Blog

When I first saw this over the weekend, I thought it was a bug in the Google AdWords system. But knowing how careful Google normally is, I decided to investigate further. So I headed over to the AdWords blog where I found this blog post which explained further.

According to Google this is a test which is currently being applied to certain Ads only, giving advertisers the opportunity to show more information in their Ad headline.

Not all Ads are affected though. Only Ads which appear above natural search results will benefit from this feature.

So what are longer headlines anyway? Essentially the first line of your Ad is moved to the headline and the two separated by a hyphen (-).

My gut feeling is that this will become a permanent feature in Google AdWords, as we have seen with other recent “tests”.

How to get longer AdWords Ad headlines

Well for a start not every Ad will get a longer headline. So how do you ensure that your Ad gets the chance to benefit from this feature?

• Firstly your Ad must be displayed above the natural search results.
• Secondly each of the lines in your Ad must be a distinct sentence. This means ending each line, most especially the first line with a full stop.

What longer AdWords Ad headlines mean to Advertisers

Your Ad gets more chance of being noticed and being clicked on. This translates to increased click through rates (CTRs), which as advertisers we are all after.

When combined with Ad extensions like Ad extensions location extensions, phone extensions, product extensions and ad site links, this has the potential to enhance Ads even further making them more prominent and standing out.

This must be a PPC advertisers dream come true. Anybody who has ever written a PPC Ad, would know that getting the perfect Ad, with 130 characters (including spaces) is not a mean feat. It looks simple, sounds simple but yet it is not.

At the moment I am modifying my ads to make sure they have a fair chance of benefiting from this new feature.
 

About the author

Kenta is a Paid Search specialist at Coast Digital, managing PPC campaigns for several clients.

Before joining Coast Digital, Kenta worked as an Online Marketing Consultant and as an Online Marketing Manager, working for clients in the health and wellness, legal, housing, finance and food retail industries.

Kenta graduated from the University of Warwick with a Master’s degree (Msc) in eBusiness Management specialising in Online Paid Search.