Google Ads uses Assets (formerly known as extensions or formats) to allow advertisers to enhance their ads with additional information on the product, service, or business. There are three assets that should always be included in every ad group: Sitelink Assets, Callout Assets, and Call Assets. Structured Snippet Assets should added as well where applicable.
Along with increasing the chance an ad will get clicked, including assets also increases the ad rank of an ad. This means that Google will be more likely to show the ad at a higher average spot and/or at a lower cost per click. It is important to remember when creating list-based assets that Google determines the order in which the assets are shown.
Sitelink Assets
Sitelinks are links to additional pages within a website. Say we have a client who sells sports equipment, someone searches “football cleats”, and an ad shows up with the headline about football cleats that links to a page selling football cleats. This experience would be great for the person doing the search. However, since they are searching for football cleats it is safe to assume that some searches will also want other football equipment.
Here is where we can use sitelinks. We could create sitelinks advertising quality footballs, sports cones, practice football jerseys, and more. These links would lead the advertiser to different, but relevant pages. Even if the searcher doesn’t click on the sitelinks, they may improve the chance of the main ad getting clicked because the searcher will know they can get additional football equipment along with their cleats.
Callout Assets
CalloutAssets provide additional information about the product/service you are advertising. Unlike sitelinks, callouts are not clickable. In general, think of callouts as “calling out” benefits or features of the product/service (i.e. free consultations, lifetime warranty, price matching). These benefits or features are in addition to what’s already in the ad. It is a best practice to create at least 4 callouts.
Call Assets
Call Assets are simply an asset that shows a clickable phone number in the ad itself. The assets can track phone conversions if the setting to allow Google to use a forwarding number is enabled. This makes the phone number that is shown in the ad a randomly generated number that forwards to the actual business phone number. When someone clicks or calls this number and stays on the phone for the required time, 60 seconds by default, a conversion will be tracked.
Lead Form Assets
Lead Form Assets are useful because they allow people to submit their information in a form without having to actually visit the website. Their main benefit is that they allow you to get high-quality leads while providing a seamless experience for your customers. People can click on the lead form asset directly in the SERP, let their information auto-populate (if they are signed in to their browser), and click submit. It lowers the barrier of entry and makes it easier for customers to go through with submitting a form.
While there are some positives to Lead Form Assets, the barrier to entry for the client is so high that we typically don’t use them. If the client doesn’t have a CRM, all submitted forms must be downloaded to a spreadsheet to be viewed. Seeing as how time is of the essence when you receive a lead (and you want to respond as quickly as possible), constantly downloaded CSVs to see if you have gotten any leads is unrealistic. If the client has a CRM, a webhook integration (such as Zapier) can be utilized to push leads directly into the client’s CRM, which is a much better solution. However, many of our clients don’t have CRMs, which makes this impossible.
How to Set Up Lead Form Assets
Dynamic Image Assets
To speak the language of Google Ads, it is important to understand what it means when something is “dynamic.” There are dynamic ads, dynamic ad groups, dynamic image assets, etc. For something to be “dynamic” in Google Ads, it means that it is automated by Google and requires little control from the owner of the account.
In the case of dynamic image assets, Google identifies and uses images on the landing page of the ads, looking specifically for images that are most relevant to the query based on the ad’s landing page. Google has a manual and automated process of making sure those images are suitable to show and will not display a dynamic image asset if there are no images on the landing page or the images are low in quality.
The benefits of using dynamic image assets overlap with the benefits of a standard image asset. Images offer a way to differentiate yourself from competitors on Google’s SERP, draw the eye of a searcher, and will improve your CTR.
Something to note: Google recommends using image assets and dynamic image assets TOGETHER because “image assets will always serve over dynamic image assets.”
At Sebo, most MCs tend to prefer standard image assets over dynamic image assets. It’s nice to have control over what images show and you can’t always trust Google’s system of choosing photos. However, they are often worth trying out if the client’s website has good images.
Structured Snippet Assets
Similar to callout assets, structured snippet assets are specific aspects of your products and services that you want displayed on your ad. The difference, however, is that structured snippet assets are grouped into a category and displayed as supporting values to the categorical header. Structured snippets should provide a complete group of products or services that your business provides.
Here is a list of available headers:
Amenities
Brands
Courses
Degree programs
Destinations
Featured hotels
Insurance coverage
Models
Neighborhoods
Service catalog
Shows
Styles
Types
Examples: “Wifi” is an amenity. “Costa Rica” is a destination. “Downtown” is a neighborhood.
Best practices:
Include 4 values per header.
Add more than one header-value set. This gives Google more options to display.
