Changes in PPC Advert Types

Hi my name is Arnold and I’m a Digital Marketing Executive here at Koozai. Today I will be going through the main ad format changes Google has made in the past year. Before I start I’d just like to wish everyone a very happy festival season and prosperous New Year.

First off is the important longer headlines update. This means for some ads in the top three Google will move the first line of your ad description into the headline. Google has said they will do this if your description line appears to be a distinct sentence and in proper punctuation. So make sure you put those full stops in. I’ve always been a big fan of having two separate sentences in your description lines anyway and now it’s confirmed. You’re also rewarded with a super long headline for your ads if you do this.

Next up is embedded sitelinks. ‘Embedded format’ is an update to the original sitelinks extension introduced in 2009. With embedded ad sitelinks, you lose the additional line below your ads that normally comes with single line sitelinks. Instead, if your description in your ads matches exactly one or more of your sitelinks, it will be used as anchor text for your links. Basically, it links your ad description. Again, this only applies to the top three results and will only appear for single line sitelinks. So if your ad qualifies for multi-line, it will still show as before.

Next one up is PPC mapping, another improvement to an old site extension. Before your location extensions in a PPC ad would only show your business address, phone number, etc. Now you also get a pin on the mini map in the left-hand side of Google SERPs. To differentiate between organic results, your pin will be blue, and organic results will have red pins. Make sure you enable all the AdWords ad extensions and take full advantage of this.

Finally, we’ve got URL in headlines. In May, Google implemented an update to automatically display URL domains in the headline of selected PPC ads in the top three. The domain name will be lifted from the display URL minus the www. or any sub-directories. The best part is this update works with longer headlines as well. So you will get title, first line description and then your domain URL, but only if your total length for everything is below 68 characters. So go optimise your ads and make sure it is.

Thank you for watching and check out Koozai.com for more guides like this.