Everyone enjoys a good sale. Customers appreciate discounts, and businesses value the boost in sales. However, one challenge with Google Ads is figuring out how to effectively incorporate these promotions into your ad campaigns. This article will guide you on how to seamlessly integrate those promotions with minimal disruption and maximum impact, ensuring your offers are seen and stand out from the competition.

Contents

1. Include promos in headlines and descriptions
2. Use headline and description assets
3. Try promotional assets
4. Leverage price assets
5. Add a sitelink for dedicated landing pages
6. Create new asset groups in Performance Max with promo messaging
7. Leverage display and video ads where possible

7 methods to feature promotions in your Google Ads campaigns

Here are some effective methods to promote your business using Google Ads. Make sure to refine your promotion messaging using our complimentary guide to unique value propositions!

1. Incorporate promos in headlines and descriptions

The simplest way to include promotions in your ad copy is by integrating them into your headlines and descriptions. Just write your promotional message, stay within the character limits, and apply. While this is the easiest method, there are factors to consider before inserting promotions into existing ad copies.

Remember that each change to an existing ad’s headline or description resets its statistics. Essentially, every edit creates a new ad. This can disrupt a well-planned ad copy strategy focused on finding the best-performing ad, as resetting statistics to zero hinders definitive results.

Instead of editing existing ad creatives, consider creating new copy variations. These variations can maintain elements of your existing control ad copy while incorporating the promotion into headlines and descriptions. This approach maintains a dedicated line item for your promotional copy, allowing the control creative to resume full impression share after the promotional period, retaining its performance history without interruption. Whether incorporating promotional copy into existing creatives or creating new ones, pay attention to pinned assets. Pinned assets appear only in designated locations. Similarly, not pinning assets to placements with existing pinned assets may prevent your promotional copy from appearing. Careful attention is necessary.

2. Utilize headline and description assets

A preferred alternative to directly adding promotional messaging into ad copy is using Google’s recently introduced headline and description assets.

Located in the “assets” section, these assets allow creating headlines and descriptions outside your ad creative. These can then be substituted into your ad copy for any campaign using that asset. Currently, these are applicable only at the campaign level. Text field parameters mirror those within the ad copy itself. As the image above illustrates, you can pin these assets to specific locations. The same pinning rules apply, so be aware of their impact on your existing ad messaging.

One of the best features of these assets is the ability to schedule them for specific periods, like, say, a promotional period?

You can view the performance of individual headlines and descriptions within the Assets tab, providing valuable insights into which promotional copy resonates best. This data reflects only the periods when these messages were displayed, not the entire responsive search ad they were part of. These assets are perfect for incorporating promotional messaging into ad copy during promotional periods. Using these assets over directly embedding messaging into responsive search ads whenever possible is highly recommended. Need additional ways to enhance your Google Ads? Get an immediate analysis of your account’s key metrics using our free Google Ads Grader!

3. Explore promotional assets

Headlines and descriptions aren’t the only asset types for promotional messaging. As their name suggests, these were designed specifically for this purpose. They’re easy to set up, but let’s review.

Promotional assets can be applied at the account, campaign, or ad group level, offering greater control than headlines and descriptions. You can choose the occasion from a comprehensive list of options, exceeding those shown in the image above which only goes up to the letter “D.” If you don’t see a suitable option, select “None.”

After setting the language and currency, choose your promotion type from the list provided.

Next comes the promo copy, where you write the item description and provide the page link. With only 20 characters available, brevity is key.

The requirements section follows. If a minimum order size or specific promo code is necessary for the discount, include that information here.

Finally, like headlines and descriptions assets, you can schedule promotional assets for specific dates. However, the “advanced options” dropdown allows further scheduling customization. Use this to define parameters if you need your messaging to run only during certain hours.

4. Utilize price assets

Price assets, while not specifically designed for promotions, can be adapted to include promotional messaging.

When creating a new price asset applicable at the account, campaign, or ad group level, you provide basic information like currency and language. What’s particularly interesting is the price qualifier. This dropdown menu allows you to choose the introductory text for the price displayed in the asset, Select the option that best suits your promotion.

Each price asset has fields similar to sitelink assets. Add a header (25 characters), set the price, choose the price unit from the dropdown menu, add a description (25 characters), and finally, provide the final URL. The headers and descriptions can feature your promotional messages, while other fields highlight the discount value.

5. Include a sitelink for specific landing pages

Some businesses dedicate entire web pages to current promotional offers. If you frequently run sales on various products, services, departments, or geographical regions, evergreen pages can be valuable sitelinks. While directing users to a different page, they allow you to add a headline and two expanded descriptions, fulfilling the sitelink’s suggested minimum.

If your promotions change regularly, use evergreen text like “See Our Offers” or “See What’s On Sale” instead of specific promotions. This avoids frequent updates. However, for recurring sales like monthly or biweekly events, manual updates highlighting specific ongoing promotions might be more manageable.

6. Generate new asset groups in Performance Max featuring promotional messaging

Similar to Responsive Search Ads in search campaigns, creating entirely new asset groups with promotional messaging (text, images, or video) within Performance Max campaigns might be more effective than adjusting existing asset groups. This prevents disruption to their performance.

7. Make use of banner display ads and video ads wherever you can

Search and Performance Max aren’t the only Google Ads campaign types. Don’t overlook brand awareness and interest-generating campaigns like display and YouTube. Leverage banner and video ads to attract new customers and retain existing ones through remarketing.

Utilize banner ads for the display network and YouTube, along with any YouTube videos you’ve created, as creative assets in your YouTube campaigns. The advantage here is the creation of new line items separate from existing ad creatives. You’re adding to the mix rather than updating existing messaging, featuring your promotional messaging as banners or videos for a portion of your campaign impressions. This provides performance data comparing your evergreen messaging with your promotional messaging (assuming you keep the former active). Once the promotion ends, you seamlessly revert to your existing messaging targeting your audience.

Promote your business with Google Ads now

Google Ads is a powerful platform to broadcast your promotions to existing audiences. While there are optimal approaches, as long as you incorporate promotions in your messaging and preserve your ad copy testing, you’re on the right track. This list of strategies provides greater confidence in integrating promotional messaging across various campaign types within the Google Ads platform. To further enhance your business’s offers on Google Ads, discover how our solutions can help maximize campaign success using search ads, display ads, video ads, and more. Here are seven approaches to feature your business promotions in Google Ads.

1. Include promos in headlines and descriptions
2. Use headline and description assets
3. Try promotional assets
4. Leverage price assets
5. Add a sitelink for dedicated landing pages
6. Create new asset groups in Performance Max with promo messaging
7. Leverage banner display and video ads where possible