The search engine giant just extended the deadline for advertisers to rewrite and optimize their text ads. Now with a January 31, 2017 deadline (as opposed to October 26th), advertisers who have been scrambling — or procrastinating — for the past month or two finally have some more wiggle room. After the January 31st deadline, any standard text ads will still be visible online, but no one will be able to create new standard ads. The existing ads will also show the expanded text for those who rewrote them to take advantage of the longer character limit. So, what does this mean for advertisers? Basically, Google just gave us all a free lunch. They’re focused on giving the user the best experience possible, and if that means allowing more time for us to write the best ads we possibly can, then our customers will be all the more happy. In order to help advertisers, Google released a set of suggested best practices when it comes to testing expanded ads.
- Make headlines a priority. The main title of your ad is the most important, so make sure that it’s attention grabbing and succinctly describes your product or service.
- Test different versions. You should always strive for 3-5 different ads per ad group in order to see which ones are more responsive to users. With extended ads, you have more space to include keywords and phrases.
- Determine success from older ads. Go back and check which of the older ads performed the best, then try to replicate the same tone and verbage. Use a description line as the new headline 2.
- Add info about your product or service. Don’t just blindly add more content into the ads. You will see more engagement if you write more about the product or service you offer.
- Leave the old ads running. No need to shut things down on your old campaign once January 31st rolls around. Because Google said old ads will still run, it’s best to keep these up for a bit.