Google Ads has announced three changes to its automated ad extensions. These changes concern append link extensions, teaser extensions and site snippet extensions.
First of all, let’s recall what an automatic extension is: dynamically generated and placed under ads, this type of extension, according to the company, boosts ad performance by maximizing click-through rates – up to 20% more – than manual extensions.
What’s new in Google’s automatic ad extensions?
1: Interaction of automated and manual ad extensions.
Automated and manual extensions can now be displayed together. Since mid-March, automated extensions can be displayed together with manually created extensions. So if you’ve created two sitelinks manually, Google Ads can display two dynamic sitelinks, for a total of four sitelinks, which is the recommendation for all ads. Before this update, the two possibilities could not be combined. This is a good reason to start replaying your ad extensions now.
2: Modification of ad extension analysis reports.
Technical updates also mean changes to reporting. Google Ads now provides a report on automatically created extensions. You can view them in the table view on the Extensions page. What’s more, you can now get an overview of the performance of these extensions, making it easier to analyze them and decide whether or not to pause them. You should therefore take these changes into account when analyzing your campaigns, and implement optimizations based on the results you observe via this update.
3: End of extension prioritization by account, ad group and ad.
Until now, as soon as you added an ad extension at ad level, Google prevented the extension set at account and ad group level from being distributed. Google now allows extensions to be delivered at any level of hierarchy, on both higher (account or ad group) and lower (ads) levels, thanks in particular to machine learning. Here’s an example:
The Effinity team’s opinion
These developments have been expected for some time now, and are simply logical updates from Google. The experts at our certified search ads agency advise you not to underestimate the importance of your extensions, especially on search, where the details can have a profound impact on your results.
With the update concerning the end of sitelinks prioritization, it’s imperative to do a replay on all your extensions, and especially on your ancillary link extensions. Remember to set general text extensions on your account settings, and to customize them at campaign and ad group level.
In short, these developments have two major advantages:
- Give advertisers greater control over the management of automatic and manual extensions, as well as over the analysis of their performance.
- Give the algorithm more flexibility to prioritize the most efficient extensions.
Don’t hesitate to ask our experts for advice on how to optimize your Google Ads settings.
