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John Woods

Image extensions on Google Ads – are they relevant for B2B?

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Say hello to a new feature on the Google Ads platform: image extensions.

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It won’t surprise you to learn that an image extension enables a search ad to contain an image.

This is the latest in a long line of features from Google that allow “extensions” (or as they are now called “assets”) to be used to expand a search ad beyond the basic headline and description. But it’s the first time Google has allowed graphics in search ads. So, it creates an exciting opportunity for search marketers to expand their creativity.

Here’s an example from Google’s own documentation:

The benefits of the image are clear in this case: the ad stands out more on the page, and the picture of attractive-looking food conveys a huge amount of information in a way that the ad copy itself cannot.

It’s obvious how an image is helpful when selling a tangible product to a consumer. But are image extensions relevant for the B2B marketer?

We’ve looked at a two examples of search ads for B2B services to illustrate how B2B advertisers are currently using image extensions. (Disclaimer: neither of these examples is connected with Sharp Ahead.)

First up some CRM ads:

Mixed results here with two results showing an image extension and two without. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the other advertisers are not using image extensions – Google makes a dynamic decision whether or not to show the extension based on predicted performance. But it shows that at least some of the main advertisers are using images.

The Pipedrive image is a winner for me here. It has visual simplicity that supports the idea of a simple, user-friendly system. And it also means the image doesn’t distract too much from the rest of the ad.

I’m less of a fan of the image that Salesforce uses. It’s cute, but for me it distracts more, and communicates less, than the Pipedrive one.

This example SERP shows one of the trade-offs about image extensions – they take up space which is no longer available for text. See how the Salesforce ad in particular has been cut right down to make space for the image. In contrast, the Hubspot and Arriga ads have a lot more copy. A sophisticated searcher might find the extra copy a lot more helpful than the images when deciding which product to choose.

Now some accountancy ads:

Again, a 50:50 split of ads with and without image extensions.

The Chapman Worth image extension is great – it conveys a lot about the team and their office environment. From the image alone I get the idea that this is an approachable, modern, professional firm. The ad copy ties in with the image. Nice job.

The Strata image is, for me, an example of what NOT to do with an image extension. Showing a single individual in an uncertain context doesn’t really communicate anything of value and distracts from the rest of the ad.

These examples show that B2B advertisers are certainly starting to make use of image extensions. And we can begin to see how some are better than others.

Here are a couple of examples from our own work at Sharp Ahead to illustrate some best practices:

The Catalyst is a large, impressive modern building in the heart of Newcastle. So, we’ve chosen an image extension with an exterior shot communicates that sense of scale, quality, and prestige. Prospective users of the building can use the image to make a better judgement about whether it is suitable for their needs.

We’ve followed a different route with the Witney BIC:

Here the image conveys the high quality of the interior of the building, the light and airy nature of the office space and gives a hint of the view over green fields in the background. A prospective user of the building can use the image to get a sense of what it would be like to work from one of these offices. Importantly, this is a professional-looking image but obviously NOT a stock photo, so it conveys a sense of authenticity.

If you do decide to trial image extensions, it’s vital to choose the right images. Ask yourself these questions before choosing images for image extensions in your B2B campaign:

  • Does the image really communicate something about your product or service? If the image isn’t relevant, then it is just visual clutter that will detract from the rest of the ad.
  • Is the image of a high quality and consistent with your brand?
  • Is the image authentic and distinctive? If your image screams “just another stock photo” you won’t add value to your message.

If you are lucky, you might have suitable image assets already available. But if not you may need to commission new photography or illustration work – a big cost compared to the normal day-to-day costs of keeping text ads up to date.

So, should you be using image extensions for your B2B campaigns on Google Ads?

I think that’s currently a nuanced decision. Image extensions certainly add value for some products and services, and in some very competitive search auctions they may become essential. But in other cases the benefits are still questionable.

Remember that your primary goal as a B2B search advertiser is to persuade the right target customers to click on your ads rather than the rival links on the SERP. A good image extension will improve your chances of that happening. A bad image extension risks drawing the wrong clicks, with the waste of budget that implies, while sending the right clicks to your competitors.

If you’d like to learn more about image extensions or get some help with any other aspect of your B2B digital marketing activity, then please head over to our services page on our website to find out how we can help you. 

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    Stuffed, Starved or Satisfied

    John Woods December 11, 2025

    Help yourself to a glass of bubbles and I’ll explain how you can apply your party planning skills to improve your LinkedIn Ads budgeting.

    Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

    Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

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    Why is Sharp Ahead sponsoring MeasureCamp?

