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What you need to know about Google’s New Ad Suggestion Update + Basics

Google Adwords is a robust marketing tool for big brands, digital marketers and small business alike. It allows you to do Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing to increase website traffic and sales when someone clicks on your ad. It’s important to understand your basics as well as stay on top of the new advancements in paid search. In this article we cover some paid search basics plus a new advanced feature called Google Ad Suggestion.

Paid Search Ad Copy Basics: Below are four things you must know about ad copy.

1.The Anatomy Of A Text Ad

If you are going to learn paid search you have know the break down

and word count of each section of an ad. Keep this as a reference.

  1. Headline 1 (30 characters) – Headline 2 (30 characters)
  2. Website URL/Path 1 (15 characters)/ Path 2 (15 characters)
  3. Description Line (80 characters)
  4. Landing Page

2.Best Practices For Creating Ad Copy

Not all ad copy is created equal. Having compelling copy directly affects your sales.

Here are a few guidelines to follow for ad copy.

  1. Include the keywords you target in your ad copy to help quality scores.
  2. Look at the ad as a whole and avoid repeating thoughts.
  3. There are character limits so be concise and get straight to the point.
  4. Include your brand name in your headline.
  5. Use headlines to display the most important information, such as rates or promotions.
  6. Include call to actions and create a sense of urgency such as “visit our site” or “sign up today”.
  7. Use the landing page with the most relevant content to your messaging.
  8. Create 2-4 ad variations per ad group to test for the best performing ad copy.

3.Ad Copy Optimization Tips

Once you have created and launched your ads follow these tips to optimize the ad copy.

  1. Optimize ads by the ad group because ads performance can vary across different keywords.
  2. Start with the ad groups that spend the most and have the most traffic to make the most impact.
  3. Make sure there is a significant amount of data before pausing out lower performers (30 days minimum is recommended).
  4. Create new variations of the top performing ad copies to continue testing.

4.Ad Extensions

Ad extensions allow you to show additional business information with your ads. More text allows you to create a better message, and also increase ad real estate. Multiple types of ad extensions can appear at the same time, so the more the merrier. Using ad extensions can help increase performance by improving Quality Scores as well. There are no additional costs to use ad extensions, so take advantage!

Here are some MUST HAVE ad extensions:

  1. Sitelinks are beneficial because they allow advertisers to promote additional products/services or offers below their ads. Each sitelink can link to a different landing page within the same domain as your ad copy. 2 to 6 sitelinks will show at Google’s discretion on desktops, and up to 8 links can show on mobile or tablet. Each sitelink has a 25 character limit headline, and two 35 character limit description lines. Description lines also show at Google’s discretion.
  2. Callout Extensions also help promote additional products/services or offers as well, but they are not clickable links. 2 to 6 callouts show in addition to your ad copy at Google’s discretion.  Each callout has a 25 character limit.
  3. Structured Snippet Extensions help provide context around your products/services. You must choose from a pre-determined list of headers such as “Types” or “Brands”, and you can add up to 10 values with 25 character limits each. Desktops can show up to 2 headers at a time while mobile and tablet devices will only show 1 header at a time.

Again, remember to think about your message as a whole rather than by line. For example, you don’t want to repeat the message in your ad copy in your ad extensions. Also, ad extensions should be used to promote relevant products/services to what is being promoted in your ad copy. Now that we have covered some let’s get to some advanced improvements that Google has just rolled out.

5.What Are Google Ad Suggestions?

Everyone thinks differently, and so having multiple ad variations can help show ideal messaging for different users. This new AdWords beta will suggest new variations of a brand’s existing ads in hopes to improve campaign performance. Ads will be created based on the historical performance of your ads, and the content on your landing pages.

6.How Does Google Ad Suggestions Works

-Starting October 1 2017, advertisers will be alerted through the AdWords UI (under the Notification icon) and via email when new ad variations are recommended.

-Clicking the Notification icon will let give the day the ad suggestions with “auto-apply” are set to go live.

-Ad variations will appear in accounts max once every 7 days.

-Advertisers can choose to add or dismiss ad variations in the Opportunities page within AdWords.

-Dismissing any ad suggestions won’t stop you from receiving more suggestions in the future.

-The Opportunities page will also state the day ad suggestions with “auto-apply” are set to go live.

-Ad Suggestions can have an auto-apply setting in which marketers will have 14 days to act on before the suggestions go live.

-Any ad suggestion that has been auto-applied after 14 days will be labeled as “Auto-applied ad suggestion” on the Ads page.

-Ad Suggestions can be edited, removed, or paused.

-Text edits to a recommended ad will remove the “Auto-applied ad suggestion” label.

7.Potential Benefits

As a refresher, Search Engines are valuable because they provide relevant information to users. Therefore, brands are rewarded with discounts in CPC when they provide relevant user experiences through their PPC campaigns. Google rates advertisers with Quality Scores, so a higher quality scores can lead to lower CPCs.

Quality Score factors:

-Keyword and ad copy relevance

-Relevance of the landing page content and the user’s intent behind the search

-A user’s landing page experience (interstitials, site load speed, etc…)

-Account history (Quality Scores adjust with time)

Another added benefit is the time that can be saved in brainstorming ad copy variations to test. Industries with a high amount of services or products (such as Retail or Travel) can benefit greatly from the help of Ad Suggestions.

Concerns 

-Some advertisers stay away from automation as they feel they lose control. This can cause issues in industries with heavy regulations (such as Finance) that require specific language in their messaging.

-Another concern is that it can affect other tests. Generally speaking, tests should be comparing one variable at a time, but that can get tricky if you forget about the Ad Suggestions feature.

How To Opt Out Of Auto-Apply

Here are two forms to manually opt out of the auto-apply Ad Suggestions feature:

CID level opt out: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/adsuggestionsoptoutform/

MCC level opt out: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/adsuggestionsmccoptoutform/

How To Measure Results

Generally, the performance of ad suggestions should be compared against the performance of your own ads to get an idea of how effective the recommended variations are. However, there may be instances when suggestions outperform your own ad copy and vice versa. Therefore, it is always a good idea to view ad copy by the ad group, as this is how keywords are organized. After all, ad suggestions are created at the ad group level.

Conclusion

I love keeping up with paid search basics because it is the foundation of what we do. In terms of Google’s Ad Suggestion product, I have mixed feelings. Personally, I have found legal reviews to be very strict, and so I recommend opting out of the auto-apply setting. Furthermore, the process of reviewing new ad copy can take a while, so 14 days might not be enough time. There is no harm in using the recommendations that AdWords provides to inspire your own variations to test. Ad Suggestions can be a great way to save time when brainstorming for new ad copy. After all, Google knows best about their Quality Scores!

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