Just because modern consumers are so heavily focused on social media and mobile communication, doesn’t mean that there’s no room for call extensions in your Google Ads campaign. For these businesses, which are service based, phone calls might be the primary way in which you interact with your consumers, strengthening your need for call simplicity.
Google Ads gives you the opportunity to have consumers call you directly by simply clicking on an ad, increasing the amount of calls that come into your business, and consequentially raising your conversion rate. However, there are certain ways to make these call extensions work more effectively, and here’s a few of them:
1. Don’t overload the ad with text content. The rule of thumb is short and sweet, which goes hand in hand with Google’s character limit of 25. That means you have around one to two sentences to work with, so keep them clear and to the point.
2. Use some sort of Call Tracking service, or for a cheaper alternative, get yourself a Google forwarding number. Tracking where your calls come from gives you access to tons of data, such as who’s clicking your ads, how the ads are converting, and whether the call extension is effective altogether.
3. Optimize your ads for the platform on which they’ll appear. Mobile call extensions would look and operate differently than tablet call extensions, or than desktop call extensions.
4. Don’t drop all your funding into a call extension, doing no testing first. Call extensions, and Google Ads require tons of optimization before you get them right, so factor that into the process.
5. If you have a physical storefront, consider using location extensions besides call extensions. This can be an excellent way to reach out to local consumers, and gives you the opportunity to link your Google Ads and Google Places profiles into one, so that your local ratings will show up right next to the location extensions in your ads.
6. Enter any details relevant to your business, whether you’re running just a call extension, a local extension, or both. This information makes it easier for Google to categorize and display your ad, ensuring that more consumers will find and contact you.
Call extensions in Ads aren’t just a supplementary feature that you can add on at a whim. They’re a beneficial function of Ads that can help your business improve its conversions and acquire more customers.
Ads management gives you the ability to specify at which days and times you want your call extension ads to be displayed, which can be helpful if you’re not standing by 24/7 to answer these calls. You want calls to be coming in at business hours only, so that you can use them to their full advantage.
You can also collect something which is called phone impressions, which shows you how many times your phone number appeared on devices that can’t make phone calls, such as computers or tablets. Because these devices don’t deliver on the functionality of call extensions, this can be seen as wasted funding. This will also help you figure out exactly how many calls are made to the call forwarding number, and what your phone-through rate is.
Google Ads also features intensive call conversion tracking, which gives you access to tools such as Conversion Optimizer, ROAS bidding, Enhanced CPC bidding, and so on. Google Ads will also show you which ads are generating clicks, and what keywords are being used to for these searches most often.
Call extensions can be a great asset to use for your business, but without the right strategies in place to measure their success, you may find that they aren’t delivering on the functionality as much as they could. By consistently measuring how effective your Ads are, you’ll be able to see what is and what isn’t working, allowing you to tweak them just the right amount.
