AdWords is a highly effective platform to reach target audiences around the world. Unlike other channels that take time to implement (e.g SEO, social media, etc.), PPC lets you start driving immediate traffic to your landing pages. And you can even segment your audience to make your ads more targeted.
Google continues to make its advertising platform more capable with a number of automated features.
Many of these features (e.g. call out extensions) give advertisers the opportunity to reach more potential prospects with enhanced ads. If your campaigns are eligible, these features are automatically enabled.
Here we take a closer look at automated features that are available in AdWords.
1. Callout Extensions
The more information you provide in your ads, the better it is for potential prospects. Depending on the text you could even convert more searchers. The callout ad extensions lets you include additional information with your text ads.
Here is an example that Google provides:
Even before clicking through the ad, shopper know immediately that the business offers free shipping and 24 hour customer services. Compare this ad to a competing ad and it is clear which one has the advantage in the search results. Setting up callout extensions is a fairly straightforward process but Google has announced that it is now fully automated.
But whether the extension appears in your ads depend on the following:
- Your Ad Rank
- The position of your ad in the search results
- The relevance of your landing pages
- Other extensions that are active
If you prefer, you can still create this extension manually. From your campaigns page, click on the Ad extensions tab. Then select Callout extensions from the following dropdown list:
All extensions go through an approval process so you may need to wait some time before it goes live.
2. Countdown Timers in Ads
The scarcity principle says that people are more inclined to make a purchase if they know that stock is running out. Many smart marketers and business owners have taken advantage of this principle to drive more sales during sales promotions.
And you could too right in your AdWords account.
With the release of Ad Customisers, advertisers have far more control over what their ads display. One example is being able to add a countdown function. With this feature, ads dynamically adjust to highlight how much time is remaining in a promotion.
Here is an example of what this looks like:
With this feature you no longer need to manually update your campaigns.
3. Shopping Ad Text Extensions
Google is constantly testing new features that it feels would benefit both advertisers and searchers. Another feature that has only recently become fully automated is Shopping Ads.
Here is an example of what they look like in the search results when searching for certain products:
Existing information is pulled directly from the Merchant Centre settings and data feed to display promotional text such as free shipping or special offers. This feature is available to all advertisers (particularly beneficial for e-commerce stores) and there is no need to do anything else. But if you want to display product ratings or highlight specific offers, you will need to add other shopping extensions to your ads.
4. Dynamic Search Ads
Creating individual ads for each ad group can be an incredibly time-consuming task. Which is exactly what advertisers would have to do in AdWords.
Dynamic Search Ads is another heavily automated feature that can be beneficial for your business.
The way it works is rather straightforward and does the heavy lifting for advertisers. Google first does an analysis of your landing page and automatically generates ads based on its contents. You can choose individual pages or even your entire site to target your ad.
Dynamic Search Ads can be found when creating a new campaign under campaign Type.
Dynamic Search Ads certainly sound appealing. However, until you have more experience with Adwords you are better off manually managing your campaigns for better control.
Not all automated features in AdWords will be appropriate for your business and some might not even be available in your campaigns. But some of these features can be incredibly beneficial when implemented correctly.