Changes are coming to Google Responsive Search Ads. Here’s what that means for hotel teams.
NB: This is an article from Screen Pilot
WHAT’S CHANGING
Starting June 30, 2022, Google Ads is removing the capability to create or edit expanded text ads. Existing expanded text ads will continue to serve alongside other responsive ads, however, we will not be able to adapt these with new offers or messaging moving forward.
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With this change, the platform and advertisers will rely much more heavily on responsive search ads for PPC performance.
Definitions:
- Expanded text ads: Paid search ads with fixed headlines and descriptions, manually created and manually edited/optimized.
- Responsive search ads: Paid search ads with a variety of headlines and descriptions, shown as auto-generated combinations based on Google’s machine learning and continuously optimized based on ad performance.
WHAT TO EXPECT
In order to prepare for this change, over the last several months, we have executed a variety of A/B tests to optimize our accounts’ responsive search ad performance. The tests included analysis of ad quality scores, pinning headlines, headline quantity and length, and the amount of content within an ad group.
Based on our data, we’ve developed the following Responsive Search Ad best practices:
- Ad Strength: Ensure high-performing content from existing expanded text ads and current keywords are utilized to attain ‘Good’ ad strength. Ad strength is a Google-depicted rating determined by how well the ad assets follow Google’s best practices and indicates an ad’s level of effectiveness.
- Pinning Headlines: This practice ensures that certain headlines will appear in a specified position within each Google-generated ad result. Pinning should be utilized to prioritize certain messages that always need to be shown, such as property name. When pinning a headline, 3 thematically similar variations should be selected to allow Google the ability to optimize based on performance.
- Ad Headline Variation: Utilize a variety of ad headline lengths – varying from short to long and descriptive. The number of headlines used is determined by the Google ad strength score.
- Ad Descriptions: Best practice is to leverage all 4 of Google’s description fields, with concise & relevant information that aligns with the campaign’s keywords and website landing page copy.
- Ad Quantity: Ensure there are 2 responsive search ads per ad group – 1 directing to the homepage and the other to either the accommodations or offers page, determined with the client.
