Google AdWords’ Callout Ad Extensions

Every nonprofit trying to write ads in Google AdWords has probably experienced the frustration of trying to write a compelling message in the 3 very short lines provided. Sometimes tough text choices have to be made: Do I describe our mission, engage volunteers, or highlight our services & offerings? That’s where Google’s Callout Ad Extensions will come in handy.

Introducing Google AdWords’ Callout Ad Extensions

Callouts Ad Extensions can help you gain some more of that valuable ad real estate by allowing you to tack-on additional information to your ad.

It’s called a ‘Callout Extension,’ and it looks like this:

Callout Ad Extensions

As you can see, you get extra text (up to four 25-character phrases, to be exact) to highlight certain information about your services or organization. Callouts are a great way to make your ad more convincing or differentiate your organization from others.

While a business may want to callout its ‘free shipping,’ ‘price matching,’ or ’24/7 availability’ your nonprofit organization might want to call out the different legs of its organization or a free offering.

Possible Examples:

  • ‘Free Facts Sheet’
  • ‘Free Resources’
  • ‘Free Recipes’ or
  • ‘The 2014 Annual Report is Here’

Remember that it’s different from a sitelink ad extension (more on that below) so opt for sitelink extensions if you want to include links that lead people directly to a page on your site.

This is free additional text space (there’s no extra charge) and a great way to boost your ad’s visibility, so get creative!

Other Ad Extensions

Never heard of Ad Extensions? If this is the first time you’re hearing about ad extensions, you’re not alone. Ad extensions have been around a while now, but most advertisers don’t use them (just do a Google search for ad extensions and the results speak for themselves).

Other Google Ad extensions include:

  • Location extensions: Displays location information of your organization
  • Sitelink extensions: Links to additional pages within your site
  • Call extensions: Lists a click-to-call phone number
  • App Extensions: Shows a link that sends people to the app store or begins downloading your app

You can add multiple extensions to your ad, and Adwords will show one or more with your ad when it calculates that the extension(s) will improve your campaign performance. Your ad rank also has to be high enough for it to appear, since extensions often appear above the search results, rather than along the sidebar.

But even if your extensions don’t appear every time your ads appear, it’s still a great idea to add them. Since extensions tend to improve your ad’s visibility when they do show, they can lead to improved clickthrough rates, performance, quality score, and even ranking of your ads.

Want to learn more about Adwords opportunities? Check out some of our other blog posts or get in touch with a member of our team today.