If you have not done so yourself, your AdWords campaigns are now being automatically upgraded to the Enhanced Campaign features. 75% of campaigns have been upgraded by advertisers meaning the rest will go through AdWords default upgrade path over the next several weeks.
One important upgrade feature that I think many AdWords advertisers in NZ have overlooked is the changes to Ad Extensions.
If you upgraded using the prompts, you would have entered a mobile bid adjustment and then finished the upgrade. But your ad extensions need to be upgraded too. You could do this by going into each ad extension type and upgrade each one. If you have done this, you might be thinking: “So what?” Now my ad extensions are in the “Upgraded” section. They still appear the same way. What was the point in that?
The upgraded extensions actually have some new options which are only visible when you try to edit the extension.
- Choose if you prefer to display the extension on mobile.
- Set start and end dates.
- Setup scheduling to show or hide the extension during certain times of the day or week.
These kinds of controls were always available at the campaign level, but now, take advantage of them for ad extensions.
My favourite upgraded extension is the enhanced sitelinks. Any site can take advantage of these. The best part is the upgraded version lets you add 2 description lines! Basically, sitelinks are now like extra, mini ads. They appear just like how organic sitelinks do. Now you can schedule these in time for certain campaigns or offers and test different messages & links.
Enhanced sitelinks example. Source: Inside AdWords
Can you see all that real-estate? This really does help overcome the character limitations of a regular ad.
In NZ, so far I don’t see many advertisers taking advantage of the new sitelinks. It has been out for a few months so I’m thinking it has been overlooked. Check your ads have the upgraded sitelinks and are using the bonus description lines.
Note that, as usual, these are not guaranteed to appear every time. Though, there are things we could do to improve those chances.