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    We’re growing and looking for new clients, new team members and new partnerships. And we know that the MeasureCamp event and the community around it will be a great place to find them.

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    The MeasureCamp unconference

    Sharp Ahead is proudly sponsoring the MeasureCamp unconference in London on 15th May 2022 https://london.measurecamp.org/.

    MeasureCamp is an “unconference” – free to attend and self-organising – for the digital analytics community.

    It’s an amazing event with around 300 digital analytics practitioners expected to attend, many travelling from overseas. The presentations will range from deeply technical (such as how to manage the upcoming switch from Universal Analytics to GA4), to quirky (like my own, on the relevance of WW2 photographic reconnaissance to the management of digital analytics!).

    But why is a B2B digital marketing agency like Sharp Ahead sponsoring a digital analytics event?

    It’s personal…

    Many of you will know me as a pioneer from the early days of digital analytics industry. And in fact the digital analytics company I founded, Site Intelligence/iJento, was a sponsor of the very first MeasureCamp, in London in September 2012. Here’s a terrible 2012-era phone photo to prove it:

    Measure Camp Event

    So it’s a nice symmetry for me to be a sponsor again in the tenth anniversary year. And I’ve benefitted so much from MeasureCamp over the years – making new contacts and friends, honing my technical skills around digital analytics and conversion optimisation, sparking new ideas – that it is great to give something back to the MeasureCamp community.

    …but it is also business

    It is true that I have two decades’ experience in digital analytics, and I still work in part as an analytics practitioner, but my work these days is much more broadly-based. When I co-founded Sharp Ahead in 2014 I had a vision that analytics skills and techniques could be put to use in an agile way, in combination with a more general commercial and marketing skillset, to design and optimise digital activities for specialist B2B companies.

    That vision came true, I guess! Today, Sharp Ahead actively uses digital analytics every day as one of many techniques to design and improve digital marketing campaigns. I’m one of the team’s analytics experts but several of my colleagues are pretty handy with analytics technology as well. We also work with PPC, SEO, content marketing, marketing automation and CRO, amongst others, to help our clients achieve cost-effective results. Our team also includes designers, copywriters and website builders.

    Sharp Ahead looks to work with smart generalists who enjoy using a range of skills to find the best ways to grow our clients’ businesses. I’m pleased that digital analytics still plays a big part in our work, but just as excited about the other elements of expertise that we are able to blend together in our clients’ projects.

    We’re growing and looking for new clients, new team members and new partnerships. And we know that the MeasureCamp event and the community around it will be a great place to find them.

    Check back on our blog soon for a report from the event. And whether you are attending MeasureCamp or not: if you know of B2B companies who might benefit from our skills, if you know of smart digital marketers looking to work in a great B2B agency, or if you have other ideas how we might work together I’d love to hear from you. Or we can just chat about WW2 photographic reconnaissance!

    You can find me on LinkedIn linked.com/in/jwoods or fill in our contact form.

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      Stuffed, Starved or Satisfied

      John Woods December 11, 2025

      Help yourself to a glass of bubbles and I’ll explain how you can apply your party planning skills to improve your LinkedIn Ads budgeting.

      Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

      Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

      The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

      Why your Google Ads Optimisation Score is too high and what to do about it

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      On 24th September 2021, we had the pleasure to host a session on Google Ads Optimisation Score as part of the Leeds Digital Festival.

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      Observations on B2B paid media best practices

      During the virtual event Dr John Woods, Founder and Director of Sharp Ahead, shared his expert observations on B2B paid media best practices. Dr Woods emphasised that, as Google progressively gamifies “good practice” for paid search advertising, we need to bear in mind that what’s good for Google isn’t necessarily good for B2B advertisers. 

      You can now watch the full video recording of the event to learn more about:

      • Paid media campaigns
      • Whether automatic bidding beat manual bids set by a human expert
      • If an AI conversion optimiser reduce your cost per lead
      • Should you trust a machine to write your ad copy
      • The good, the bad, and the ugly of Google Ads’ optimisation score and automation.

      We would like to thank all the attendees for their active participation and great questions in the Q&A part of the event.

      Find out more about our PPC services or get in touch to see how we can help you deliver successful PPC campaigns.

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        Stuffed, Starved or Satisfied

        John Woods December 11, 2025

        Help yourself to a glass of bubbles and I’ll explain how you can apply your party planning skills to improve your LinkedIn Ads budgeting.

        Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

        Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

        The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

        Google Ads Bids Adieu to Broad Match Modifier…Or Does It?

