How Are Manual Extensions Different From Automatic Extensions?

Ad extensions are powerful features used to enhance your marketing messages on Google Ads. Not only do they improve the performance of ads, but ad extensions are also incredibly versatile. With many different formats and options, any marketer can use them to produce better ad experiences.

Ad extensions can be categorized by either being manual (some user setup required) or automatic (no user setup required). This discussion will explore how extensions are used to produce better ad experiences and how are manual extensions different from automatic extensions.

What Is An Ad Extension?

Ad extensions are named very appropriately. Their purpose is to “extend” the size and value of your normal ad messages. In other words, ad extensions add information or details about your company, products or services.

By doing so, the physical size of the ad is increased, as is the value of the ad’s content. The more information you can convey to customers, the more inherent value there is.

Here are two examples of ads for the jeans collection. The first is not using any ad extensions, while the second example does.

Notice that without any ad extensions enabled, the details of the ad are very short — less than two lines of text.

This ad utilizes the sitelinks extension to add additional lines of text, as well as give viewers that chance to click the most relevant link and jump right to the page they need, thereby adding a high level of value to the ad experience.

Why Are Ad Extensions Important?

Capturing the eye and attention of an Internet user is incredibly challenging for marketers and advertisers. There are a number of factors working against you:

1. Internet users are often numb to marketing messages because they are exposed to so much sponsored ad content.
2. Many users avoid ads or sponsored content in favor of organic results.
3. The size of many PPC ads are small and designed to keep out of the way of the user’s browsing experience.
4. It’s hard to target the right people with the most relevant information to meet their needs.

Sitelinks aim to remedy these negative factors. By adding more details and giving potential customers more information, ads with extensions have a much higher likelihood of being relevant to search users.

Not to mention, they take up more space on the search engine results page, which means they are harder to avoid. Extensions can also make your ad appear more professional, which helps to dispel the negative connotations of ad content. For example, you can use Google Ads promotion extensions to show your ad with discount codes during some seasonal occasion, this will have a good connection with customers who are looking for discounts.

In short, ad extensions improve performance and increase key metrics because they create overall better messages with more content.

Examples Of Manual Extensions Versus Automatic Extensions

As mentioned earlier, there are two main types of extensions: manual and automatic. You may be wondering, how are manual extensions different from automatic extensions and which should I use in my Google Ads campaigns?

The answer is likely both, but it will vary depending on your business and marketing goals.

Manual extensions require some input from you to create. If you want to add a location to your ads, or a phone number that can be called or messaged, then you need to manually enter this information.

These are handy tools that most brick-and-mortar businesses will want to add to their PPC messages.

Another example of a manual extension is featured in the screenshot above. The sitelinks that are listed alongside the ad content have to be manually entered. You need at least 2 sitelinks extensions for the sitelinks to appear in the ad.

Automatic extensions, on the other hand, don’t require any information to be inputted. Once you enable an automatic extension, the Google Ads platform will generate these extensions using the content found on your website and other sources.

Some examples of automatic extensions are:

• Dynamic sitelinks: these work similar to the sitelink extensions mentioned above, but they are created automatically by Google.
• Dynamic structured snippets: Google pulls information or highlights a product feature based on the content listed on your website.
• Seller ratings: Using reputable review sources, Google compiles product rating data to enhance product ads.
• Previous visit data: Accessing a search user’s browsing data, Google can determine if a search user has visited your site before and remind them of these previous visits.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Manual And Automatic Extensions

To really understand how manual extensions are different from automatic extensions, you need to compare and contrast the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Benefits of manual extensions:

• Add key information to your ads that many customers will want, like a phone number, address or website links
• Ideal for businesses with a physical location or affiliated stores
• Can be used right away, even on a brand new Google Ads accounts
• Creates additional ways for conversion to happen (in-person visits, phone calls, messages, etc.)

Drawbacks of manual extensions:

• You have to go into your Google Ads account and create these extensions yourself
• Makes conversion tracking difficult, especially for in-store visits generated through your ads
• Not all businesses will find some of the manual ad extensions relevant

Benefits of automatic extensions:

• No user effort or time required, just enable and let Google do the rest
• Google uses sophisticated algorithms to create ad content based on what a user searches, which can vastly improve ad relevance

Drawbacks of automatic extensions:

• No control over what information or content Google is pulling from your website to create the ad extensions
• Automatic extensions require that you have completed some conversions through manual efforts
• Because automatic extensions pull from your website content, you need to ensure that all of your webpages are rich in ad-worthy content

If you want full control over the content being placed in your ads, then it is best to stick with manual extensions and input all of the information about your business yourself.

That said, if you don’t have a lot of time or marketing wisdom to select the right content to enhance your ads with, then it is best to let Google generate dynamic content through automatic extensions. You can learn more on what’s one of the main benefits of using ad extensions.