Google Ads Promotion Extensions

Key Takeaways

if your google ads account is consistently running sales or discounts you really should be using google ads promotion extensions for your search campaigns another tactic these accounts may use is just introducing new text ads for a limited time when this particular sale is going on while this strategy can definitely work we've seen many times that the ads really don't get the exposure because you're turning them on for such a limited time and this is true even with a proper experiment in place so promotion extensions can really help spread the awareness of this particular sale and it's fairly easy to do we're going to show you in this video how you can set up the promotion extensions some of the limitations that these extensions have and how to do proper scheduling so they're showing up and turning off at the proper times now that we're in a google ads account the first thing we need to do is go to the ad extension section within your google ads account we can find that on the left hand side then we can go to extensions you probably saw in the ad section that we were just on and you could see on this screen right now i have really old examples i don't use this account this is purely just to make these videos so let's assume you're brand new to this extension type if you want to create one for the first time let's go to the blue plus button and then we can click on it to open up our options to add a new extension down at the bottom we have promotion extension there are three ways that you can add promotion extensions to your campaigns by default you can add it to the account level this means the extension we're about to create will apply to every campaign ad group and keyword in your account essentially it could show up within any text ad if you want to get a little bit more specific you can show your extension at the campaign or ad group level and honestly i can't really give you a right or wrong way to do this it depends on how your account is structured and what promos your company is running i'll go through one example covering each level but for now i just want to get through one setup so i'm going to leave it at the account level i did say about a minute ago we're going to pretend we're creating this for the first time but if you have a few promotion extensions created and you want to add them to either different campaigns or ad groups you can use existing extensions once they're already created next you can choose what occasion this extension may be and here we see a variety of different occasions that really satisfy a variety of different events all throughout the year and google does understand that sometimes you have a sale just to have a sale there's no specific occasion or reason why you're having it so you do have a none option as well and that's what i've chosen for now now i'm recording this video in july if i try to be funny and launch a black friday occasion extension in july it will not show this is because the black friday occasion will only be available from october 15th through december 15th in a majority of these occasions there are specific start dates and end dates where certain occasions can show and you can see on your screen right now i have a link where you can see all the occasions and the available start dates and end dates but to make things universal i want to leave it as none next you'll need to choose the language and the currency that will apply to your extension if i go to language you'll be able to see there are a variety of options for you to use just make sure that the language you select also matches the destination pages that you can use for this extension if you don't do that your extension could get rejected and we'll talk more about that at the very end of this video then we can go on to currency pretty straightforward we can only choose the options that are available and there are quite a few and just like the language setting you have to make sure the currency that's represented for your products within this extension also match the currency on the destination urls next you get to choose your promo type and these are the four options monetary discount pretty much a price point off a percentage discount up to monetary discount and up to percent discount i'm going to go through these one at a time and as i do look at the ad preview that's off to the right hand side i'm highlighting where the promo extension will live in this preview so you get an understanding of how it would look within this ad so the first one will be monetary discount there we can see this item is 50 off very straightforward let's switch it up from monetary discount to percent discount if i just add in a number we're saying this item is 25 off switching to the third option and that's up to monetary discount it remember the dollar amount i originally had for just monetary discount and this one will be beneficial for a range of products and i say it's better for a range is that there could be a variety of different products for a specific category that are on sale but due to the price points of some of the products or potentially the percentages off for certain items will vary saying that you can get up to fifty dollars could be very appealing maybe there's only one item within that product category that is actually fifty dollars off and all the other monetary discounts are less but you're still telling the truth within those range of products you can get up to fifty dollars off so there's a way to make your offers seem more appealing depending on how you're wording your promo and then going to the fourth option for promotion type is up to percent discount it's the same mentality of what we did with the up to monetary discount so already hopefully that gives you an idea of things to test does your audience react or engage more with a dollar amount off or a percentage off well you can create multiple different extensions and see which ones will work the best but once you've solidified your promotion type then you have 20 characters to enter in the item that applies to this particular promotion in this case i'm saying up to 25 off all cookware pretty straightforward and then we need to enter the final url if people click on this promotion extension where are they going to go just making up a website here so if a user clicks on this promotion extension you're going to be charged just like a click on any part of your text ad the first thing we did on this page was choose to add this extension at the account level so again it could show up on any text ad that is running within this account depending on your bidding strategy keyword competition a lot of factors each keyword is going to have a different cpc so you're going to be charged depending on which keyword was related to the user search query that made your ad eligible to show up in the results so having extensions at the account level can have average cpcs vary as you get more specific and add these extensions to the campaign or ad group level you'll have a better understanding of which keywords are triggering your extensions i know i got a little sidetracked but i wanted to make sure you understand how you are charged for this particular extension next we can look at promotion details the default option is none but you can add other features like on orders over so in this example users can get 25 off all cookware but they have to order at least 400 worth of product the last option for promotion details is going to be using a promo code and we have 15 characters in which we can enter the code so you're letting people know that if they use the code 25 off on checkout that's how this deal is going to be applied i've used this promotion detail in a few different ways i've had clients want to have the promotion code only available in the google ads account just so we can see the impact google ads in this particular extension is having on sales so if i only use this 25 off promo code as a promo extension my client will be able to go back within their crm see how many people use the promo code to get a better understanding of impact that this particular extension has had on the overall sale in other cases i have clients who don't care who sees the promo code or they don't care how many people share it they want as many sales as possible if that's the case that's when we strongly recommend making sure that this particular promo code detail is also on your landing page it builds more trust with the user and it verifies the offer that you promised within your