Google Adwords

New Ad Extension: Google Adwords Testing Click to SMS – Is It True?

Posted on by Jeff Aspacio

Is Google Adwords Testing Click to SMS, a New Ad Extension?

Search Engine Land, just recently, received an anonymous tip from one of their readers that Google Adwords may be testing a new ad extension called Click-to-SMS (CTS). Late last year, Google Adwords discontinued Social extensions. If you are not yet familiar with ad extensions, read about a previous article on ad extensions for text ads.

If this is true, then this click to SMS ad extension would go well with their existing call extensions. Call extensions allow advertisers to add a call button to their ads and target people with mobile devices that are capable of making calls. A sample Google Adwords text ad with a call extension can be seen below.

Call Extensions for Mobile and Desktop

Now, if the new ad extension click to SMS is added, it would add a button that directs not to a call but to a messaging application in the mobile phone to send an SMS. Continue reading →

Social Extensions are No Longer Shown with Ads on Google Search Advertising

Posted on by Jeff Aspacio

Social Extensions Discontinued

According to the announcements in the Google Partners Help pages, Social extensions are no longer shown with Ads if you are using it in your search advertising campaigns. This started last December 10, 2015.

social extensions Google Play example

What are Social Extensions?

Social extensions are one of the twelve types of extensions that can be used to enhance your ads for your search advertising campaigns. They fall under automatic extensions, meaning, ads that appear on Google search and the Search network show them when the Adwords system can link the ads to your active and verified Google+ page.

These extensions show how many Google+ followers and +1s that your company or website has if the Adwords system determines doing this would improve the performance of your ad campaign.

How Social Extensions Used to Help Ad Campaigns

Continue reading →

Ads Are Paused But Still Being Charged for Clicks

Posted on by Jeff Aspacio

Question: Adwords ads are paused but why am I still being charged for clicks?

This was a question I myself have asked when I was new to my practice in pay-per-click management, specifically Adwords. I encountered this when a client requested to have a new campaign created that targeted the same keywords but wanted new ad copies and landing pages.

For four days my team was able to create a total of 12 landing pages and 12 ad copies. After adding in the keywords for the five adgroups I created, and having the ads approved by Adwords, I added ad extensions to enhance the ads. (Read a previous post to learn about Google Text Ads.

I then proceeded to pause the ads of the previous campaign (not the campaign itself) before running the new campaign. It was a Friday and I was confident there would be no ad spending over the weekend – and so I thought.

 

Help button

 

Come Monday, I checked on the new campaign only to find that there was some ad spending and there were clicks. I checked the ads, because I was sure I paused them. Yup, there was not any click on the ads. Now, why would Google charge me and report that there was a click when my ads were paused?

If you search for answers in Google to something that relates to this issue, what you would find are questions and answers in Google Adwords Forums and the Adwords Community. But do they really serve as definite answers to the question?

Top answers to “ads are paused but still being charged”

1) Concern/question: “Ok this is driving me crazy…. I’ve paused several adgroups……3 days later they are still getting traffic on the content network. Do you have to pause the keywords individualy as well? I guess paused doesn’t really mean paused.”

Answer/resolution: Technical issue on Google Adwords’ part

This is what I learned from this experience and I hope this would answer the question above.

2) Concern/question: “I really don’t know why my campaign still gets clicks after being paused. And cost still increases, too. I paused it and set up budget to $0 but it didn’t work. HELP MEEEEEEE! Thank u so much!!!

Answer/resolution: Non real-time reporting in Google Adwords

The problem with this is it doesn’t cover situations when the Adwords advertiser is still being charged after more than three hours have passed.

Let me add my experience as an answer or explanation.

3) Question: Adwords ads are paused but why am I still being charged for clicks?

In my own learning experience, after diagnosing and checking the ads and keywords and not finding any charges there, I finally turned to the different ad extensions. There, I found the culprit!

Answer/resolution: Pause or remove adextensions as well

Lesson: Pausing the ads nor the adgroups does not guarantee that ad extensions will not be triggered.

Now as to the rationality of this billing on the part of Google Adwords, that’s another question. The bright side is this doesn’t only happen with adwords.

It also happens in Facebook and Instagram.

I would suggest that if you encounter any similar situations as above that you contact Adwords Support right away. Just click on the gear on the top right portion of your Google Adwords account and then click “Help” and you can contact them via telephone, live chat or email.

