that in your ads. Finally, avoid generic sales language in your ad; use more specific and relatable Calls-to-Action. Things like, “Call us today” create a false sense of urgency; there’s not really a benefit to the user, so why would they want to call today?
Time-sensitive ads can be great, but there has to be a reason for that urgency. Something like, “Sale ends in this many hours,” when you use it on a count-down ad, can be very effective. Make any urgency earned and then valued. And a final point about Calls-to-Action: Make your offers to customers relatable. Think about where someone is in the buying cycle based on their query, like one user probably wants to browse, and when it seems like they’re actually ready to make a purchase.
To recap how to write compelling, genuine copy, rethink your entire ad creative, craft messaging that focuses on user needs and benefits, and avoid generic sales language in your ads. Thanks for watching this video but please check out the rest of our series “All about creating effective text ads in AdWords.”
Set up your expanded text ads for success – Google Best Practices:
Sean: Hello the internet. Welcome back to our ongoing video series “All about creating Effective Text Ads in AdWords”. My name is Sean Quadlin; I’m a Product Marketing Manager here, focusing on AdWords Best Practices, and right now, we’re going to talk about how to set up your expanded text ads for success.
Now, a well written ad is only one component of the ad unit that competes in the auction. There are several steps you can take to give your Expanded Text Ads the best possible chance of success. Three things that can make your ads more appealing: Ad Extensions, Keyword Insertion and Ad Customizers.
To start, implement all ad extensions that makes sense for you, the more the better. But try for four different extensions whenever possible. Ad extensions make your ads more permanent and appealing for users, and they’re all designed to complement your text ads. Multiple extensions can show with your ads, so enable everything that makes sense for your business.
Identify which extensions work for your business and then implement them. Check out our series about Ad Extensions if you want to learn more. The best combination of these extensions is automatically determined on an auction by auction basis. The more extension combinations you have available, the better chance you have of success at each auction. One important consideration with your ad extensions is that you might need to update them to avoid overlap with Expanded Text Ads.
As you rewrite your ad text for Expanded Text Ads, you’ll most likely be able to include additional benefits that didn’t fit when you had fewer characters. Extensions that repeat what you already say in your ad text won’t serve. In order to prevent that, ensure that your extensions have fresh, differentiated content. You should also feel free to added additional extensions when possible, such as with Call-Outs and Sitelinks. That way, you won’t need to worry about whether those extensions duplicate existing ads; the system will try to de-duplicate on your behalf and cycle on extensions that offer something new to your users.
Next, there are a couple of co-features that can save time for you, especially if you have a lot of ads to maintain. Keyword Insertion dynamically updates your ad text to include one of your keywords when it matches a user’s search. Keyword Insertion is best used with tightly themed ad groups where all keywords are perfectly relevant to the ad. Take care that your dynamic insertions don’t cause grammatical errors, like mixing plural phrasing with a singular keyword.
You can also use Ad Customizers to tailor your ads to a user search and make things more compelling. The countdown feature lets your ads dynamically create a genuine sense of urgency. Location customizers let the user know that you offer what they want, and that it’s nearby. In those and many other ways, you can make tailored ads that scale across your entire account.
To recap, there are a few key ways to make your entire ad unit as compelling as possible in the new world of Expanded Text Ads. Use Ad Extensions, Keyword Insertion and Ad Customizers. Thanks so much for watching this video. Please check out the rest of our series about creating effective text ads in AdWords.
Test and Optimize Creatives – Google Best Practices:
Sean: Hello the internet. Welcome to our ongoing video series about creating effective text ads in AdWords. My name is Sean Quadlin, I’m a Product Marketing Manager here, focusing on AdWords Best Practices, and right now we’re going to talk about how to test and optimize your creatives. Well-written ad creative starts out as great only in theory; it’s up to your actual performance to see what users like.
It’s important to establish a robust testing and optimization process and you can do that with three key steps. Test and iterate your ad creative, focus your testing efforts on high-value campaigns and evaluate your ad rotation settings. First, hone your ad text through testing and iteration. You can learn about your users’ preferences and improve your performance by honing your ad text, especially those Headlines. Setting up proper tests is important. Start with being organized, use AdWords Labels, something as simple as a calendar can help you to keep a schedule. Document start and end times of your tests.
It’s also important to establish a testing threshold and then stick to it. Wait until you have observed enough impressions to be confident in your results. Limit how many elements you test within your ads as well. Make different variations similar enough so that you learn from the differences that are made. Test with a purpose – establish a hypothesis, prove or disprove that hypothesis, document your results and then test again.
Next, focus your tests on high value campaigns. It’s important to prioritize your testing efforts on the places that matter the most to you. Think about areas of your account that drive a lot of volume or value. You can also focus on ad groups that would benefit the most from a new set of creative. Finally, evaluate your ad rotation settings. There are four different ways to rotate your ads: Optimize for Clicks, Optimize for Conversions, Rotate evenly and Rotate indefinitely. While there are use cases for each of the four options, the recommended approach is either Optimize for Clicks, or, Conversions.
These options automatically rotate in the creative that is projected to perform the best within each auction. Ad optimized to drive clicks or conversions can improve both your competitiveness and your bottom line. If you choose to rotate evenly or indefinitely, it’s important to stay on top of those tests. Every impression that an underperforming ad receives is a missed opportunity; and those opportunities cost you money. Ultimately, when you’re deciding the outcome of your ad tests, you can use a combination of performance tests, like CTR, conversion rate along with the percent served. If the system is showing an ad more often than another, it can mean that it’s better at winning impressions in the auction itself, which is often a strong reason to prefer that creative over others.
To recap how to test and optimize your ads, create organized tests, focus your testing efforts on high-value campaigns, and finally, evaluate your ad rotation settings. Thanks for watching this series about creating effective text ads in AdWords. Please check out the rest of our series in the Best Practices Library.
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