Optimising a pay per click advertising is a must do for any campaign out there. In the chain of events that the web user goes 
through to gain you a conversion, the search advert will be first element of your PPC campaign they will see. Therefore, it is extremely important the advert performs well so that it lures the web user into clicking onto it and converting onto your landing page. There are many ways you can improve a search advert and by including ad extensions is just one of them. For this reason, what is the best ad extension you should use to maximise your PPC campaign’s potential?
The first thing we must realise is that you cannot always choose what ad extension shows in your search advert. Ad extensions such as seller rating, social annotation, previous visits and consumer rating will be automatically added to your advert if Google deems it will help your advert. This means you can manually choose to include the following ad extensions:
- Review extension
- Location extension
- Site links extension
- Call extension
- App extension
Naming what best ad extension to use if like asking how long a piece of string is. It will vary depending on what type of campaign you have and what you are trying to advertise. For example, a campaign aimed at selling apps will find the app extension much more useful than a coffee shop, which would find the location extension the most useful.
Saying this, I do feel that the site links extension and call extension are both universal ad extensions which will help the majority of adverts perform better. Here is my reasoning why:
- The site links will make it easier for web users to find the specific page they first wanted to find when they used the search engine. After all, that is why people use search engines? – to find a web page that has information they are seeking. Some campaigns simply cannot handle the task of having one landing page to accommodate various different types of traffic (such as SammyDress who really needed two clear separate landing page for each sex).
- As a blogger, I have found that the more links on a page, the likelier one of them links will be clicked on (to some extent). This can be applied to PPC advertising. If you have an advert with one link, it will be clicked on. But, if you have an advert with a title link and site links underneath too, there is a stronger possibility of getting more clicks and a higher CTR.
- A call to extension makes clear to the web user that you are not just some automated robotic campaign but a human trying to offer the web user something. Even if it is something such as a shop or a website (or anything for that matter), having a call extension both shows you have humans working alongside this PPC campaign as well as promoting a good customer service base which will improve the web user’s experience with your campaign.
