Changes Coming To Google Ads With Extensions in March 2022

Google has announced some changes with regards to automated site extensions for Google Ads.

Ginny Marvin, Ads product liaison announced that automated extensions will now show alongside the manual extensions on your Google Ads. This change will be rolled out around mid-march 2022.

There is a total of 7 automated extensions out of which there is a chance that 3 of these can show up on your ads with the manual extensions.

These automated extensions include:

• Structured Snippets
• Sitelinks
• Callouts

As we know, clicks on extensions do cost and depending on various factors, you will pay Google an amount once someone clicks your ad extension.

Having said that, more extensions means your ad take up more real estate which can increase the CTR for the ad. The question is, will this help you get more clicks and conversions?

Google Auto Ad Extensions With Manual Extensions – Good or Bad?

When I run ads on Google, I make sure that I choose my ad extensions that are related to the search term.

Any extra extensions that will interfere with my manual extensions may divert user attention and result in a click to a page that I really don’t want to promote.

So yes, there are pros and cons.

Pros:

• More real estate in ads.
• May increase CTR.
• Save time on creating manual extensions.

Cons:

• Higher CTR means more ad spend. 
• It may not necessarily bring conversions as users are diverted to other areas of the website.

So if you’re running ads purely to get more traffic, then automated extensions alongside manual ones can be a good thing. But if your focus is only on conversions, then it might be a good thing to disable automated extensions.

How To Disable Automated Extensions in Google Ads

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. Click Ads & extensions in the page menu, then click Extensions in the subpage menu.
3. Click Automated Extensions at the bottom of the page.
4. Click the three-dot menu  on the right, then select Advanced options.
5. Select Turn off specific automated extensions and choose which extension to turn off.
6. Select your reason for turning off the extension and add additional comments.
7. Click Turn off.

Takeaway

Letting Google choose your website extensions and placing them on your ads with your manual extension can be a good or bad thing. As I always recommend, run some tests and see what works for your campaign.

If your goal is to get more clicks, then such extensions can help. If you are running ads for conversions, then you will have to review your extensions and enable or disable them accordingly.