• Search Engine Land
  • Sections
    • SEO
    • SEM
    • Local
    • Retail
    • Google
    • Bing
    • Social
    • Resources
    • More
    • Home
  • Search Engine Land
  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social
  • Resources
  • Live
  • More
  • Events
  • SUBSCRIBE

Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land
  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social
  • Resources
  • More
  • Newsletters
  • Home
SEM

Google Ad Rank Study: How The New Formula Is Impacting AdWords Performance

In October, Google changed its Ad Rank formula which determines the position order of AdWords paid search ads. The revised formula now factors in the expected impact of ad extensions and ad formats, in addition to the bid and quality score. The Search Agency has released its latest findings on the impact of this significant […]

Ginny Marvin on December 5, 2013 at 12:28 pm
  • More

google-adwords-square-logoIn October, Google changed its Ad Rank formula which determines the position order of AdWords paid search ads. The revised formula now factors in the expected impact of ad extensions and ad formats, in addition to the bid and quality score. The Search Agency has released its latest findings on the impact of this significant change.

The Search Agency looked at roughly 3,500 campaigns across a large client set and isolated preexisting ads that included one of the following ad extensions: location extensions, call extensions, review extensions, offer extensions, app extensions, or sitelinks, to compare them with the overall ad performance of those advertisers.

The team looked at the performance of the two data sets for the two weeks before Google implemented the Ad Rank change and two weeks after the implementation

“Points to ads with extensions possibly being served more often.”

What The Search Agency found is that, on the whole, impressions and clicks for ads with extensions improved significantly after the Ad Rank change: up 6 percent and 5 percent respectively. Overall, when looking at the performance of all the ads, impressions actually fell 6 percent and clicks were off slightly by 1 percent.

While the click-through rate (CTR) for ads with ad extensions fell 1 percent after the Ad Rank changes went into effect, the CTR remained much higher for ads with extensions. Overall the CTR for ads with extensions was 4.07 percent, compared to 1.82 percent for the control group of all ads.

“It’s important to note that our study is not drawing a causation between revisions in Google’s AdRank formula and changes in click-through rate. The decrease in CTR across periods was relatively small—only about 1%. What we found more significant was the large jump in impressions and clicks, which points to ads with extensions possibly being served more often,” said Matt Grebow, director, search media at The Search Agency.Google AdWords Ad Rank ImpactAds with location extensions, in particular, saw dramatic improvements after the Ad Rank changes went into effect. Impressions for ads with location extensions rose 50 percent, clicks jumped 95 percent, CTR rose 40 percent and the CPC fell by 32 percent at the end of the post-change period.

“Overall, ads that include ad extensions garner a significantly higher CTR than ads without. That said, advertisers need to consider which types of extensions make sense for their brand. We always encourage our clients to test, but we also advise them only to opt into search products that are compatible with their marketing objectives,” says Grebow.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.



About The Author

Ginny Marvin
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 writes about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land 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.

Related Topics

Channel: SEMGoogleGoogle AdsSearch AdsSearch Ads: General

We're listening.

Have something to say about this article? Share it with us on Facebook, Twitter or our LinkedIn Group.

Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.
See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

Lorem ipsum doler this is promo text about SMX events.

April 13, 2021: SMX Create

May 18-19, 2021: SMX London

June 8-9, 2021: SMX Paris

June 15-16, 2021: SMX Advanced

June 21-22, 2021: SMX Advanced Europe

August 17, 2021: SMX Convert

November 9-10, 2021: SMX Next

December 14, 2021: SMX Code

Available On-Demand: SMX

Available On-Demand: SMX Report

×


Learn More About Our SMX Events

Discover actionable tactics that can help you overcome crucial marketing challenges. Our next conference will be held:

MarTech 2021: March 16-17

MarTech 2021: Sept. 14-15

MarTech 2020: Watch On-Demand

×

Attend MarTech - Click Here


Learn More About Our MarTech Events

White Papers

  • State of Email Marketing 2021 Report
  • Three Pillars of CRM Data Management
  • What Customer Experience Means in 2021
  • The 7 Phases of a Website Redesign
  • Rearchitecting Revenue: Accelerating Demand Through Data
See More Whitepapers

Webinars

  • Crawl Your Way Towards Better Search Results With Dynamic Rendering
  • The AI Revolution Is Coming to Every Stage of Your Buyer’s Journey
  • The Fundamentals of Link Building for E-Commerce & Affiliate Sites in 2021
See More Webinars

Research Reports

  • Local Marketing Solutions for Multi-Location Businesses
  • Enterprise Digital Asset Management Platforms
  • Identity Resolution Platforms
  • Customer Data Platforms
  • B2B Marketing Automation Platforms
  • Call Analytics Platforms
See More Research

Attend SMX For Only $99

h
Receive daily search news and analysis.

Channels

  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social

Our Events

  • SMX
  • MarTech

Resources

  • White Papers
  • Research
  • Webinars

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS
  • Youtube

© 2021 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Your privacy means the world to us. We share your personal information only when you give us explicit permission to do so, and confirm we have your permission each time. Learn more by viewing our privacy policy.Ok