Four Short Phrases Under an AdWords Ad

The line under the ad

Callout extensions are short phrases, up to 25 characters each, that AdWords can show in a line beneath a text ad. Free estimates. Licensed and insured. Open Saturdays.

They cost nothing to add. The ad is still paid for by the click, and a callout cannot be clicked; it simply gives the searcher more to read before choosing.

Google shows up to four at a time, decides which ones, and sometimes shows none. It also weighs the expected effect of extensions when deciding where an ad appears.

Plenty of accounts have them. Far fewer have callouts that tell a searcher anything the headline had not already said.

What usually fills the space

• The headline again, reworded slightly, as if the searcher missed it.
• Praise anyone could write, such as great service or best prices.
• Instructions, such as call today or book now.
• An offer that ended in the spring and was never removed.
• Something every competitor says, such as friendly staff.
• A fact true for one service but shown beside all of them.

The second is the most tempting, and it wastes the space twice over. A searcher cannot check a claim of great service, and the other ads on the page make the same one.

What a customer checks before calling

Think about the questions people ask in the first minute of a call. Those are the facts they wanted before deciding whether to call at all.

For a roofer it may be licensed and insured, a written warranty and free estimates. For a dental office, new patients welcome, evening hours and direct billing.

Ask whoever answers the phone which questions come up again and again. The list usually runs past four items, which is the point: choose the four that most often decide whether a call happens.

Facts, not adjectives

A good callout is something a searcher could check, and that would be awkward to claim if it were untrue. Open until 9 pm. Two-year warranty. Same-day delivery in town.

Numbers help, written as digits so they fit. So does naming the thing rather than describing it: pickup and delivery says more than convenient service.

A worked example

An alpine guiding company runs climbing courses and guided ascents from a mountain town between late spring and early autumn, with four guides and a small office above an outdoor shop.

Its ad for the introductory course carried four callouts: guided climbs, book your climb today, amazing mountain views and the best guides around. The headline already said guided climbs.

The phone told a different story. Nearly every first call asked whether the guides were certified, how many people each guide took, whether boots and crampons were included, and whether a beginner could come.

Those became the callouts: certified mountain guides, two climbers per guide, free boots and crampons, and no experience needed. Each fits within the limit.

The last was true only for the introductory course, so it went on that ad group alone rather than the whole campaign, where it would also have appeared beside the advanced glacier trips.

Callers still phoned. They simply started by asking which weekend had space, because the ad had already answered the rest.

Twenty-five characters

The limit is strict, and it shapes the writing. Leave out full stops, use digits, and drop words such as we and our.

Keep one style throughout, either every word capitalised or only the first, so the line reads as a single list rather than four fragments.

Avoid repeating anything already in the ad's two description lines. The same fact twice, a few words apart, reads like padding.

Where each callout is attached

Callouts can be added to a whole campaign or to a single ad group, and the ad group's own callouts take over when both exist.

That matters whenever services differ. A plumbing company may answer emergencies around the clock but book renovations only on weekdays; open 24 hours belongs with the emergency ads, not the bathroom ones.

Seasonal callouts can be given start and end dates, so a spring offer stops appearing on its own instead of waiting for someone to remember it.

Claims you have to keep true

A callout is part of the advertisement, and the Competition Act applies to it as much as to the headline. A claim that held when it was written can turn misleading without anyone changing a word.

Insurance lapses and is renewed late. A licence category changes. Free estimates become a travel charge for jobs out of town. A warranty is shortened for new customers.

Searchers cannot tell when a callout was written. They assume it is true today, and so will anyone who later complains about it.

Removing the ones that expired

Nobody in the business sees the callouts in daily work, which is why they so often outlive the facts behind them.

Put a review in the calendar each season, and another whenever something changes: a price, an hour, a service area, a staff qualification, an insurance renewal.

When a fact stops being true, remove its callout that day. The replacement can wait until there is a good one; an empty slot costs nothing.

Reading the extension report

The Ad extensions tab shows how often each callout appeared and the clicks on ads while it was showing. A callout with almost no impressions is usually losing out to others Google prefers.

Do not read much into small differences. The figures show which phrases appeared alongside clicks, not which phrase caused them.

The counter-case

Callouts matter less for ads that rarely reach the positions above the results, where extensions appear most often, and for accounts so small that a handful of clicks a week decides everything.

A business whose headline already leads with its strongest fact gains less from repeating it underneath.

No set of callouts will rescue keywords that bring the wrong people, or a landing page that does not answer the search.

Within those limits the advice stands: four checkable facts, attached where they are true and removed the day they stop being true.

Four facts, kept true

1. List the questions callers ask first.
2. Pick the four that decide whether people call.
3. Write each as a fact under 25 characters.
4. Attach each one only where it is true.
5. Delete headline repeats and adjectives.
6. Set end dates on seasonal offers.
7. Review them whenever a price, licence or service changes.

Step four is the one most accounts skip. A callout attached to the whole campaign appears beside every ad in it, including the services it does not describe.

Knowing which searches those ads actually appear for is covered in exact match that is no longer exact.

Frequently asked questions

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