The rollout of expanded text ads represented the biggest change to core Google search ad unit since the product came to market in 2000. Naturally our paid search teams were excited to test the new format.
Initial results looked really good. We aggregated and analysed data across eight AdWords accounts, operating in multiple markets. We only considered data from ad groups running both standard and expanded text ads simultaneously for as accurate a comparison as possible. Our data totalled more than a million impressions – thus a sizable dataset from which to draw conclusions.
Top level performance looks great
| Ad unit | Clicks | Impressions | CTR | Avg. Position |
| EXP | 28732 | 382295 | 7,52% | 1,64 |
| STD | 43182 | 656060 | 6,58% | 1,42 |
| Grand Total | 71914 | 1038355 | 6,93% | 1,50 |
The expanded text ads were outperforming standard text ads by good margins in terms of CTR in particular. This seemed like a decisive result as avg. position remained fairly consistent for the two different ad units.
We were however somewhat baffled that despite the apparent improvement, our overall CTR results over time look to be static and in some cases even decreasing since the addition of expanded text ads into our accounts.
To figure out what exactly was causing the discrepancy – that despite expanded ads performing better than the legacy standard text ad – overall performance was going down, we did a deeper analysis of our ad reports.
Search network impression volume skews results
We normalized the data for various different segments, including devices, market and campaign type (generic/brand etc.) and found no distinguishing factor. We also segmented the data for Google search and search partners. This turned out to be a major factor in determining the performance discrepancies we were seeing.
Google search
| Ad unit | Clicks | Impressions | CTR | Avg. Position |
| EXP | 27628 | 329720 | 8,38% | 1,61 |
| STD | 41061 | 326192 | 12,59% | 1,47 |
| Total | 68689 | 655912 | 10,47% | 1,54 |
Search partners
| Ad unit | Clicks | Impressions | CTR | Avg. Position |
| EXP | 1104 | 52575 | 2,10% | 1,82 |
| STD | 2121 | 329868 | 0,64% | 1,36 |
| Total | 3225 | 382443 | 0,84% | 1,42 |
It became immediately apparent that on Google search expanded text ads were notably underperforming in terms of CTR. As expected results on search partners were considerably lower than on Google search overall.
It became clear that when looking at top level performance it appeared expanded ads were the better performing unit largely due to the benefit that it got from serving far fewer impressions on search partners than standard text ads.
While the number of impressions served by each unit on Google search was fairly even, standard ads suffered from serving 6 times as many ads on the poor performing search partners network. This decidedly skewed the results in favour of expanded text ads.
On comparisons for both Google search and search partners, the standard text ads did however enjoy slightly better ad rank positions. As such, we normalized for avg. position in addition to search network to be sure it wasn’t skewing our results.
Google search
| Ad unit per avg. position | CTR |
| Avg. position: 1-1,5 | |
| EXP | 10,44% |
| STD | 16,69% |
| Avg. position: 1,5-2 | |
| EXP | 6,58% |
| STD | 7,23% |
| Avg. position: 2-2,5 | |
| EXP | 4,82% |
| STD | 4,84% |
| Avg. position: 2,5-3 | |
| EXP | 4,03% |
| STD | 3,81% |
| Avg. position: >3 | |
| EXP | 3,20% |
| STD | 3,72% |
| Total | 10,47% |
Search partners
| Ad unit per avg. position | CTR |
| Avg. position: 1-1,5 | |
| EXP | 2,89% |
| STD | 0,60% |
| Avg. position: 1,5-2 | |
| EXP | 2,67% |
| STD | 0,86% |
| Avg. position: 2-2,5 | |
| EXP | 1,25% |
| STD | 0,56% |
| Avg. position: 2,5-3 | |
| EXP | 0,70% |
| STD | 0,65% |
| Avg. position: >3 | |
| EXP | 0,96% |
| STD | 1,39% |
| Total | 0,84% |
Expanded text ads are performing very well on search partners. As the vast majority of conversions on the accounts analysed however come from Google search, it’s very worrying that on the top positions, standard text ads are gaining a significantly higher
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