Dude, expanded call-only ads are rolling out in beta. Some of you may have seen them already. I just updated the latest version of Google Ads Editor and it has added the ability to create these new expanded ads. I expect these ads will roll out to everyone in the near future.
Call-only ads have always been a mixed bag for my clients. Some have performed well (testing better than their text ad counterparts) while some simply did not improve performance. There was always a trade-off to consider.
Use a text ad that offered a couple of headlines (or three with the newer expanded text ads) or go with the call-only ads that did not have an option for a headline and were designed to generate calls (not website traffic).
Making note of the text ad trends over the years, the obvious push is to have ads occupy more real estate in the search engine results. We’ve gone from ads having a single 25 character headline with two 35 character description lines to three 30 character headlines with two 90 character description lines.
Well, it looks like Google is rolling out some changes to call-only ads. I have started seeing the option in some client accounts, but not all. There are a couple new features I’ll go over. Let’s start with a quick comparison.
Traditional Call-Only Ads
For years, the breakdown for call-only ads looked like this:
These ads already had a bit of a drawback in that you really only had the description lines to use for your targeted keywords. From a visual standpoint, this was not as ideal as being able to put those keywords in the bold headlines of a regular text ad. This was one of the major drawbacks to call-only ads.
For those who were savvy enough, you could put those keywords in place of the business name and hope it gets approved by Google. As an example, instead of putting ‘Perry Mason Law Firm’ for the business name, you might put ‘Local Divorce Attorneys’.
Throw in the newest expanded text ads and responsive text ad options and the ad ‘real estate’ for call-only ads becomes relatively smaller.
But, that is all changing with the new expanded call-only ads.
New Google Ads Expanded Call Only Ads
Below is an image of the new call-only ads.
Look at all of that new ‘real estate’ we get to play with! The expanded call only ads now have two new headlines to use. This is huge in my opinion. In testing these ads against the expanded and responsive text ads, I’m seeing some good results for mobile. For some clients, I’ve finished some preliminary rounds of A/B testing and these new call-only ads have won out.
There is also another cool option that comes with these ads. It has to do with how the ads change depending upon whether or not you use the optional ‘display URL’ field.
If you use the ‘display URL’ field, then your ads will look like this:
Make note of the business name (Perry Mason Law Firm) which is now added to the beginning of description line 1. Additionally, the display URL acts like it does in any other text ad – no change.
Now, look at how the ad changes when you choose not to use the optional ‘display URL’ field:
Two things changed. First, the Business Name disappears from the description. Second, the business name replaces the display URL. This is a subtle change, but definitely worth playing around with and split testing.
In conclusion
The addition of the two headlines are a welcome addition to call-only ads. Google made a smart decision with this. I suspect Google Ads managers and users who either did not try call-only ads or had poor results will revisit these ads once they completely roll out.
