With the mobile industry constantly booming in usage due to smartphones, tablets and more, it has become apparent that Google, to keep up with this surge, have increased the amount of adverts that are shown on search results from two to three. Of course, this will both have pros and cons which I will go into in this article with a conclusion to what this means to mobile advertisers.

Why has the limit increased?

In essence, the main reason Google has decided to show three adverts for some search queries is because of the amount of demand in mobile search. In order to profit more from search engine results, by showing more adverts means the chances of the advert being clicked are increased making Google more money.

Or does it?

The first point that needs to be made apparent is that the space the adverts take up as compared from two to three adverts has not changed. Therefore, in order for three adverts to appear in the same space as two adverts, the chances are that the adverts will not be allowed to use elements such as ad extensions.

If mobile search adverts are not allowed to use ad extensions when three adverts are shown, this will significantly decrease many statistics of adverts because, for many advertisers, the ad extensions work as a ‘middle man’ in getting the mobile web user to convert. This is because ad extensions enable mobile web users to convert without having to theoretically land onto a landing page, saving the mobile web user time which will result in an increased conversion rate.

For search queries displaying two adverts, they will have the option to use ad extensions which will certainly prove very effective to increase the success rate of the mobile PPC campaign.

Ultimately, allowing three adverts to display on mobile search results will generally, in my opinion, have a negative impact to advertisers with mobile PPC campaigns:

• Yes, three adverts will mean competition for ad placements will decrease so, in theory, the the CPC for the ad placements for certain search queries showing three adverts should decrease too (which will be welcoming news for advertisers).
• However, since three adverts will take up more space than two adverts, the chances that automatically applied are implemented into the adverts. Therefore, these adverts might see the click through rate and conversion rate decrease.
• By having more adverts appear on mobile search results will automatically make the web user want to skip past them more to organic search results as it is much easier to camouflage less adverts into organic search results than more.

However, it is Google after all so do not be surprised if there is no real difference to the performance of your campaign from three adverts is played on search results as compared to two!