AdWords text ads will be getting a huge makeover this year with the change to two headlines plus a longer description… and the change is to make them more mobile-friendly, yet another change Google has made in their “mobile first” vision.  They are “Expanded Text Ads” and are currently in beta but will be rolling out to all advertisers later this year.

With the new changes, advertisers will get two lines for their headline, something which will significantly increase the real estate for those ads appearing at the top of the mobile search results. The two headlines of 30 characters each will replace the current 25 character headline.

Here is how it looks:

They didn’t state how this change would impact the test ads appearing in the desktop search results, and if the 2 lines of headlines would appear in a single line on desktop, since it would still be well within the new title tag lengths in the desktop search results.  But on mobile, it is definitely two lines for headlines.

Descriptions will be changing from the current two 35 character description lines to a new longer 80 character description line.  This also matches the new character lengths we have seen in the mobile results too.

This was something we knew Google had been testing, and Google revealed that advertisers using this new format were seeing 20% higher clickthroughs on the new style, a pretty significant amount.

Optimized for screen sizes of the most popular smartphones, new expanded text ads in AdWords provide more ad space so you can showcase more information about your products and services before the click. Here are the key changes:

Google didn’t reveal when they will go live, but did say that advertisers should be prepared for when this “upgrade” does go live.  But Google generally gives advertisers plenty of time to make significant changes like this, but with the increased CTR some of those beta tester advertisers are seeing, I imagine many advertisers will be eager to make the change.