Account-level automated assets (as in automated ‘ad extensions’: a clearer name before Google changed it 🙄…) have long been one of Google’s more dubious offerings.
When I say ‘long’… it was the previous decade when I got this email from a client:
Last week, Chris Brewer posted on LinkedIn that he had spotted automated sitelinks that actually linked to a competitor’s website.
If that is really the explanation for what he saw, it’s quite astonishing.
Undetected, this would lead to the advertiser paying for clicks to their competitors (at least until Google policed their own madness with their ‘same domain’ policy).
So with automatic extensions clearly still a risk, let’s run through what exactly they do, how to turn them off (it’s a well-hidden option) and which ones, if any, are worth retaining.
First, a reminder of how to turn them off. (In short, it’s a bit like trying to sneak into a bank vault.)
• From the assets screen, find this three-dot menu and click Account-level automated assets
On the following screen, find another three-dot menu and click on Advanced Settings.
And while turning them all off is a safe option, let’s look a little more closely at each one, and what it has to offer:
Dynamic site links, call-outs, and structured snippets ❌
The vast majority of the time, these are actually sensible and effective enough as add-ons to enhance an account that doesn’t have manually-created ad extensions.
The two big caveats:
Extensions are a relatively fundamental part of a setup, so an account really should have its own manually-created ones, which are likely to be better than the automated offerings.
The other one, although it’s fairly rare, is that the extensions can go off-piste and do more harm than good, as in both of the examples above.
My best advice here is to turn them off and create your own. But if for whatever reason it’s a choice between having them turned on and having no extensions, then (and only then) I’d allow them.
Seller Ratings ✅
This is perhaps the only one that I’d call an unadulterated good.
Seller ratings (the visual ‘star’ rating out of five) require 100+ unique reviews from selected, trusted review sites before they automatically show up on your ads, provided this setting is on.
We know how powerful social proof can be – so would you ever not want this to appear?
The minimum required rating is 3.5 stars. That’s probably good enough to do more reassurance than damage – but if you disagree with that, and the rating is on the lower side of the range, then that may be the only good case for turning this one off.
Longer Ad Headlines ❌
These give Google licence to rearrange your text lines ‘by promoting part of the description lines to the headline and adding the visible URL to the headline when possible’
I have no strong view or data about the overall impact of that, but from the point of view of control over your ads and messaging – and the ability to analyse it clearly – on balance I’d recommend ‘off’.
Interestingly, as far as I can find, Google no longer offers an official description of ‘longer ad headlines’.
Google’s documentation with definitions of all of the other auto-assets on the list – is here.
Whether that means the definition is changing, or the function (or the ability to opt out of it) is set to be removed, who knows?
Automated Apps ✅
Applicable only to App campaigns, this one “lets people either download or open your app, then be automatically linked to what they were searching for.”
So it’s a specialised one – but mostly harmless.
Automated locations ⚖️
These can append information from imported locations to your ads “such as your address, directions to your location or the distance to your business. People can click or tap these assets in the final ad to get further details about locations relevant to your business”
Note: these will use locations added from your My Business account if available, but if not then “Google Ads may automatically match your business to known locations (based on various account properties such as landing pages) and add the information to your account to create these assets.”
If you are advertising a multi-location business – and interested in promoting the bricks and mortar side of it with Google Ads – this should be a net positive.
Dynamic images ⚖️
This allows Google to scan your landing pages for material that it can use at will, as image assets.
Treat this on a case-by-case basis.Image assets themselves are a clear positive – at least in terms of CTR. As with most of these automated assets, we can theoretically ‘do it better ourselves’ – but doing so with tailored image assets across a large account may be an unrealistic task.
The biggest danger, of course, is Google picking out images that you or your client might not wish to present in an advertising context. That can and does happen, and where that risk exists, simply turn this off.
Dynamic Business Name and Logos ❌
Take a few minutes to check these settings across your accounts, and make sure (to the extent possible) that you’re in control of how your ads appear.
If you aren’t, Google is, and that is… not without risk.
