Google Ads Assets (Formerly Extensions)

Recently, Google Ads announced that ad extensions and assets are going to be merged together in one and just called Assets. So your site link extensions are now going to be known as Sitelink assets, your call extensions are now going to be known as call assets, and so on and so on.

In the past, you would create ad extensions, typically after the campaign creation process. Well, with this new workflow, Google is encouraging that your Assets sets are going to be created while you’re making your search and Performance Max campaigns.

So we’re going to show you within Google Ads how this process has changed, and then we’ll look how the combination report has changed because we’re now using assets instead of extensions. At the time of the recording of this video, the update of extensions moving into Assets is slowly rolling out.

And currently, right now the demo account we usually use does not have Assets. So because of that, I have to use an actual client account, and that’s why we’re going to see a lot of things blurt out. So I apologize right off the bat, but currently, I’m in the campaign view within this Google Ads account. If we head down to Ads and Assets, we can clearly see it doesn’t mention extensions anymore, so we can head on to Assets.

And already, the view for the Assets section is different than what we used to see with extensions. Up above, there’s a pretty straightforward, easy-to-use menu where you can select which assets you have set up within the account. This particular account is legion only, so they will never set up price extensions, and that’s why you don’t see it as an option.

So here we’re just looking at the ones that we have created within the account. If you go up to campaign type, you can start reviewing the assets for whichever campaign groupings you’re using. Search will give you the most options.

If you go down to display, the number of assets available for this campaign type is different. We do have lead form associated with them. Call extensions may be applicable, as well as some local ones. If that is your type of campaign, lead forms are available. I know call extensions could be available going back up, choosing video this time.

If you are running video action campaigns, which we have a video for right here, you are allowed to add lead forms, site link extensions, as well as related video extensions to your campaign. And then the big one that is going to be Performance Max, pretty much the exact same extensions we have set up from the search level.

Remember I said in the intro that the ability to create these assets when you’re making the campaign is only available for Search and Performance Max. And right after this section, I’m going to run through a search campaign creation just to see where assets now fall in place in terms of that process.

But if we close out of the campaign-type menu, you see there’s another drop-down menu for Table View. The default option is associations. This is going to be the level where you have your assets set up. The first one at the top will be your account-level extensions. If you have them set up at the account level, and hopefully you do, it’s just a big safety net to cover you.

This view will put the asset formally extension within the first column, and then the type of asset will be in the second column. If we go down a little bit more and I’m not going to keep scrolling down just because I don’t want to have to blur everything out. This option right here is at the campaign level, and then it’ll keep getting deeper. You can still set up assets at the ad group level.

Now if I head back up to Table View and this time I switch it up to an asset view, you can see in the asset type column that this is where you can review the headlines and descriptions in my menu selection that I have closed out.

Right now, I am choosing all campaigns, but you can go into deeper levels at the campaign or at the group level to get better performance ratings at a deeper level and then you can always go back up and review the asset associations within those campaigns or ad groups. There are particular filters that you can use when reviewing these columns.

Of course, we have the main ones up here, like if I only want to look at my call-out assets, but I’m in something a little bit deeper. I’m looking at these specific filters. So one in particular that I already have established within this account is filtering your asset status by any asset except the ones that were already removed.

Probably don’t care about the old ones. But if we go and add another filter, you can also review by specific asset text. So I know we use the word partner in a lot of our ad copy and assets. So if I choose a partner as a value, go down, and click Apply, then it’s showing me the associations just for my search campaigns and any asset that has the word partner in it.

It could be something good to review if it’s a branding issue and you want to see if the wording that you’re using is actually making a difference. But if I remove this filter, I’m going to close out the filter menu I do want to call out.

When you’re reviewing your assets and your associations, you can click on the columns button, modify your columns and start adding in whichever column metrics are important to you, anything in terms of attribution. There are your typical conversions columns. There are your typical performance columns.

I’m not going to go over all of these because it really is depending what the goals are of your account and what metrics are important for you to review. And you can also go up and segment this information by a variety of different options time, device, click type, conversion action, and more.

So now that we know where to look and review your current assets, let’s see how Google is starting to roll in the asset setup process. When you’re building a new campaign, one thing that is a newer feature is that depending on what objective you select, again, it has to be for a search or performance max campaign.

Google is going to start recommending certain assets to add for whichever objective you select. I’m going to show you what I mean, and because of that, I am choosing the leads campaign objective. I’m going to head down, click Continue, and for this example, I’m going to stick with a search campaign type.

