Is Click to Text Coming to AdWords?

Remember the days when you had to look up a company’s phone number in the phone book, and then manually dial their phone number on a landline? And then with the invention of smartphones, you could simply search a company and their phone number would show up as a link for you to automatically dial? This new feature certainly upped the ante in advertising, making it even easier for consumers to connect with businesses.

But today, it’s all about texting. There is a huge group of people out there who hate talking on the phone (hello, Millennials), and unless you are one of the brands out there that is active on social media, chances are, you are losing their business, until now. AdWords is currently testing a click to text option for their PPC ads.

What is Click to Text?

As Search Engine Land reports, click to text is a new feature on AdWords that will let users text you straight from the mobile search results. When they perform a query and your AdWords ad wins the bid, the user will see your text ad how it is today, except with one small change: a clickable messaging icon.

How Does Click to Text Work?

The click to text ad extension in AdWords is very similar to the click to call button you can put on your ads now, but instead of pulling up the user’s phone, it pulls up their default messaging app. Even better, it auto-populates your contact number and the text of the message (e.g. I would like to learn more about your company), so the user literally just has to push send. Of course, they can always edit it if they would like, but it’s a great starting point.

What Else Do You Know?

In usual Google fashion, the details we know about click to text ads are pretty sparse. We know it is in testing status at the moment, but we don’t know when it will be released to the masses. However, we can safely say there are a few things you can do now to prepare for its arrival:

• Continue building up your organic SEO efforts. They work hand-in-hand with a successful AdWords campaign.
• Plan out the logistics of how your company will handle the text messages it receives. Will one person be in charge of responding? If so, who?
• While you are waiting for click to text, build up your social media presence to give your audience a quick way to send you a message.

As you know, the world of content marketing is always changing, and at Zero Gravity Marketing, we make it our mission to always discover news as it is breaking. As soon as we know any more information about click to text, we will let you know. In the meantime, contact Zero Gravity Marketing today to discover other ways to make staying connected with your clients easier than ever.