Implementing Bing Ad Extensions

Keeping up with the latest updates from top search engines plays a key role in holding a competitive advantage. Specifically, as competition on Bing Ads search network continues to increase, it’s imperative that you are doing everything you can to ensure that your ad will be the most relevant to the searcher. Bing is working hard to help advertisers reach their target audience with Ad Extensions.  Here are a few ways you can take advantage of this PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising feature.

Here is an overview of important Bing Ad Extensions and how you might use each.

Sitelink Extensions

As you can see, when you take the time to write descriptions within your sitelink extensions and Bing Ads chooses to show them (usually when you’re in the #1 position), it can give you the real estate on the page that’s quite difficult to miss.

While the actual sitelinks may not get clicked on as often as you may think they should, we often see significant increases in the Click-Through-Rate (CTR) of the ad itself.

The key is providing relevant links to your internal pages should prospects need to go directly there. Furthermore, sitelinks give the advertiser a chance to show more offerings (which is limited by the low number of characters allowed in the ad text).

Call Extensions

With mobile taking over desktop traffic, call extensions should be a priority for most businesses. A click-to-call option is often ideal for users who are browsing on their mobile device.

Some benefits include:

• The ability to use call extensions on all devices or smartphones only.
• Ad scheduling to display phone number during business hours only.

Paying the standard cost per click for each call should not be a problem (as calls often convert at a higher rate than forms on landing pages).

I recommend using the “All devices” option for call extensions to start as Bing reports will contain more data opposed to when choosing the  “Smartphone Only” option.

Call-out Extensions

While we are not able to click on the text within the call-out extension, it gives the advertiser an opportunity to provide more direct information to the user about the business, product, etc.

Think of a callout extension as another way to add more text to your ad. Try to include anything you’d like to highlight, and watch your CTR increase.

Image Extensions

While image extensions are relatively new and I haven’t seen too many examples of them thus far within the SERPs, there’s no better time to get these uploaded into your account.

Bing is currently experimenting with multi-image layouts and the combination of display text and descriptions. For the advertiser with specific product categories and sub-categories, this is a perfect way to show the depth of your offerings.

Here are the details on adding these image extensions to your Bing Ads account.

Review Extensions

Review extensions allow you to build additional trust with your prospects by adding reviews from a 3^rd party source. This is a good extension for any type of business.  Finding a strong 3^rd party review from a well-known publication or organization will help in gaining additional clicks.

Location Extensions

For any business that would like to bring customers to their front door, or where proximity is a differentiator, this extension should be a priority.

Bing Ads is able to work with multiple locations and will display the closest location to the user.

Additional Extensions

Yes, there are even more.

If you would like to promote your app, there’s an App Extension (and you can count app installs as conversions).

ActionLink Extensions will give the advertiser an opportunity to add a CTA button within the ad itself.

Video Extensions will allow the advertiser to attach a 15 – 30 second video to the ad. This will be an extremely valuable Ad Extension to all advertisers. This is something even Google hasn’t done yet on their search network, so get those 15-30 second videos prepared to add to your account and use this Ad Extension to your advantage before your competition beats you to it.

In Conclusion

Ad Extensions for Bing Ads will only help your paid media results. The opportunity to add information and gain real estate on the SERPs is a no-brainer, and adding relevant extensions is a great way to beat the competition.

Bing will display your Ad Extensions based on the behavior of the user. This is why it’s important to use every Ad Extension available that is relevant to your business (which should be the majority of what is mentioned above).

I hope this helps give you an idea of how far Bing Ads has come (and is going) with Ad Extensions. Please review Bing’s Ad Extension policies to assist you while you add your new extensions.

Good luck!