Just want to move on for now. For the sake of this video, I skipped a few steps. That’s why Google’s mad at me. They want me to enter in more information. But I jumped ahead in the campaign creation process to get down to the ad group and ad creation level. So you have all your campaign settings creating your ad group.

You have your keywords. Here we see as we start building the responsive search ad that we can now include these assets when we’re building the ad. So as I just said, when we’re choosing our specific campaign objective, in my case, I chose leads as the objective.

Google is recommending that we add a lead form asset to this specific ad. And it does make sense, if you’re curious, on how you can attach lead forms to specific campaigns. We created another video previously that talks about how you can do so.

So it’s easy enough to click on whichever blue link is available. And since we already have a lead form created, I can add the lead form asset to my ad or create a new one if I need to. For this particular campaign, click Apply, and there we see in the ad preview the lead form asset has been attached.

One thing that’s important to keep in mind is that we are going through a new campaign process. So while we’re attaching specific assets to this ad, these assets will be added at the campaign level. You can always go back to the assets section where we started off this video and add or edit your assets at the account or ad group level if you do need to get more specific.

But I repeat, when you’re associating these assets when creating a campaign, they are added at the campaign level. So you would just go in, finish creating your responsive search ad, and if you’re looking for ideas of what types of RSAs to test, check out Michelle’s video right here. This video will give you some great suggestions on ideas to test.

But here we see down below are the other assets that we can include for this particular ad. There are images which are already forced to be done by at least the campaign level. They’re also recommending site links for this campaign. But if you have other ones specifically that you want to set up at a campaign level, we see the more asset types in here. I can just go right down the line.

It’s pretty common to have an asset, like a call asset, be set up at the account level. The phone number is the same. Maybe you’re not using any sort of call recording. You most likely just need one at the account level, and that’s fine.

So then you can just skip whichever ones you don’t need to add at a deeper level. And if you see in the structured Snippets asset and the call-out assets, they’re letting me know there are already associations set up at the account level.

So I don’t have to add anything if I don’t have the assets that make sense for a deeper-level campaign association. And yes, we know Google. That’s why I’m creating the video. So let me close this out.

While the ad type is going to be different, this setup process will be the same when you are building the ads for your Performance Max campaign. Let me hop over to another tab so we can just see it. In this case, I still chose leads as my campaign objective, and right off the bat, they’re hitting me with all of the assets that I should be adding to this Performance Max campaign.

In addition to the additional images and videos, we can add for this particular campaign type. And notice how they have all of these above the main headlines and descriptions that you would need to create for this ad type. So pretty similar, just in a different location for the Performance Max campaign, site links at the bottom.

And once again, we can look at adding more asset types, not too different. Before I wrap it up, I do want to talk about one other way that we can get more information about your assets to give you a little bit more information when you’re looking to optimize your asset performance.

Another update that is rolling out is going to be an update to your Combinations report for your responsive search ads. You can see we’re already in the ads section, had to blur a lot of things out, but underneath each responsive search ad, there’s a link to view assets details. If you click on that, you will be first sent to the Assets tab for your responsive search ad.

But if you head on over to Combinations, you will get to review how your ads may have looked in previous searches. Now I haven’t seen this yet in any of my accounts, but let me show you what Google said it’s going to look like. Here’s the link where you can find the description about this updated report within this link Google does say this is rolling out within the next few months.

So just like me, you may not see this report within your accounts yet, but besides just your headlines and descriptions for the combinations report, we’re now going to get to look at any previous assets that have showed up alongside the headlines and descriptions.

So in the example on the page right now, we can see site links, we see image assets, callouts, and everything else will be included to give you a more holistic view on how your ads look. Besides just the main text portions, this rebrand or upgrade has made the ability to create campaign-level extensions or assets a lot easier.

We can always go back into the main assets section and create new assets at the account campaign or ad group levels, just like we always could. And now we’re getting better combination reporting, which is something I would never complain about. I typically try to create campaign-level assets no matter what, so to have it be part of the campaign creation process where I don’t have to go back into the campaign later on and set up these assets is a welcoming change.

Again, this is a slow rollout. We’re seeing it in some accounts. Other accounts are still showing us extensions. So if you’re looking on when you’re going to have this added into your account, could be a couple of weeks, could be a couple of months. Can’t give you a concrete answer there. But if you do have any other questions on how the new Google Ads assets process is going to work, please let us know in the comments below.

Written by Joe Martinez