What You Need to Know About Expanded Text Ads in Google AdWords

Google has recently announced a significant change to its AdWords ads, with the soon-to-be introduced Expanded Text Ads. In this article, we discuss what you need to know about the new ad format.

What are Expanded Text Ads?

Expanded Text Ads are, as the name suggests, bigger than the current text ads. 2x bigger in fact. There will be a total of 140 characters to use within your ad copy space, with a new bigger headline and longer description. The updates are outlined below:

• More prominent headlines – Current headlines are restricted to a 25 character limit. Expanded Text Ads will offer two 30 character headlines.
• Longer description line – Current ads include two 35 character description lines. Expanded Text Ads will have a consolidated 80 character description line.
• Relevant display URL – Current ads use a manually entered display URL, where any mismatch between display, final and landing page URLs will mean your ad is disapproved. With Expanded Text Ads, the domain will be automatically extracted from final URL and you can customise the URL path.

The new Expanded Text Ads will appear across all devices, whether using mobile or desktop, and automatically wrap based on the device size.

Why is Google Introducing Expanded Text Ads?

With over half of Google searches taking place on mobile, Google have adopted a mobile-first approach over the last few months. This change is designed to help marketers achieve success in this mobile landscape.

Extended Text Ads provide a larger ad space in which to showcase information on your products and services and attract attention of users across all devices. In particular mobile users on the go, who want to know exactly what you offer before clicking through to your website.

How Will it Affect Ad Performance?

Expanded ads offer more words and characters to play with in your ads. This presents greater ad visibility and opportunity to attract a user’s attention and provide them with more information on your products and services. This in turn, could potentially lead to a greater click through rate on your ads. Reports from Google’s Expanded Text Ads tests show an increase in CTR by as much as 20% in some instances.

Ads at the top of the SERP will take up a large majority of valuable space available. Anything below position 2 or 3 on a mobile device could become irrelevant. It is vital then, to ensure that your ad copy is rewritten to take advantage of the new format, and to keep working on improving you Quality Score to aim for those top spots where possible.

When Are Expanded Text Ads Rolling Out?

Google has not yet confirmed a release date for the new Expanded Text Ads. However, we can expect to see these roll out in the not so distant future.

Update - 26th July 2016

Google have officially announced that as of 26th July, Expanded Text Ads have begun rolling out in AdWords to advertisers worldwide.

With what Google are coining as the biggest change in AdWords since its inception, it is imperative that ads are revisited and rewritten in order to make the most of the new formatting, ensuring the best chance of success from your paid ads.