How Does Google Decide Which Ad Extensions to Display?

Tom Demers
Last Updated: December 4, 2022 | Paid Search Marketing
HomeBlogHow Does Google Decide Which Ad Extensions to Display?

Last week we concluded our blog series on AdWords Ad Extensions with a post on Google AdWords Call Extensions, and got an excellent question in the comments of that initial post:

Thanks for the information!  I have always received conflicting information from the Google AdWords reps regarding running multiple ad extensions at a time.  How does Google decide what to display if you have sitelink ads, product extensions, and call extensions all running on the same campaign?  It doesn’t appear that more than one extension can be displayed at one time.  Is there a disadvantage to running multiple extensions in a single campaign?

Thanks,

Ashley

This is a great question and may explain why certain campaigns that have one ad extension set up wouldn’t see another that they’ve also enabled. The AdWords help forum isn’t much … well, help on the subject, and there doesn’t seem to be any official documentation, but Kim Clinkunbroomer had a good run down of what trumps what where Ad Extensions are concerned:

Offer Ads (Desktop)

<trumps>

Video Plus box

<trumps>

Product Extensions

<trumps>

Contact Forms Extensions

<trumps>

Location Extensions

<trumps>

One line Ads Site links

<trumps>

Seller Ratings

And my Google rep confirmed that certain ad extensions do take precedence:

…some ad extensions do take priority over others; while we enable ad
extensions to help the ad, we try to make sure it doesn’t become too
intrusive.

…product extensions will negate one-line sitelinks (but
not two-line).  Most of the trumping that occurs often occurs with product
extensions.  Two-line sitelinks are enabled for higher quality scores
(which you may have noticed).

Unfortunately, there are no external guidelines on this, but it varies
largely by whether or not product extensions are there and also on device;
for obvious reasons, mobile extensions are a bit more stringent with
trumping.

So it looks like there are likely a few variables that determine which ad extension shows for your ad, but given that the prioritization is outside your control it’s likely best to enable whichever of the ad extensions both make sense for and are eligible for your account and monitor their progress.

Meet The Author

Tom Demers

Tom Demers is Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Measured SEM and Cornerstone Content.

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