Sneaky Google..very sneaky but not sneaky enough. Tucked away in the Google Adwords help documentation shows Google quietly dropping the Google+ follower counts from showing in your PPC adverts as of December 10th 2015. Here is a link to the help documentation.
These extensions arrived back in 2011 and happened automatically rather than inputted manually. From recollection you had to have over 100 followers before they activated and with them being killed off so is this a further sign of Google+ being consigned to the scrap heap (recent refresh notwithstanding..)?
Bye bye Google+ follower count
Of course Adwords changes a lot and the recent annotations and improved extensions may well prove to be a better way of highlighting the benefits and advocates of your brand. It will be interesting to see how may businesses utilise other sitelinks to show off their Google+ rating or whether there will be a collective shrug and lack of take-up. As ever, experimentation is key so maybe a split-test or two is required.