AdWords Image Ad Extensions

Google continues to evolve its Ad Extensions with its latest addition in Image Ad Extensions. This is an exciting new tool that allows you to stand out and get noticed. Give your potential visitors a little visual enticement and a taste of what to expect before they even click through to the website.

How it works is that you can now place three images into each ad group, which can then be shown in correspondence to the ads in those ad groups.

So if you sell Hawaiian vacations I’m sure that you can foresee the great benefits. But just like any other extension, you should keep in mind that they’re not going to always show up.

Google has created this new tool with visual products in mind. They’re looking to add an even more rich experience to users searching in Google. So, if you have ads targeting a hotel in Costa Rica, you might get these ads to show, while something like tax software likely wouldn’t.

Currently these image ad extensions are still only in Beta, which means you’ll have to go through your Google Rep to get them setup.  There are also a few specifications that you should keep in mind. These include:

• 16:9 image ratio
• No text overlays
• No company logos
• No collagues

The one specification that you might get stuck on is the 16:9 ratio. This is basically a ‘wide’ picture as seen in the image above. If you’re selling products such as t-shirts which are more conducive to a ‘tall’ image format, you may run into some issues with Google. AdWords won’t allow excessive white space, which could happen if you center your product (such as a t-shirt) in the middle of the image.

Google has continued to grow the number of ad extensions within AdWords, which has been a huge plus for advertisers. Take advantage of these great features to really help you increase your ROI.