All online ads are essentially clickable messages that connect customers with a website. Text ads, the simplest version of a clickable message, contain three components: a headline, display URL, and a description. Let’s look at the components of the sample ad below:
Headline
The first line of your ad is the one that customers are most likely to notice. If you really want your headline to stand out, consider including keywords. People are more likely to notice headlines that match what they’re searching for. In this sample ad, the keyword “advertise” should get the attention of people who are searching for ways to advertise online. AdWords can show up to 25 characters in your headline.
Display URL
Appearing in green, this line of your ad shows the address of the website that you’re promoting. AdWords lets you choose a brief but meaningful display URL to give people who see your ad a clear idea of where it’ll take them when they click on the link. Behind the scenes, you can also assign your text ads a different destination URL, which takes the person who clicks your ad to a precise location on the same website that’s relevant to the ad itself. People can only see the display URL in your ad and not the destination URL.
Long display URLs
AdWords can show up to 35 characters of your display URL due to limited space. For languages that use double-width characters, like Chinese (simplified or traditional), Japanese, or Korean, they can show up to 17 characters of your display URL. If your display URL is longer than the maximum character length, they’ll shorten your display URL when they show your ad.
Display URLs enhanced with website links
You might see that the Display URL of your text ad includes a set of links that show the locations of pages on your website. AdWords calls these links breadcrumbs – inspired by the trail of breadcrumbs Hansel left through the woods to find his way back home in the Grimm’s fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel.” These breadcrumb links help customers easily navigate to relevant sections of your website.
For some advertisers, AdWords will automatically add breadcrumbs to ads that appear at the top or bottom of Google search results, helping to make your ads more relevant to customers. Customers can click an individual breadcrumb link to quickly navigate to the page or section of your website that they find relevant.
Example
Let’s say a customer wants to buy a pair of sandals and she searches for “womens sandals”. AdWords might show her the following ad enhanced with breadcrumbs:
Deciding that she might want to see more than just sandals, she clicks the “Womens Shoes” breadcrumb link. She looks at the boots and sandals that you sell — and finds shoes that she loves! — so she decides to buy a pair of brown leather boots and hot pink sandals from your website.
Since AdWords use the breadcrumb annotations from the landing page of your ad to create the breadcrumb links, you’re in control of which breadcrumbs are shown with your ad or whether breadcrumbs are shown at all.