As you may know, Google lets you tie the +1’s of your Google+ Page to your site, your search results, and your AdWords ads. The company announced a new AdWords feature called Social Extensions, which is how you include your AdWords campaigns.
“Currently (and for campaigns that don’t have Social Extensions enabled) your AdWords ads only show +1’s from people who have +1’d that ad’s landing page,” explains Dan Friedman of Google’s Inside AdWords Crew. “This limits the likelihood that someone who sees your ad will have a friend or contact who’s recommended it. By enabling Social Extensions on your ad campaigns you’re able to leverage all the +1’s your brand has received, whether it be on a search result, on your Google+ Page, your website or on your ads, making it more likely that someone who sees your ad will have a friend or contact who has recommended it.”
“We believe that this has the potential to improve your overall ad performance,” he adds. “In fact, 71% of shoppers say that recommendations from friends and family impact their purchasing decisions. These additional recommendations may result in more conversions and deeper engagement with your business overall.”
That stat comes from a Harris Interactive poll from last year. There’s a good chance that the number is even greater now, with social penetrating search more and more.
There is also a new reporting segment for AdWords, which Google says will help advertisers better understand the impact of social annotations on their campaigns. Advertisers can now segment campaigns by ad groups, keywords or by +1 annotations.
+1 annotations will let you view metrics for impressions where the viewer had a friend or contact that +1’d your brand, impressions that included an anonymous count of people who +1’d your brand, and impressions without any social annotations. The segment works with all campaigns, regardless of whether or not you enabled Social Extensions.
You can enable Social Extensions by clicking “Ad Extensions” in your AdWords account and finding the option in the rop down menu. Choose new extension. Google will ask you to add your verified Google+ Page URL.
Google talks about how to get your Profile or Page verified here. “If we think you or your page might benefit from a badge, we’ll reach out to manually verify you,” the company says. “If you believe a profile or page is impersonating you or your business, report the profile or page and select the ‘Impersonation’ option.
If you have a verified profile or page and change your name, even by a single character, your verification status will be reset and you’ll need to be re-verified.”
If you change the Page associated with your AdWords campaign, the campaign will begin adding +1’s on your ad to the Page’s total.
Social extensions are available in all countries. Advertisers will be charged for standard clicks on text ads when users click the ad text, but not when a user +1’s the ad.
Social extensions can appear in an ad when it’s shown on Google.com as well as throughout the Google Display Network. That applies to both desktop and mobile. The feature is compatible with all AdWords targeting options.
The feature is not “yet” accessible via AdWords Editor or the AdWords API. Given that Google made a point of saying “yet,” I assume that will change in the future.