Official: Google to roll out Expanded Text Ads for all devices

Perhaps the final vestige of pre-mobile AdWords, 25-35-35 character text ads will soon sunset.

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As we reported earlier this month, Google has been testing longer text ads in search results across devices. On Tuesday, the company announced Expanded Text Ads will be available to advertisers later this year.

With the removal of right-side ads, Google now has the flexibility to give text ads more characters in a way that will look uniform across devices. Expanded text ads will be eligible to run across all devices and will be optimized for smartphones.

“These upgrades help your ads work harder across screens, especially for the on-the-go mobile consumer that wants to know exactly what you offer before tapping into your website,” said Google’s Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, in a blog post announcing this and other news from Google Performance Summit on Tuesday.

More characters

The new ad format will have two longer headlines of up to 30 characters each and a longer description line of up to 80 characters.

The display URL can include up to two directory paths that advertisers can use to describe the landing page content. The paths do not have to match the landing page URL.

Here’s the rundown of what’s changing:

adwords expanded text ads changes

Begin planning now

This deviation from the 25-35-35 character format that has perhaps been the only constant throughout AdWords’ 15-year history will be a big change for advertisers.

“We encourage you to start planning for this upgrade before it rolls out later this year,” said Ramaswamy in the blog post.


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About the author

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
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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