Google announced that AdWords extensions and formats are now going to be part of the overall AdWords ad rank formula going forward.
Google said, "ad extensions typically improve clickthrough rate and overall campaign performance because they make ads more useful." Now, because that is true, Google feels it is an important factor to include in their ad rank algorithm.
- Previously, Ad Rank was calculated using your max CPC bid and your Quality Score.
- With this update, Ad Rank will also take into account a third component: the expected impact from your ad extensions and formats.
- In addition, Google increased the importance of Ad Rank in determining whether your ad is eligible to be displayed with extensions and formats.
Here are some more details on this from Google:
- Ad extensions and formats can now influence the position of your ad on the search results page. If two competing ads have the same bid and quality, then the ad with the more positive expected impact from extensions will generally appear in a higher position than the other.
- When estimating the expected impact of extensions and ad formats, we consider such factors as the relevance, clickthrough rates, and the prominence of the extensions or formats on the search results page.
- Because Ad Rank is now more important in determining whether your ad is shown with extensions and formats, you might need to increase your Quality Score, bid, or both for extensions and formats to appear.
- In each auction, we'll generally show your highest performing and most useful combination of extensions and formats among those eligible. So there's no need to try to guess which extensions will help improve your clickthrough rate the most.
- You may see lower or higher average CPCs in your account. You may see lower CPCs if your extensions and formats are highly relevant, and we expect a large positive performance impact relative to other competitors in the auction. In other cases, you may see higher CPCs because of an improvement in ad position or increased competition from other ads with a high expected impact from formats.
- For now, this update only affects search ads appearing on Google Search.
Forum discussion at Google+.
