Expanded text ads are now live!

You may have seen our previous blog about upcoming Expanded Text Ads (ETA) on Google AdWords. Well, now they’re here! ETA’s were initially rolled out on Tuesday morning and for the time being, are run alongside standard text ads.

As of October 2016, advertisers will no longer be able to create or upload any existing standard text ads. Google as of yet hasn’t released a set date when standard ads will stop running altogether, it can be assumed that this is to give advertisers time to carry out A/B testing.

The new ads should be widely appreciated by advertisers as early adopters, including Guitar Centre, claim they have more than doubled their CTR. The expanded ads allow up to 30 characters in the headline and up to 80 characters in the description.

Tips for moving from standard to expanded ads:

Test multiple versions of expanded text ads: As a successful advertiser you have more than likely spent months or years honing and crafting a successful ad under the standard ad limits. Make sure you experiment with the new limits and use multiple approaches, you have more characters to play around with which mean a new ad may not automatically have the same effect your old one did.

Don’t ignore your old ads: A/B test your expanded ads against the performance of your standard ads. You may need to mimic an old ad if it outperforms the new. Leave your standard ads running for as long as possible.

Headlines: Headlines are important; they are the driving force to how well your ad performs. The longer headlines allow more clickable space within your ads whilst also giving you more room to communicate with prospective customers.

Description: Use this extra space to really compel your audience, don’t just re-write your headline.

As always, set your text ads up for success, include relevant keywords, monitor your customer’s preferences and behaviour and really target your audience.

POLARIS is a PPC agency based in London, for a free audit contact info@polarisagency.co.uk