What’s Changing?
Starting June 30, 2022, advertisers will no longer be able to create new expanded text ads (ETAs) or edit existing ETAs in Google Ads.
Expanded text ads will continue to serve and you will still be able to access reports and performance for them.
Long term Google is strongly recommending all advertisers begin to transition to responsive search ads.
What Are Responsive Search Ads?
Responsive search ads let you create an ad that adapts to show more text and more relevant message to your customers. They work by entering multiple headlines and descriptions, and over time, Google Ads will automatically test different combinations and learn which combinations perform best.
You can write up to 15 different headlines and up to 4 description. This means that those headlines and descriptions can be arranged in 43,680 different permutations, which means ad copy testing is nearly limitless!
Over time, your Responsive Search Ads will serve the best message to different searchers depending on the keyword they search for, their device, their past browsing behavior, and other signals.
Google is recommending that accounts begin to add at least 1 RSA per ad group with a current limit of 3 RSAs per ad group.
Why the Transition to Responsive Search Ads?
Google has been making changes for some time now to consolidate, simplify, and streamline account management. This is Google’s latest push toward automation and AI through their ad products.
Google’s official announcement says that “15% of search queries every day are new searches we’ve never seen before” and therefore “Automation is key to keeping pace with these trends.”
How Do Responsive Search Ads Compare to Expanded Text Ads?
In many ways, this transition and future phase out of ETA’s means advertisers are moving away from direct control over their accounts and having to work with the Google Ads machine learning and AI. This move away from direct control over ad copy has some implications for highly regulated industries that require very specific copy to maintain relevancy.
Compared to Expanded Text Ads, RSAs allow for an extra headline, an extra description, and 10 more characters to play with in each description. This makes Responsive Search Ads the largest ads to ever reach the SERP – with up to 300 characters of total text. That’s twice as long as an Expanded Search Ad!
How do Responsive Ads perform?
Responsive search ads are bigger and at many times better than Expanded Text Ads. According to Google, Responsive Search Ads have a 5%-15% CTR compared to standard search ads! Of course, averages are not always right and not all advertisers will see the same benefit and it is advised to test before making the full transition.
What This Means For Mantic Media Client-Partners
Currently all of our client-partners are utilizing ETA ads with a few accounts already testing RSA’s. Our team is hard at work adding the recommended 1 RSA per ad group to all accounts. For additional questions about the RSA update, please reach out to [email protected].
