Amongst a holiday season of innovation and addition in the PPC world, Bing Ads recently announced the reincarnation of image extensions in search ads. Although previously introduced and eventually discontinued within AdWords, Bing Ads will now offer advertisers the ability to increase clicks and grab attention via complimentary images.
Image Ad Extensions within Bing enables advertisers to display up to six images alongside ad copy and any other ad extension. They are now available across all markets and will serve both PC and tablet platforms. Image extensions will not be shown via mobile at this point.
Within the announcement Bing supplied a variety of potential blueprints for how image ad extensions can appear. The first edition, which appears above, places a single image to the left of the ad copy. Another version demonstrated below incorporates four distinct images organized similarly to enhanced sitelink extensions.
What Benefits Do Image Extensions Offer?
While the direct impact on traffic will remain debatable, there is no denying that image ad extensions offer heightened visibility while assuming a larger chunk of ad real estate. This has a strong potential to increase both brand awareness and traffic acquisition. Additionally, advertisers retain the ability to implement other extensions that provide alternate call-to-actions along with unique URLs for each image served.
Getting Started
For setup instructions, image specifications, and other useful tips refer to this help page. Advertisers planning to take advantage of this development will need creative that satisfies specific formatting requirements.
Future modifications to Bing Ads image extensions could include bulk upload capabilities, Bing Ads Editor support, and continued experimentation with multi-image layouts. Feel free to share any thoughts you have below regarding current thoughts on this update or past performance results from the AdWords predecessor.
