3 Exciting New Features for AdWords

Use AdWords Mobile Features to Take Your Account to the Next Level

In May of 2015, Google announced that mobile searches now outnumber desktop searches. Since that time, Google has been steadily working to improve the mobile search experience. They have rolled out quite a few changes to how search results display on mobile devices, but they’ve also made a lot of changes to AdWords with this in mind. That’s why it is critically important for your business that your website and landing pages are both mobile friendly (read my related articles, Landing Pages: 2 Reasons to Build & 5 Ways to Make Them Great and 11 Minimum Website Features for Internet Marketing for more information).

As of August 2016, more than 60% of searches are done on mobile devices. That’s why these features from Google AdWords are so exciting!

1 Click to Call Conversion Tracking

Conversion Tracking is one of the best features about Google AdWords. It’s been possible for a long time to track the number of people who clicked on your ad and then filled out a form to get more information. Each form filled out after clicking on an ad counted as a conversion, and, with AdWords, it is possible to know how much you paid on average for each conversion (or lead) your business received. However, in the past, tracking calls to the landing page or website has been difficult with AdWords. But Google has rolled out a new type of conversion to track in AdWords called Click to Call Conversions. This allows you to track the number of conversions (or leads) your ad received in the form of phone calls, giving you a much more complete picture of your AdWords account’s success.

From the perspective of a potential customer, all they need to do is click on your phone number or call button

To implement this:

1. Add a piece of code to all of your website pages. Google gives you the code to use when you set up the Conversion (under Tools ->Conversions). Select Phone Calls and Google will walk you through the process. They have links to help files (like this one) readily available as well.
2. Make the phone number on your website or landing page a link, with a special code from Google included. You can also use other text, like “Call Now” or even use a button. Google provides instructions for all of these options.

2 Call Ad Extensions with Conversion Tracking

Ad Extensions have been a part of Google AdWords for a while, but they just keep adding new ones all the time. And they can be incredibly effective in making an ad more likely to get clicks. Ad Extensions allow you to showcase specific web pages in your ad, associate your location to your ad using your Google MyBusiness account, list your services, and much more. Call Extensions are used to show a business phone number right in the ad, allowing the user to click on the ad to call you without ever visiting your website or landing pages. Call Extensions have been around for a while, but what’s new is that now you can track clicks on the call extensions as conversions.

To implement this, the best bet is to go to the Google AdWords help page for all the details.

3 Message Ad Extensions

Another new type of Ad Extension Google AdWords has rolled out is called Message Extensions. These allow potential customers to text a business directly from an ad. Again, with this type of extensions, the customer never even visits your landing page or website. Although Google still hasn’t implemented conversion tracking with this type of ad, they do report the number of times the message extension is used. And I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they start allowing you to track these as conversions, too. To set this up, you will need to have a number which can receive texts. You have the option to select:

1. The text which appears in the ad (in this example “Text us for more information”
2. The text which is used for the message by default. Meaning, the customer may change what the text says before sending it, but they can just click the button to text and then click send. They are far more likely to use the default text, so businesses have a good chance of knowing when a text came from their AdWords ad based on how many messages they received with the default text.

To learn more about Message Extensions, I recommend Google’s article on the topic.

These types of advanced features are changing rapidly on AdWords. That’s why Webster Digital Marketing is happy to provide Google AdWords management solutions for businesses. We help businesses find customers online, and AdWords is one of the best tools we have to accomplish this.

Learn more about our AdWords PPC Management services here. Or, if you would like us to give you a free audit of your AdWords account and provide specific information on how you can improve it, contact us today.