In late 2016, people began spotting a new ad extension that Google was testing – the promotion extension. As of last month, promotion extensions were rolled out globally with one caveat: it’s only available in the new AdWords interface. Because of this, many advertisers have still not taken advantage of what is now one of my favorite ad extensions, especially for eCommerce clients.

Let’s take a closer look at the promotion extension and how to use it for your business.

What Are Promotion Extensions?

Promotion extensions allow you to highlight current sales or promotions along with your Search Network text ads. This extension will show below your ad text and is free to add. You will be charged for a click on the promotion extension, just like other clickable ad extensions.

Promotion extensions will display up to 2 lines of text. When someone clicks on the promotion extension, they will be directed to the final URL you have specified for that extension.

Setting Up Promotion Extensions

As a reminder, you have to be in the new AdWords interface in order to access Promotion extensions. Then, you’ll navigate to Ads & extensions from the left-side menu and click into “Extensions” at the top.

Promotion extensions can be added to your account at three different levels: Account, Campaign, and Ad Group. If you have promotion extensions at all different levels, the most specific level extension will be used. So, ad group will trump campaign and campaign will trump account level extensions.

Next, you’ll want to select an occasion, if it applies. This is an optional setting that you can select from a preset list of holidays or special events. If you choose an occasion, your ad will be eligible to show during the dates AdWords associates with that occasion. If you select None, your promotion extension will be eligible to show continuously unless you specify a date range in the Advanced Settings section.

Here is a look at the current list of occasions you can choose from and associated date ranges:

Now you’ll need to choose the language and currency of your promotion. This extension is rolled out globally and is available in all supported languages and currencies.

After that, you can enter the specifics of your promotion. You’ll first select whether your promotion is a monetary or percentage discount and then enter the discount amount. If the promotion only applies to certain products or services, enter that into the Item field. You have a max of 20 characters for this field. Then you’ll set the final URL. This is where people will land when they click on your promotion extension.

Next, you’ll enter in any additional promotional details and choose if you want the dates of your promotion to show with your extension.

“Promotion details” allows you to specify any requirements needed for the promotion. You can choose from an “On orders over” requirement or to include the promo code.

The “Promotion dates” are optional dates that show within the promotion extension. This does not determine when your extension is eligible to show, so it’s important to keep that in mind. These dates only let people know the duration of your special sale or offer, they will not control the scheduling of the promotion extension.

Devices and Schedules

Promotion extension scheduling will need to be done under Advanced options.

The first advanced option will be to select a mobile preference for your extension. What this means is that a promotion extension with this option selected will be given preference on mobile devices over other promotion extensions, however, they are still eligible to show on computers and tablets. Checking this box does not mean your extension will only show on mobile devices.

Now we are at the extension scheduling portion of the settings. This is where you can select the date range your promotion extension will be eligible to run. If you selected an occasion for your promotion, you know that there are already certain date ranges associated with each occasion.

You can use extension scheduling to narrow the date range, but you can’t select dates outside of the occasion date range. For example, if you selected New Year’s for the occasion you can schedule your extension to run from January 1st through January 30th. You can not schedule it to run from January 1st to March 15th. If you want to select dates outside the preset date range, you’ll need to change the occasion to None.

You can also select only certain days or hours of the day for your extension.

Conclusion

This is one of my favorite extensions because I feel like it really does allow your promotion to stand out amongst all the ad copy. If promotion extensions make sense for your business, you should start implementing them in your account but remember to be careful in order to avoid ad extension overload.

What do you think about promotion extensions? Let us know in the comments below!