Optimize Your KPI’s With Google’s Newest Extension: Google’s Promotion Extension
As a veteran online shopper, I love seeing deals. Likewise, as a PPC analyst, I love helping clients sell their deals. Now imagine a world where both parties can benefit from savings and sales – and with Google’s newly introduced “Promotion Extensions,” this is now easier than ever.
What is a Promotion Extension?
Before we get into why you should consider this for your business, let’s first address what the heck a Promotion Extension even is. In short, promotion extensions are clickable discounts in the new AdWords interface that appear below your main text ads. These extensions highlight discounts or offers (i.e. monetary or percent discounts) on your website and show up as a noticeable bold price tag beneath your ad. Additionally, you can choose to display promo codes and play around with promotions during specific holidays or special events (i.e. Hello Spring Sale – 25% Off Car Detailing!).
This eye-catching feature is quickly becoming one of the most effective AdWords extensions. Why? Beacause it’s short, simple, easy to set up and change (which frees up my time to spend on account strategies), and most importantly, it produces quality results.
What are the Benefits of Using Promotion Extensions?
When a user is looking through online Search ads, the experience can often be overwhelming; it’s easy to feel lost in the jargon of an ad. Between the headline, description, structured snippets, callouts and sitelinks, you might simply just care about one thing: what are the offers? Hallelujah to Promotion Extensions – these are easy to spot below the ad, and at a glance you already get an idea of some of the current promotional offers that might get users to click the ad. When a user clicks the promotion extension, they go directly to the special promotion on the website.
Rolled out in 2017 by Google, various ad split-testing comparing the same expanded text-ad, with and without promotion extensions, overall showed a quick boost for ecommerce Search campaigns and improved KPI’s. Here are just some of the ways in which it could benefit your dealership:
- Creates a more informative ad
- Stands out from other AdWords Extensions
- Product/service offerings are clickable (Callouts, for example, are not)
- Clutter-free setup and faster updates
- Select from a list of pre-populated occasions for future use
- Flexible and precise scheduling
- Can be set at the ad group, campaign, or account level
- Allows soft- and hard-sell options for your offers (use both Callouts and Promotional Extensions to share different aspects of your buying experience)
- The potential to improve KPI’s:
- Increased CTR > Increased Conversions > Lower Cost-Per-Conversion
- Improved Ad Relevancy and Quality Score
Bear in Mind
While this may sound like the superhero extension you’ve been waiting for, there are a couple things to keep in mind before you start using them in your AdWords campaign:
- Promotion description is limited to 20 characters
- Results are typically dependent upon the strength of your business’ offer
- Visibility of the extension showing up is dependent upon many factors such as ad position, or which extensions are selected by the Search algorithm at a given time
The Setup – What We Need From You!
- Occasion Name
- Promotion Item
- The product or service on promotion
- Max space of 20 characters
- Promotion Type (Monetary or Percentage Discount, and optional “Up-To” qualifier)
- Language and Currency
- Start and End Dates
- Promotion Details (choose either of the following):
- None
- “On Orders Over”
- Promo Code
- The most relevant possible landing page to the promotion
Promotion Extension Performance
Several independent studies across the industry have reported as high as 10% CTR improvement when using promotion extensions, which outperformed sitelinks and price extensions.
Another case study done with Shoe Carnival found that implementing promotion extensions led to a 20% increase in ROAS, 10% increase in CTR, and 20% decrease in CPA.
Check out this case study for further details!
Get Promoted!
If your business has regular regional or monthly incentives, we recommend giving promotion extensions a try. This is a great opportunity to not only equip your potential customers with information, but also a good way to improve overall KPI’s. As a leader in the automotive industry with over 20 years of experience, we at Strathcom Media are happy and eager to help you reach your advertising goals! Get in touch with us today to learn more about Google’s Promotion Extension or any other in our Strathcom toolbox.
