Using Promotion Extensions to Enhance Your AdWords campaigns

Statistics show that 70% of consumers search for discounts online before visiting a local business. After all, it only takes a minute to search for promotional offers on the internet, but doing so can yield substantial savings for consumers. Small business owners can use this to their advantage by promoting their products on Google AdWords using the platform’s new promotion extensions feature.

What Is Google AdWords?

Google AdWords is the search engine giant’s pay-per-click (PPC) network. Using AdWords, small business owners can promote their products or services on Google Search, paying only when someone clicks their ad. This is in stark contrast to traditional advertising methods, most of which involve paying a flat fee for exposure or paying per 1,000 ad impressions. Because AdWords only charges advertisers by the click, it’s relatively easy to adjust and optimize campaigns for a higher return on investment (ROI).

What Is Promotion Extensions?

Promotion extensions is a new feature in AdWords that allows advertisers to display promotional offers in their ad copy. Using the free-to-use feature, advertisers can capitalize on the holiday season by capturing the attention of budget-conscious shoppers. Ads featuring the promotion extension contain all of the information found in traditional AdWords ads, including a title, description and display URL. Additionally, however, they contain information about a promotional offer at the bottom, such as “15% off” or “$10 off.”

So, why should you use the promotion extensions feature? Google cites several success stories of businesses using this feature. The fashion retailer Torrid, for instance, experienced a 30% increase in conversion rate after implementing promotion extensions, while the shoe retailer Shoe Carnival experienced a 20% higher ROI.

While optional, you can also choose to run an ad with promotion extensions using one of 12 predefined holidays. This includes New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Labor Day, back to School, Halloween, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and Boxing Day. Google says that specifying a holiday will increase the visibility of the advertiser’s ad.

“Promotion extensions make it easy for you to keep your promotions up to date without the need to create new ads. They also free up the rest of your ad for more unique content, like your brand terms or a clear call to action,” wrote the AdWords team in a blog post announcing promotion extensions.

Promotion extensions is just one of many extensions available to AdWords advertisers. To learn more about the network’s extensions, check out this help article here.