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        Subheading

        Last week Google announced some significant changes to match types. This is a big deal: the last major change to match types was the introduction of broad match modifier back in 2010. So this is a once-in-a-decade event.

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        What next for match types for B2B search advertisers?

        In B2B search marketing we often need fine-grained control over search terms to deliver acceptable ROI from search campaigns, and match types are a key tool in maintaining that control. So while Google’s changes will have big implications for most search advertisers, they are particularly significant for B2B search marketers.

        In this post I will outline the changes that are happening and some steps that B2B search marketers should take right away to ensure their Google Ads setup remains cost effective.

        What is Google changing?

        Google is combining two existing match types, phrase match and broad match modifier (sometimes called modified broad match and abbreviated “BMM” or “MBM”).

        Phrase match keywords are written with quotation marks like this: “b2b digital agency”.

        Broad match modifier keywords are written with a plus sign, like this: +b2b +digital +agency

        Prior to the recently-announced change, phrase match required a search term that contained all of the same words and in the exact order, matching the full “phrase” in the keyword. So for example:

        Broad match modifier provided more flexibility in the search term – the words must all be present, but they do not need to be in the same order. So:

        There are some nuances around this. In particular, both match types allow some flexibility for words with similar meanings. So for instance:

        Once the recently-announced change has been completed, the old BMM syntax (with the +keyword signs) will disappear. The old “phrase match” syntax remains, but with a very important difference:

        The new phrase match is (more or less) the same as the old BMM (!)

         

        So for example:

        There are some slight differences between old-style BMM and new-style phrase match. In particular Google says that the word order will be significant in deciding whether to match, in some cases. But the differences are quite minor. For more detail, see this Google help article.

        So while this announcement has been reported as “Google is retiring Broad Match Modifier”, the truth is a bit more nuanced:

        • Google is retiring the old BMM syntax, with the +keyword signs.
        • There is a new-style phrase match, which behaves very similarly to the old-style BMM (with some subtle differences)
        • There will be no way to recreate the behaviour of the old-style phrase match.

        It would be more accurate to say that phrase match is being retired, and BMM is being renamed!

        When is this happening?

        Google’s announcement says that the keyword behaviour “will begin to transition…starting mid-February [2021]”. The change will be applied to a list of 8 languages (including English) first, with other languages following along later.

        So keep an eye for a further announcement or a Google Ads account alert to tell you that the change has gone into effect. It may still be a few weeks or even months before this behaviour switches over for your account.

        Another key date is July 2021 – Google says that, by then, the change will have been rolled out globally, and it will then no longer be possible to create new keywords with the old-style BMM syntax.

        What should B2B search marketers do about this change?

        Bear in mind that this change mostly impacts phrase match. So your action plan depends on how heavily you use old-style phrase match in your Google Ads accounts.

        Start by auditing your Google Ads accounts and see how important phrase match keywords are to you at the moment. You can do this in two ways:

        • Simply count how many phrase match keywords you have as a percentage of all of the active keywords in the account; or
        • Count the fraction of total account impressions, clicks and spend that is allocated to phrase match keywords.

        The first approach is easier but may over- or under-state the importance of phrase match if, for example, you have a lot of phrase match keywords that have very low search volumes. The second approach is slightly more complex to do, but still only a few minutes’ work with a suitable spreadsheet, and will give you a more robust view.

        Quick tip: there’s a convenient “Match Type” filter in Google Ads that makes it easy to separate out your phrase match keywords:

        Keyword Search Phrase Match Screen Grab

        Interestingly there is no BMM setting in this filter – BMM keywords are currently combined with broad match. If you want to filter for BMM, here’s a trick you can use:

        Keyword search screen grab

        Here are the steps I recommend:

        1. For your existing phrase match keywords: be aware that their matching behaviour is going to change significantly, and this may bring in bad matches that could harm the ROI of the associated campaigns. So as soon as Google’s change has been implemented, monitor these phrase match keywords closely and be ready to adjust bids, add negative keywords and perhaps even remove some keywords altogether.
        2. Existing BMM keywords won’t change their behaviour very much, but there are some nuanced differences. So you should still audit and monitor these keywords in case the small differences catch you out. In particular if you work with a lot of searches where the word order is significant to you, you may need to make some changes here.
        3. If you currently have a campaign with both phrase match and BMM keywords that are otherwise identical – for example if you bid on both “b2b agency” and +b2b +agency – then these are going to behave as exact duplicates. It would make sense to pause the BMM versions of these keywords as soon as you know the change has been implemented. (Duplicate keywords have no benefits and just cause headaches for account maintenance and performance analysis.)
        4. As soon as you know that the change has been implemented for your accounts, stop using the outgoing +keyword BMM syntax for any new keywords that you create. Use the “phrase match” syntax instead. (Although you CAN still continue to use the BMM syntax until July, it will be retired soon anyway, so why create a problem for the future?)
        5. Consider a planned account update to switch out your existing +keyword BMM keywords for phrase match. This isn’t essential: the old BMM syntax will continue to work indefinitely as a synonym for phrase match. But because it will soon become impossible to create keywords with the old BMM syntax, in the long term these keywords will become a headache for account maintenance. So a planned retirement of the +keyword syntax makes sense. Ideally, work to complete this before the July deadline.

