Like many businesses, you may think of customer interaction as a multi-faceted entity, one capable of breaking into several parts. One part may align with your previous actions in AdWords where you’ve tried to attract potential customers to your website. Eventually, those customers could find their way to your contact page, but until they do, they simply exist as web-based patrons.
The only way they can make the jump into being real-time communicators, perhaps through text messages, is by reaching your About page. What would you say if AdWords could help bridge that gap and consolidate your marketing efforts with your desire to speak directly to customers? This is the aim of Google’s new message extensions.
What Are Message Extensions?
According to its AdWords Help page, message extensions “allow people to see your ad, click an icon, and contact you directly by text message.” They try to give customers another way of reaching your businesses. When users click on the message extensions icon in your ad, they can follow a shorter path to person-to-person contact. Potential customers can use their smartphones to seek information from a live agent or request quotes or services from an automated attendant.
Business owners like yourself can use these extensions in a number of ways. You choose how to link the text message number on your ad with a representative on the other end.
Customers may use your extension to simply gain a pre-populated list of information relevant to a specific ad. For instance, your chat bot can respond to a user’s message with a list of sale items – an action that would correspond to a quarterly sale ad you displayed to that user in the first place. Other customers may, on the other hand, reach a live representative if you’ve linked your message extension to an office number. This may be a better choice if your ad is more generalized.
In either method you choose, you can easily grow your business with these direct links to consumers. They offer you the ability to send a range of message types that build upon the rapport you try to establish with expanded ads.
Consider the Limitations
New message extensions, however, are not meant to be a cure-all. They can help you reach more customers and create personal interactions with prospective buyers, but they do have some limitations.
The largest of these limitations is that message extensions can only work with users on mobile devices that are capable of sending and receiving text messages. Similarly, your business must also be able to do the same. You should also know that a click on a message extension charges your AdWords account just as if the customer had clicked your ad to reach your website.
Such limitations, however, are small compared to the power it brings you and your text message-capable users. You can share your extensions across multiple campaigns and make it easy for a wide range of customers to contact you with ease. The setup of this new AdWords capability is simple. Be sure to reach Atria if you have any troubles.