Ad Extensions
Ad extensions are the extra bits Google (and other platforms) bolt onto a paid search ad - sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, prices, locations, phone numbers - turning a three-line text ad into something that takes up half the screen.
They’re the closest thing to free real estate in paid search. Most are no extra cost, they make your ad physically larger, and Google rewards using them with better placement. Skipping them is leaving money on the table.
The extensions worth setting up first
Six pull most of the weight:
Sitelinks. Up to six additional links under the main ad - pointing to specific pages like Pricing, Demo, Case Studies, About. The single highest-impact extension. People click them. Set up four real ones, not “Home, About, Contact, Blog.”
Callouts. Short non-clickable phrases - “24/7 support,” “Free shipping,” “No setup fee.” They don’t link anywhere; they just exist to make the ad more persuasive at a glance. Write them as benefits, not adjectives.
Structured snippets. A header (like “Services” or “Models”) followed by a short list. Lets you show breadth without wasting ad copy characters on it.
Call extensions. Adds a phone number - on mobile it’s tap-to-call. Non-negotiable for local services and any business where a phone call is the actual conversion event.
Location extensions. Pulls in your Google Business Profile address. Critical if you have a physical location - and surprisingly underused even by businesses that should have it on by default.
Price extensions. Surfaces specific products or service tiers with prices. Pre-qualifies clicks so you stop paying for tyre-kickers who would have bounced when they saw the price on the landing page anyway.
Why most accounts under-use them
Setting up extensions is a 20-minute job per campaign and it sits buried four menus deep in Google Ads. Nobody schedules “extension day.” So the average account I audit has two extensions live where they could have eight, and the ones that are live were written in five minutes by someone now at a different company.
The fix isn’t more extensions. It’s better ones - written specifically for the buyer, refreshed every quarter, and matched to where the click actually goes.
An example
A regional accounting firm runs Google Ads for “small business accountant + city” terms. Their original setup: ad copy plus one generic sitelink (“Our Services”). CTR sat at 3.2%, average position 3.4.
The new extensions stack: four sitelinks (“Tax Returns from $295,” “Bookkeeping Plans,” “Free 30-min Consult,” “Switch From Your Current Accountant - We Handle It”), three callouts (“ICAEW Qualified,” “Same-Day Email Replies,” “No Long Contracts”), price extension showing the four most common service tiers, location extension pulling their Manchester office, call extension to the main line.
Four weeks later: CTR up to 5.8%, average position improved to 2.1, cost per conversion down 31%. Same budget, same ad copy, same landing page. The extensions did the lift by making the ad twice the size and answering three buyer questions before the click.
What kills extension performance
Two things. Generic copy that could be any business in the category - “Quality service, friendly team, free quote” reads as filler and Google’s algorithm seems to treat it that way. And mismatch between the extension and the page it lands on. If your sitelink says “See Pricing” and the page is a generic services overview, you’ve broken the promise. Either fix the link or fix the page.
Related terms
- Google Ads - the platform most ad-extension thinking is built around
- Ad Copy - the main message extensions support and amplify
- Click-Through Rate (CTR) - the headline metric extensions are designed to lift
- Quality Score - the Google Ads metric that improves when extensions are well-used
- Sitelink - the highest-impact extension, worth its own deep dive