Google Ads is the fastest way to drive relevant traffic to your website or landing pages and get in front of a relevant audience. Done right, Google Ads has the potential to drive business growth and be your primary marketing channel. Besides keywords and campaign metrics, your profitability on Google Ads is determined by Adcopies. How? You might be wondering. “Ad relevance” is one of the three main elements of Quality Score and your cost per click metric 1-point increase in quality score reduces the CPC by 25%.

Google has made multiple changes year on year to the structure of a typical Search ad. There were Regular text Ads, then came larger headlines, then came Expanded Text Ads, Dynamic Search Ads and now heavyweight AI champions – Responsive Text Ads. We give a quick brief about how Google has evolved its Text Ads and maybe we can derive a “Why” and “Google’s Intent” along this evaluation of Google Text Ads.

Standard Text Ads

Standard text ads have evolved ever since the birth of Google. Back then, the ads were limited to 25 characters, the description lines were limited to 35 characters each, even the URL was shortened to 35 characters when displayed. There were also conditions where the third line cannot be a CTA leading the users to the display URL such as “Learn more at” or “Click on the link”. Due to such limitations, Google had further introduced manual ad extensions.

Manual Ad Extensions
Call Extension Ads – Helps you display your customer service number which can be clickable for high intent users on mobile devices.
Location Extensions – For businesses who want their users to come over to their shop or office, location extensions help add a map pin or the distance between the user and the store location.
Sitelinks – These extensions are one of the most commonly used ad extensions available in Google Adwords. Sitelinks are additional links that can be added to your ad that help go beyond your landing page for example, “free shipping”, “store locator”, “get in touch”, etc.
Price Extensions – Price extensions help display detailed pricing with your ads and the users can be directed to the product directly which helps reduce the time for discovery and conversion.

These aren’t the only ones available there are numerous manual ad extensions that serve various purposes. On the other hand, Google had also launched automated ad extensions. Automated extensions give more robust ads and help increase the chances of gaining new customers.  Automated ad extensions include: Consumer Rating Extensions, Seller Rating Extensions, Social Extensions, etc.

Universal App Campaigns

With an increase in the number of mobile users, Google had launched the Universal App Campaigns in 2015 which helps find new users for your app. Universal App Campaigns are restricted to only mobile apps, and this campaign lets you advertise on any Google platform such as search, display, YouTube and mainly Google Play Store. UACs are automated and help generate app installs.

Pros:

• Requires no optimization
• Chances of getting high CPAs as there is no targeting involved.
• Have control over daily budget

Cons:

• Provides no insights into keyword placement, and where the app is being advertised
• Less control over targeting

Call- Only Ads

Well, as the name says so ‘call only ads’ are ads that are designed to encourage people to call your business. The basic difference between normal ads and COAs is that a normal ad leads to a certain website whereas a COA leads you to call the business. Usually, a few businesses have ads that contain text as well as a phone number to drive website traffic as well as direct calls, but some businesses aim only for driving more calls and that is when COAs are useful. But are you wondering how can you get people to click on your COA without any details? You can do it by using a strong CTA in your description, but it is important that the copy is targeted and concise. Also, you can drive more call by targeting these types of ads only to the people with high intent for getting quick answers. Google uses the duration of the call to determine whether the call led to a conversion or not. For example, you can set it up so that only calls longer than 30 seconds are counted as conversions.

Pros:

• COAs are more affordable compared to other PPC ads for desktop internet users
• Easy to setup
• Create a sense of urgency

Cons:

• No creativity involved
• Restrict user’s choices

Expanded Text Ads

Moving forward, on January 31st, 2017 Google had announced the end of standard text ads. Well, the name explains it all, expanded text ads are 2 times bigger than the standard text ads. ETAs help users better understand what the website offers. With the increased usage of mobiles and tabs, ETA’s are omni-platform and will be displayed across numerous different screen sizes and layouts. The main features of expanded text ads are:

• Three headlines with 30 characters each.
• Single description field with a limit of 90 characters
• Customize URL paths

Pros:

• Makes your description more specific
• Google Ads will automatically get the domain from the final URL
• ETAs are mobile optimized

Cons:

• ETAs may be annoying for low-commercial intent people
• More the content, more confusing it is

Responsive Search Ads

With so many users with different search intents, Google had introduced a new feature – Responsive Search Ads in July 2018. Responsive search ads are expanded texts but much bigger than the expanded text ads. If you’re looking for higher click-through rates, then RSAs are the right answer. Imagine, you can create 15 headlines, and 4 different descriptions that come to 43,000 permutations, isn’t that fabulous? Also, RSAs allow advertisers to enter multiple headlines and descriptions which Google’s machine learning will then test, learn, and show up relevant messages to the users’ search query. All that you have to do is enter multiple headlines and descriptions when creating a responsive search ad, then Google Ads will test the different combinations and find which combinations are performing well.

Pros:

• Responsive search ads allow multiple combinations of ads
• Optimizes with all devices
• Helps save time by providing a wide range of headlines

Cons:

• The performance of individual combinations cannot be analyzed

[mk_table]

Headline 1 Headline 2 Headline 3 Description 1 Description 2
Expanded Text Ads 30 characters 30 characters 90 characters 90 characters nil
Responsive Search Ads 30 characters 30 characters 30 characters 90 characters 90 characters

[/mk_table]

What the Evolution Indicates

With the growing needs of the users, advertising always remains to be a part and parcel. Google had debuted its first advertising product 19 years ago. The goal of Google advertising has always been the same – make it easier for people and businesses to connect online. But this goal has flourished through a lot of advancements and that’s because the users’ demand and expectations have been changing since time.

Users nowadays express their intent on search engines to get the desired results and with the help of the changes taking place in Google Ads, users are able to tap into their intent across various channels. Also, it’s not just the way thinking that has changed, the devices have changed a lot too. Nowadays everyone accesses everything on their mobile devices, hence Google Ads has made necessary changes that ensure ads are mobile optimized and there are fewer bounce-rates.

Best Practices for Google Text Ads

As we have discussed how text ads remain to be a crucial aspect of Google ads, here are a few practices that copywriters can adopt. The very basic idea of Google text ads is to grab attention, communicate your message clearly and get qualified prospects to click — all while staying within character count limits.

• Understand metrics
• Stick to the character limits
• Use the headlines generously wherever required
• Write from the consumer’s point of view
• Include keywords in the path field
• Use emotional triggers/CTA

Conclusion

Google Ads is one of the best and most promising platforms for online advertising because it offers assured and immediate traffic by reaching out to your potential customers. And not only does it get the most qualified visitors to your website, but it also makes sure that you get the most conversions.