Google Adwords Contact Information

Worldwide Phone Support number: 866-246-6453
Monday – Friday: 9 am – 8 pm EST

Google Adwords Text Ads: Things You Need to Know

Posted on by Jeff Aspacio

Learn About Google Adwords Text Ads

Whether you are new to using Google Adwords or have been using this advertising program, that can help you reach new customers and grow your business, for a long time, knowing and being reminded about the basics is essential if you want to succeed in your advertising campaigns. The simplest form of online ads is the text ad, which is just one of the few ad formats in Adwords.

google-adwords-red

The Three Parts of a Text Ad

When you see a text ad above, beside or below search results when searching on Google, you will see text ads. It may look so simple but when creating one, it helps to know and understand its parts. There are three basic parts of a text ad.

1. Headline

Similar to an article in a newspaper, the headline is what people looking at search engine results will most likely take notice of. That’s why it’s important to have your target keyword in this part of the text ad to match what the searchers are looking for. This can also show the ad’s relevance to what people want to find.

2. Display URL

This shows the address of your website. It is not necessarily the complete URL of the target landing page, but it could contain at least the domain name. So don’t fret that your ad copy might look ugly because you are using URL tracking parameters (to help you track your campaign) which can be created through the URL builder tool.

3. Description

Since the text ad headline has a shorter character length (see table below), this is where you can highlight and pitch what your website or company offers. Placing a call to action in this portion of the text ad helps the people who are searching know the next steps to take after viewing your ad and clicking it.

Character Limits in Text Ads

The Google Adwords text ads have character limits for each part mentioned above. The character limits are divided into two types of languages – the regular languages and the double-width languages.

Regular Languages

The character limits for most languages are:

1. Headline – 25 characters
2. Display URL – 35 characters
3. Description – 35 characters for each line (has two lines)

Double-width Languages

Obviously, for languages that occupy double the width (languages like Korean, Chinese and Japanese) when written, the character limits are:

1. Headline – 12 characters
2. Display URL – 17 characters
3. Description – 17 characters for each line (has two lines)

 

three-parts-of-a-text-ad

 

Mobile Format of Text Ads

The Google Adwords text ad, when seen on mobile, SOMETIMES does not show the description’s second line although generally, mobile text ads look like standard text ads that you would see on a desktop computer. It’s crucial to note this when creating a text ad and you are targeting mobile and not just desktop. Make sure that all you need to communicate is found in the first line of the description and it makes sense.

By experience, when creating text ads for desktop, one would tend to write a description that would use two lines and it would be in such a way that the second line is dependent on the first line to make sense. See the example below.

 

text ads for desktop side bar

 

These are the ads that were triggered when I searched for “online advertising” and they appeared on the side of the search engine results. Notice the second ad from the top and its description lines.

Description line 1: Strategic digital agency based in
Description line 2: Manila, Philippines.

This makes sense when it appears on desktop. But if this ad targets mobile (which may not necessarily be the case when this ad was created), the ad would appear like this:

 

text ads for mobile

 

Based in ? The description line does not make sense at all, so it would be best to make the 2 lines of description independent from each other when you are targeting mobile and desktop.

When does the second line not show the description?

According to Google…

For mobile text ads, AdWords may sometimes replace your second line of description text with the most relevant ad extensions that you’ve enabled — like sitelink extensions, location extensions, or callout extensions.

Extensions for Text Ads

So you’ve heard of extensions. What are they anyway? Extensions are actually a type of ad format that show extra information (“extending” from your text ads) about your website or business. Ad extensions appear with ads on the Search network, and depending on the extension, they could also appear with ads on the Display network.

But for the Search network, this is how site extensions look like.

text ads with extensions

In the example above, the extensions are boxed in red. Those are actually site link extensions. There are actually twelve types of extensions and they are grouped into two.

Manual Extensions

1. Apps
2. Calls
3. Locations
4. Reviews
5. Sitelinks
6. Call outs

Automatic extensions

7. Consumer ratings
8. Previous visits
9. Seller ratings
10. Dynamic sitelink extensions
11. Social extensions
12. Dynamic structured snippets

For more information of what each one is and what campaign type they are good for, you can visit the Google Partners’ page on how to enhance text ads with extensions.

If you need guidance in setting up and optimizing your Google Adwords text ads, send an email at inquire@redlettersph.com. RedLettersPH provides consultation and PPC management services.