During the Google Marketing Livestream last month Google announced that image extensions are now out of beta and available globally. This means that advertisers can now include images with their search ads to help stand out from the competition.
What does this mean for Homebuilder Marketing?
Image extensions for paid search ads give homebuilders an additional opportunity to showcase their work via model home photography right along with their traditional text ad copy.
Image extensions help to make your text ads stand out from competitor ads as well as take up valuable SERP (Search Engine Results Page) real estate, meaning your ad is more likely to get clicked on.
Taking advantage of available extensions in Google Ads increases your chances of improving your overall ad click-through rate, which means more potential home buyers visiting your website.
ONeil Interactive builder clients who have had the opportunity to take advantage of location extensions as they hit their Google Ads accounts have experienced an average click-through rate of 19.3% on their text ads that had an image extension included with them.
To put that in perspective, in the first quarter of 2021 our clients had an average click-through rate of 7.6% on their search ads, so text ads that included an image extension had an increased click-through rate of over 150%!
Google’s Ad extensions are always beneficial to take advantage of but builders should definitely be jumping on this opportunity to be able to showcase their beautiful model homes in a space that traditionally wasn’t that exciting to look at (ie all text). Additionally, you may also notice that Google is including images with certain organic listings as well, so making sure that your business stands out on the search results page is paramount now. And an increase in ad click-through rate and interested homebuyers to your website is always worthwhile!
If you haven’t had image extensions roll out to your Google Ads account yet, sit tight, because they are slowly rolling out globally, so it’s only a matter of time and the wait will be well worth it.