        If you are unlucky enough to currently make heavy use of phrase match, consider a more strategic review of your keyword strategy – it may be that you need to make more substantial changes to your keyword mix. 

        What are the wider implications of this change for B2B search marketers?

        B2B search marketing often relies on very nuanced use of keywords. If matching is too broad, it is very easy to bring in a lot of expensive clicks from irrelevant matches, and so destroy the ROI from a campaign. So any change to match types is naturally a concern and needs to be assessed carefully by search marketers.

        But on the whole I think this is a sensible rationalisation of match types. At Sharp Ahead, we’ve rarely needed to use much phrase match in the Google Ads accounts that we manage for our clients. We find that in most cases, BMM gives a good balance between specificity and reach, and allows us to design campaigns that give great ROI. So the old-style phrase match isn’t much of a loss.

        There are a few nuanced cases where we’ll need to change our approach. For instance the mixing of BMM and broad match keywords like this:

        +b2b digital agency

        …won’t work any more – the whole keyword has to be phrase match. But on the whole, the changes will be minor. We just have to get used to the new terminology! Just remember:

        +Broad +Match +Modifier is dead.
        Long live “Broad Match Modifier”!

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          Stuffed, Starved or Satisfied

          John Woods December 11, 2025

          Help yourself to a glass of bubbles and I’ll explain how you can apply your party planning skills to improve your LinkedIn Ads budgeting.

          Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

          Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

          The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

          Google Analytics 4: what you need to know today

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          In October, Google announced the introduction of Google Analytics 4, their first major change to Analytics in almost 10 years. The move formalises the beta version of Google Analytics App plus Web with a new interface and machine learning.

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          Here’s what you need to know:

          The first thing you’ll notice when entering Google Analytics 4 is a sleek and modern interface. The redesign makes it easier to use and more accessible than its predecessor, Universal Analytics.

          Behind the design, GA4 introduces a major expansion to the machine learning capabilities in Google’s analytics offering. While it is still too early to fully understand GA4’s potential, it’s an exciting addition.
          GA4 also sees a complete re-haul of the data collection architecture.

          With more apps, web apps, ecommerce stores, and complex websites circling the Google-sphere, GA4 looks to plug the hole in Google’s offering by collecting data on the complex user journeys in apps and highly interactive websites with minimal set up.

          The clunky Goal Tracking in Universal Analytics has been removed to make way for simple-to-set-up Event and Conversion tracking. This allows user behaviour such as logging in or browsing products to be recognised easily.

          But there is a catch.

          GA4 is so fundamentally different to Universal Analytics that it requires adding a new tag to your website. And with it, a fresh start on Analytics.

          Google has made finding the new tag super easy, but when you add it to your website, your GA4 dashboard will be blank. You’ll need to start afresh collecting data from the moment you set up the new tag.

          Thankfully, adding the GA4 tag to your website doesn’t stop Universal Analytics from working – the two run in tandem. But with GA4 eventually looking to replace Universal Analytics entirely, and with no clear way to migrate data (yet), we recommend adding the GA4 tag soon so you can build up historic data when the change does come.

          We don’t currently know when Google will start decommissioning Universal Analytics, but with historical data being a pivotal factor in how useful analytics is, you’ll need to prepare.

          What to do next:

          • Add the GA4 Tag to your website
          • Recreate your remarketing audiences in GA4 so they can start to build up
          • Add event and conversion tracking
          • Set up Google Tag Manager (not required but best practice)

          In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye out for more information on GA4 and the future of Analytics. Please follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter to stay in the know!

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            Stuffed, Starved or Satisfied

            John Woods December 11, 2025

            Help yourself to a glass of bubbles and I’ll explain how you can apply your party planning skills to improve your LinkedIn Ads budgeting.

            Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

            Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

            The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

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