Digital advertising has exponentially grown over the past few years, mainly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Much like traditional advertising, digital ads help businesses tell the story of their brand as well as sell their products and services to the right people.

Advertisers can rely on many digital channels, with the most prominent one being Google Ads. Indeed, the platform is so big and influential to the point where it helped to generate more than 80% of the revenue of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, in 2020.

Google Ads offers a wide range of ad formats, but our focus today will be on dynamic search ads. In this article, we’ll go over what they are, their benefits, and how you can set them up.

What are dynamic search ads?

A dynamic search ad allows businesses (that’s you) to reach more clients through search engines, specifically Google. Unlike most other formats offered by Google Ads, a dynamic search ad does not rely on keywords. Instead, it uses the content of your actual website.

In other words, instead of matching a user’s search query with a set of keywords found within your website, Google Ads generates an ad that is tailored to what the user might be looking for, hence the word “dynamic”.

Google’s state-of-the-art artificial intelligence will create a clear and appropriate headline for your ad. It will also direct it at users whom it thinks are more likely to become customers.

These ads are then shown in the search engine results pages (SERPs) of users in hopes of getting them to click on them and convert. Such a format was revolutionary for the time it was released. This is mainly because it can fill the gaps found in a regular keywords-based campaign.

Benefits of dynamic search ads

There are many reasons why you might want to consider creating a dynamic search ads campaign of your own. They are:

Timesaving

The mere fact that DSAs are heavily reliant on automation makes them extremely effective at saving precious time. With regular ad formats, you find yourself having to create long and comprehensive lists of keywords and trying to match them with relevant landing pages and content.

On the other hand, dynamic search ads can handle all of these tasks for you. So, instead of worrying about such elements, you can use your time to create better landing pages, track and improve the performance of your campaign, and more.

Compatibility

Dynamic search ads are fully compatible with other Google Ads tools. Those include regular search ads, AdSense, and, most importantly, shopping campaigns. Additionally, dynamic search ads work hand in hand with smart bidding. Smart bidding is a combination of automated bid strategies that rely on machine learning to save you both time and money.

Automatic updates

Advertisers who aim to mainly sell products find themselves having to regularly update their ads whenever they add a new product to their arsenal. Dynamic search ads overcome this obstacle by constantly crawling through your website to detect any minor or major update that you might have recently made to your inventory.

In other words, Google can never fall in the fault of showing ads to people about products that have run out of stock, for instance. Imagine how frustrating of an experience that can be for users who are in dire need of certain products that you might have offered in the past.

Additionally, if you happen to make updates to the descriptions of your product(s) or your landing page(s), then expect Google’s crawlers to quickly jump on board. This is because the true power of dynamic search ads lies in their dynamic headlines, which should be relevant to your landing page and product descriptions.

Quality traffic

Through dynamic search ads, advertisers can create more relevant ads for a larger audience of users. This is because the process of ad creation is done automatically and optimally in a way that adheres to the needs of users based on their search queries.

Not only will this lead to better CTRs, but it can also lead to a significant increase in conversions. That’s due to the fact that users will most likely find themselves on landing pages that are very much relevant.

According to the people over at blimpp.com, clients using DSAs have seen an average increase of 29% in conversions. So, with dynamic search ads, expect a decent improvement in both the quantity and quality of leads that your business attracts (if done correctly, of course!) (more on that later).

How to create dynamic search ads

Now that we have touched upon some of the benefits of using dynamic search ads in Google Ads, it’s time to go through a quick rundown of how you can set up your own.

Start by setting up your campaign

1. Log in to your Google Ads account and then click on Campaigns (left menu)
2. Once there, click on the + button and then click New campaign
3. Select one or multiple goals for your campaign. Or, click on Create a campaign without a goal if you wish to continue
4. You will then be prompted to select a campaign type, select search
5. Select any results you want to see from the campaign, then click continue
6. Give your campaign a name. Next, choose the locations you want to be targeted, the languages you want to use and, lastly, your budget

Now to set up DSAs

1. Right at the top of the screen under the “General Settings” menu, click on Show more settings to expand it. Then, click on Dynamic Search Ad.
2. Enter the domain of your website, then select the main language of your website
3. Click on Save and continue. Now, you will find yourself in the process of creating a dynamic ad group and targets.
4. You will notice that for the Ad group type, the option Dynamic is selected by default; keep it that way
5. Name your dynamic ad group
6. Choose how you want to target your ads. We recommend checking out this guide by Google
7. Remember, everything from your ad’s headline to its display and final URL will be dynamically generated. So, just enter your description text, and you’re done
8. Click Save and Continue

Dynamic search ads – Best practices

Now that we have gone through the many benefits of dynamic search ads and how you can set up your own, let’s now discuss some tips and tricks that you should follow in order to get the best performance out of your DSAs.

1. Optimise your website’s content and design

The prime goal of your dynamic search ads is, of course, to send people off to your website. There, they could and could not make a purchase. One of the main factors that play a role in whether visitors of your website will convert or not is the overall design of your website and the content contained within it.

So, try your best to have an appealing landing page as well as clear and concrete product descriptions and imagery. You don’t want to lose potential clients just because the images that you provided of your product(s) are low quality, for example.

2. Target your ads properly

One of the main features of dynamic search ads is their ability to auto-target users based on their search queries. However, there is still some work for you to do. For instance, you need to set the right objectives for your dynamic search ads. Secondly, you should constantly keep an eye on and analyse the behaviour of your target audience. That way, you ensure that your ads are appearing in front of the right people.

3. Have appropriate landing page copy

Yes, DSAs are extremely helpful because they try their best to push themselves to the right people. However, it’s solely your job as a business to write excellent landing page copy. After all, once a user clicks on the ad, it’s your copy’s job to convert them into a customer or a client.

Drawbacks of dynamic search ads

Although they offer several benefits, dynamic search ads aren’t for everyone. They’re regarded as a waste of time and money by many bespoken marketers, because:

You’re giving Google control of your ads

Even though you can choose where to place your DSAs using negative keywords and targeted exclusions, you’re still giving Google a lot of control over your ads.

Before running dynamic search ads, consider how the targeted users will affect your campaign performance. You have to go through your dynamic ad targets carefully before running the ads and check and review the campaign regularly once it’s started. You also need to account for appropriate negatives wherever possible. Fail to do that, and both your conversion rates and ad budget will suffer.

Google can waste your budget on low-performing keywords

Unfortunately, DSAs can have a few search queries eat up most of your budget. That can limit the reach of high-converting products. This is another reason you must keep an eye on negative keywords before and after launching your ads.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution

The fact that DSAs work for many companies doesn’t mean that they’ll work magic for yours. As mentioned above, dynamic search ads are great if you have a huge website with a high volume of products that need to be updated regularly. That said, they’re not optimised for small websites, sites that sell services or customisable products.

Get in touch for better results with Google ads

If you want to see better results with your Google Ads campaigns, just get in touch today. One of our paid advertising experts will reach out promptly.

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Dynamic Search Ads – FAQs