Over the years, advertisers have relied on incorporating sales and promotions into their ad text to draw in visitors to their websites. This tactic, while often successful, had its drawbacks. Highlighting promotions within the limited character count of text ads, even expanded ones, meant sacrificing valuable space. Furthermore, the management of multiple promotions added another layer of complexity for marketers. Creating separate text ads for each promotion, often with short lifespans, became a cumbersome task. Google’s temporary solution for Black Friday and Cyber Monday with structured snippets offered some relief, but a consistent method for highlighting promotions year-round was lacking. Enter Google Ads promotion extensions, now empowering advertisers to seamlessly showcase their promotions whenever they choose.

What Are Google Ads Promotion Extensions?

A Google Ads promotion extension grabs attention by displaying a prominent price tag icon below your ad, instantly signaling a sale on your website. The extension allows for detailed promotion specifications, including occasion-specific promotions, minimum order values, promo code requirements, and sale end dates.

This new promotion extension feature stands out on the search engine results page (SERP), visually distinct from other Google Ads extensions. Creating one is similar to setting up other popular ad extensions, offering many of the same advantages.

How to Set Up Promotion Extensions

Follow these steps to create promotion extensions. Within the ad extensions tab, initiate the creation of a new promotion extension, which will then present the following options:

The first step allows advertisers to designate their promotion as holiday-specific by choosing from 12 pre-set occasions, aligning with major holidays. For targeted promotions, specific dates within those holidays can be set. Leaving this field as “None” allows the promotion extension to run year-round.

Next, select the currency used for your prices. Currently, supported currencies include:

• USD (United States Dollars)
• AUD (Australian Dollars)
• CAD (Canadian Dollars)
• EUR (Euros)
• GBP (British Pound)
• NZD (New Zealand Dollars) Then, specify the specifics of your promotion:

Promotion Type

Choose the most fitting category out of four to describe your sale or promotion:

• Monetary discount: A fixed dollar amount deducted from the product price, displayed as “$X off…”
• Percent discount: A fixed percentage discount on all orders, displayed as “X% off…”
• Up to monetary discount: A maximum dollar amount that orders can be discounted by, understanding that not all orders may qualify for the maximum discount. This is displayed as “Up to $X off…”
• Up to percent discount: A maximum percentage discount applicable to orders, with the possibility of not all orders qualifying for the maximum discount. This is displayed as “Up to X% off…”

Promotion Requirement

This optional setting allows you to define eligibility criteria for the promotion. If applicable to all orders, leave this as “None.”

• On orders over: This option displays the promotion as “…On orders over $X.”
• Promo code (15 Character Limit): Specify a required promotional code for checkout (up to 15 characters), displayed as “…Code X.”

Item (20 Characters Limit)

This field allows you to specify the products or services included in the sale (up to 20 characters).

Final URL:

Similar to sitelinks, each promotion extension links to a specific product or offer page.

Promotion dates (Optional)

For time-limited promotions, define the start and end dates. Scheduling these extensions in advance is possible, but they cannot run beyond the set end date.

Promotion extensions offer flexibility by being applicable at the account, campaign, or ad group level.

Some Important Limitations of Google Ads Promotion Extensions

• Currently, these extensions only support English and currencies such as USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, AUD, and NZD, limiting their use for some international and non-English advertisers.
• The requirement for a monetary or percentage-based discount excludes promotions like “Free Shipping” or “Buy one get X free.”

How Do Promotion Extensions Perform?

While it’s known that compelling sales and promotions boost ad click-through rates (CTRs), the impact of these new promotion extensions is significant. nexus-security clients have observed remarkably high CTRs with these extensions, achieving an average CTR close to 10% when displayed. Their performance has even surpassed other popular extensions like sitelinks and price extensions!

Beyond CTR, adopting these extensions can improve ad relevancy and quality score, similar to the benefits of Google Ads price extensions. Incorporate promotion extensions into your account to leverage their high CTR potential!

Data Sources

The aggregated data presented here is based on an analysis of 18 nexus-security client accounts granted early beta access to Promotion Extensions. These accounts were running ads on the Google Search Network between November 2016 and May 2017.