Google AdWords Smart Annotations Test Continues To Roll Out

Google has been expanding testing for the new Smart Annotations over the past few weeks. Smart Annotations automatically pull information from an advertiser’s landing page in an additional line of text in their ads. Google hasn’t made an official announcement, but AdWords reps have been reaching out to notify their clients of the roll-out. Nilaye […]

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Google has been expanding testing for the new Smart Annotations over the past few weeks. Smart Annotations automatically pull information from an advertiser’s landing page in an additional line of text in their ads.

AdWords Smart Annotations laptop featuresGoogle hasn’t made an official announcement, but AdWords reps have been reaching out to notify their clients of the roll-out. Nilaye Tharkar, head of search at Performics Canada, received a heads up at the end of January about Smart Annotations testing. Here’s an excerpt from that email:

While this added line is not clickable, we saw an average CTR improvement of 9% in our pilot.

The added line comes from data we find on the landing page; it comes from navigation categories that typically are on the left side of your page (but could be elsewhere, like along the top). We look for relevancy and then typically take them in order off the landing page; respecting any trademark claims we have on file.

We expect to make basic reporting available roughly 1 month after launching (earlier data would not be statistically significant), and as always there is an opt out procedure

In the screenshot above, the smart annotation is pulling the list of “Laptop Features” itemized about halfway way down the left navigation on that Best Buy landing page. Often, the annotation will include a list of brands, also pulled from the left nav, as in the example below forwarded by Tharkar.

smart annotations google adwords testingHowever, in an example I found today, the smart annotation is pulling from footer content, and the user value is questionable. The colon after “Brands” in the annotation makes the listing particularly confusing.Google AdWords Smart Annotations pullinag from FooterHere’s the footer information getting pulled into this smart annotation.

Smart Annotations pulling from landing page footerThis format is still in a limited test phase, so we may see funky displays like this example to get ironed out.

Again, these extra lines of copy are getting pulled in automatically, so there is no action to take on the advertiser’s end except to opt-out if desired.


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About the author

Ginny Marvin
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Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, MarTech and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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