Expanded Text Ads V01 – A Look Back
The launch of Google’s first installment of Expanded Text Ads, back in 2016, was met with much excitement from advertisers, resellers/agencies, and technology providers like ourselves.
It was a great opportunity for everyone as Google was offering 47% more space per search ad – which meant more SERP real estate for offering a clear value proposition to potential customers.
MatchCraft took this opportunity and made it even more lucrative for our reseller and agency clients by becoming the first Google partner to offer ETAs with full content library support. This meant that our clients were able to swiftly transition to the new longer ad format by providing their advertisers with ETA-friendly ad content libraries in 13 languages, spanning across 31 countries.
Also, our platform was equipped to provision ETAs on Bing, including precise ad content, even before Bing made the ETA format available. We like to be prepared!
Expanded Text Ads V02
Understanding the changing needs of advertisers and searchers alike, Google introduced an upgraded version of its Expanded Text Ads in 2018 – Expanded Text Ads v02 (Expanded Expanded Text Ads?)
Let’s take a quick look at the differences in a standard text ad, an expanded text ad v01 & the expanded text ad v02:
What Changed in adVantage?
MatchCraft offers support for the new Expanded Text Ads format for both Google & Bing. Support for the new fields has been added to:
- the adVantage platform
- our advertiser facing, white-labeled, reporting dashboard, the Merchant Center & printable PDF reports.
- ROAR API
adVantage Platform
Merchant Center
Benefits of Expanded Text Ads V02
- Expanded Value Proposition – With the addition of Headline 3 & Description 2, campaign managers can now explain their advertisers’ products and services in even more detail – thus, giving potential customers more of a reason to click through to the advertisers’ websites and landing pages.
- More Qualified Leads – Customers visiting an advertiser’s website as a result of clicking on an expanded text ad, already have a detailed insight into the product/service being offered and so are more likely to convert.
Best Practices
- Headline Focus – Depending on the device being used, the new 3rd Headline may not be shown. So campaign managers must ensure that they are adding all the need-to-know information in the first 2 headlines and using the 3rd headline for nice-to-know content. Pro tip: It is always a good idea to write each of the headlines such that they are able to make sense by themselves.
- Description Focus – As with Headline #3, Description #2 may not always show. So add all pertinent information to Description #1.
- Reevaluate your Ad Extensions – Make sure you are adding new information to your ad extensions and not content that has already been added to the new ad fields. Conversely, ensure that the ad copy for the new fields does not repeat the information already being given via the existing ad extensions.
- Get Creative – More ad space means more room to creatively promote your advertisers’ products & services. Let your inner ad guru shine through! If using our ad content library, Taxonomy – rest easy! We have a very creative team of local language experts writing & optimizing your ads for you.
- Use Bing – Bing offers the ETA v02 ad format as well & accounts for 25.3% of the US search market (2.55% worldwide). So don’t forget to take advantage of this available search traffic. You can use our platform’s ability to bid agnostically to advertise on both Google & Bing (& social) using the same budget.