ad less confusion and typically higher conversion rates that you're verifying the offer before we move on i want to talk about a few limitations that may answer some questions you have first we're looking at the promo types they're all discounts so i know a few people have asked me if you can do just a standard price point calling out that hey this product is only and blank and you're calling out the exact price of the product you cannot do that with this extension even if that is the sale price you have to call a price point off or a percent off if you want to call out a singular price of a product even if it is for sale that's when you should use a price extension and if you want to learn more about price extensions you can watch this video i previously recorded right here now the second limitation will be on the promotion details you see i can only choose one i can't add an additional layer to it so there are some times where you could use the on orders over but the user still needs a promo code you can't do that you have to pick one or the other so there's another option for you to potentially test to see which one users will like more and which one will eventually lead to more conversions in my opinion it's good that you can only choose one because the promotion doesn't really seem that good if you have to spend a certain amount and then you're making me work and entering a code as well but i can't assume that's right or wrong for all businesses you just have to do what's right for you but now we can move on to the next part and before we do that i'm going to expand the advanced options right away moving on to the first set of dates your display promotion dates this is going to be when the actual promotion is taking place you could have some evergreen promos and that's fine there are certain things you can run continuously but we did talk about specific occasions earlier so certain holidays or events like black friday we know when those dates are coming every year other events are limited so let's say in this example i'm creating right now this sale is only good to the end of the month i can go to the calendar choose a specific end date and now if you look in the ad preview we're telling users this promo ends on july 31st so maybe it wasn't the whole month maybe it's just the last week of the month and then the preview updates again now you can't see it if i go back to the start date you can see i'm recording this video on the 18th if i launch this extension right now it will start showing and since i created it the week before the valid promotion dates people who click on that ad won't be able to use this offer but it could be a good extension to build awareness for a particular upcoming sale or promotion if you don't want your extension to show up before the sale is actually going on that is why i clicked on the advanced options section because there is another set of dates below this is when this extension will actually show up so i can choose to change the dates to match the actual dates of the promotion and if i want to get even more specific we can update the ad schedule very similar to how we can already do ad scheduling within google ads and we do have another video on that one right here so to repeat your displayed promo dates are going to be the dates of the actual sale or promotion under the advanced options the second date setting is going to be when it will actually appear within the ad if you're happy with how your extension looks you can go back down and save it and if we scroll back down in the main extension section there we see we now have promotions as i promised earlier in the video i want to show you a few examples of how you may use promotion extensions at different levels within the account so if we look at the list of search campaigns i have off to the left hand side i haven't broken out by typical departments of a retail store so at the account level i've set up a promo extension saying up to 50 off select items store wide and that one would be perfect for the account level because it can cover all of the campaigns now even though there are select items up to 50 off maybe everything in the men's department is just 20 off so i can create and attach this extension just at the campaign level so no matter which ad group a user is seeing my ad they're going to see the same promo extension whether they're looking for jeans 20 off pants 20 off shirts 20 off suits 20 off underwear 20 off if someone sees an ad from any keyword under my men's campaign they will not see the 50 off select item storewide promo extension any deeper level extension will override the higher level extension and the same thing could be said about the ad group level if we add this particular one to the men's suits ad group up to 100 off select men's suits anyone seeing an ad belonging to this particular ad group won't see the campaign level extension and they also won't see the account level extension while the 20 off extension could be appealing i may want to test out calling out a bigger price point because seeing a hundred dollars off could be more appealing than just seeing 20 percent off if you want to test those out you will have to recreate this 20 off message at the ad group level so they can both test against each other just in the men's suits ad group so even though this is one example hopefully you can see how you can tier your promo extensions depending on the structure of your account and as i said earlier it's really going to depend on how your account is structured but most importantly the sales or discounts you are offering at the time most likely you're not going to have a promo extension at the campaign and ad group levels for every single level within your account it's just good to know that you have the ability to get a specific to the ad group level and call out very specific promos when the time is right and to wrap this video up i wanted to go over five reasons why your promo extensions may get disapproved and most of these reasons are going to be pretty familiar if you've been running search campaigns for a long time the first reason is if you're violating any editorial policies you have some obvious misspellings you're adding unnecessary symbols to your extension or potentially excessive use of capitalization another common reason is the use of trademarks within your extension now odds are if your e-commerce company running promos or sales for specific brands you should be pretty good unless the trademark owner complains just like you're not supposed to use any trademarks within your text ads you cannot use them in your promo extensions unless you have the proper permission next is an unavailable offer the dollar amount off or the percentage off that you are putting within your promo extension must match the offer that is found on the destination url besides the actual promo piece whatever you claim in your headers and descriptions must match what is available on the destination url as well google finds any mismatch your promo extension could be disapproved next it's unclear relevance it seems silly but this is a rule everything that you are using within a promo extension must represent whatever the advertiser typically promotes so let's say you're a sock company and all you do is sell socks but for whatever reason you started to promote something along the lines of software and that one would get disapproved i'm gonna say it again it is really silly so just stick with what you've already been selling on your account you do that you'll be fine and the last reason is using an unavailable language you have to make sure that you're targeting a country that is supported in the language policy and then you need to make sure that the language on your landing page matches the language that you are targeting and that's pretty much it for promo extensions clearly not every google ads account out there will have a need for this extension but if you do offer promos discounts or sales with a percent off or a dollar amount off they can be a great way for your ad to stand out versus the competition so test them out at the appropriate level that makes sense the account the campaign or the ad group and see which levels perform best for you and if you have any success stories you want to share about promo extensions let everyone know in the comments below thanks for watching our video if you found it useful give us a thumbs up below we release a new video at least once a week so if you want to see more from the paid media pros channel be sure to subscribe