Google AdWords Roll Out Product Extensions Across the USA

Over the last few months you may have noticed that Google has been testing a new form of expandable advert on its search results pages.   These adverts, which offer searchers direct links to products with images and prices, have been gradually tested and Google are now ready to make the service available to all AdWords advertisers.

These expandable adverts actually come in two different flavours: AdWord Product Extensions and Product Listing Ads.  Product Extensions function in a very similar way to current Google AdWords; advertisers pay Google on a cost-per-click basis but instead of simply enticing them to click with a small text based advert they are able to offer direct links to the specific products that are most appropriate to the phrase the user searched for.   In our tests we have found that this offers a substantial increase in both click through rate and conversion rate as visitors are aware of both the products on offer and the prices when they click on the advert.

From the searchers standpoint Product Listing Ads look identical to Ads with product extensions enabled.  The key difference between the two is that with Product Listing Ads the advertiser is charged on a cost-per-action basis.  This means that advertisers are only charged for an advert when a sale is directly generated from someone clicking on the advert; this makes Product Listing Adverts a risk-free way to advertise as a poor conversion rate will not result in a lot of money wasted on people that instantly bounce away from the site.

Which form of advert to use will vary from advertiser to advertiser (and sometimes even keyphrase to keyphrase).  In our experience some products are able to easily recuperate the higher charges associated with the cost-per-action Product Listing Ads while some remain more profitable when run on a traditional cost-per-click basis.  Irrespective of whether Product Listing Ads or Product Extensions are used the widespread availability of these improved adverts is undoubtedly beneficial for both searchers and advertisers.

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