Google has given marketers an additional 25 characters in paid search ads for customised promotional information, as the internet giant looks to boost the appeal of Adwords. The new ‘Callouts’ extension for AdWords is intended to work alongside other extensions, including Sitelinks, and will be rolled out to all AdWords marketers in the next few […]
Google has given marketers an additional 25 characters in paid search ads for customised promotional information, as the internet giant looks to boost the appeal of Adwords.
The new ‘Callouts’ extension for AdWords is intended to work alongside other extensions, including Sitelinks, and will be rolled out to all AdWords marketers in the next few weeks.
Callouts create an additional line of descriptive text underneath an existing ad. A callout must be less than 25 characters and advertisers can create up to four per ad.
However, “gimmicky” symbols such as hearts and smiles are banned as are duplicate callouts – meaning advertisers can’t just write “free shipping” four times.
For general campaigns, Google recommends words such as “special discounts” or “price-matcing.”
There’s no cost to add callout extensions to a campaign, but advertisiers will be charged as usual for clicks on their ad.
More specific search ads and offers
Advertisers can add callouts to existing campaigns, edit on the fly and even schedule them to run only for a short period of time.
That means you can be very specific with discounts, seasonal events, giveaways and anything else that has an expiration date.
The new tool gives advertisers the chance to be more specific in that crucial search ad spot.
For example, an ad that links to cereal with a back to school promotion on their site could include “free back to school gifts” as a callout.
Response to rise in social ads?
Commenting on the move, Danny Meadows-Klue, president of the Digital Training Academy where they’ve been training marketers on the craft skills of search engine advertising for 15 years, said the move could steal some the ad budget lost to social (and Facebook) in recent years.
“Adwords has become the key tool for any business using its websites for customer acquisition and conversion. Any change in how it works has a big impact,”Meadows-Klue said. “As Facebook cut the free audiences that drove businesses into the social platform, there has been a massive switch back to some of the long established approaches of paid display advertising and paid search.
“With the Google Display Network also becoming stronger, and continued investment in YouTube’s video formats, Facebook’s monetisation strategy is – paradoxically – driving budgets back to Google. But extra words shouldn’t mean lazy copywriting. The craft skills of search engine advertising copywriting have never been more important.”
