What Are Dynamic Search Ads?

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Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) are an ad format available in Google Ads that allow advertisers to find customers searching on Google for precisely what the advertiser offers. They are ideal for advertisers with a well developed website or websites with a large inventory. This is because DSAs use your website content to target your ads to users instead of keywords. They dynamically generate ad headlines and landing pages relevant to the search that was performed based upon the information pulled from your website. In this blog post, we will explain how DSAs work, their advantages and how to create your very own Dynamic Search Ad in Google Ads.  (this is Google’s explanation of DSAs, we will walk you through how to set them up)

When Do Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) Show?

When a user searches for a term that is closely related to the titles and frequently used phrases on your website, Dynamic Search Ads will will use these titles and phrases to dynamically generate a tailored ad. The information that populates a headline and URL landing page is pulled directly from your website. However, you will still need to write a description line for the ad.

Let’s go through an example.

You own a women’s clothing company. A potential customer searches on Google for “womens blouse size 12” and sees your ad with the headline “Women’s Blouse – Size 12”. When the user clicks on your ad, they land on a page on your website selling women’s blouses in size 12.

Both the headline and the landing page URL is dynamic and automatically generated based on both what is on your website and what the user has searched. Therefore, Dynamic Search Ads allow you to directly direct potential customers to what they are looking for on your website.

What Are The Benefits Of DSAs?

1. Relevancy

As ads are dynamically generated using your website and what the user as search, this results in an ad that is highly relevant for both you and the customer. The more relevant the ad, the lower your cost

2. Time Saver

DSAs are simple to set up and are not based on keywords, making it fast to market compared to other alternatives

3. Fill in Keyword Gaps

DSAs are a great way to fill in keyword gaps you may be missing from your keyword campaigns. In other words, ads will show for keywords you aren’t already targeting with your keywords. This allows you to reach a broader audience and capture additional traffic.

Additionally, Dynamic Search Ads may help you find new keywords to target. Look for new keywords in the search terms of your Ads.

4. Keep up with constant website changes

If you are regularly adding new or removing products on your website, Dynamic Search Ads take away the pain of updating your Google Ads keywords and ads.

Limitations of DSAs

1. Control

As ads are dynamically generated based on your website and search performed, you do not have full control over which type of queries your ads are served to.

2. Brand Messaging

Google’s AI’s are writing the headlines. These auto-created headlines may convey messages that do not fit your brand image or goals.

3. Wasting Budget On Low Performing Queries

Certain queries may eat up your budget as they have high search volumes. These terms may be too broad and less likely to result in conversions.

How Dynamic Creative Can Help

In November 2019, Dynamic Creative updated our Ad Platform enabling “standard” (not Dynamic Search Ads) search campaigns to take full advantage of Google’s Machine Learning.

Our Search campaigns are built from an integration between inventory based websites, our Ad Platform’s software and Google Ads.  We generate ads for every product, service or travel asset at the category and product level. We then add together product or service details with the company’s brand messaging. Depending on inventory size, we can create hundreds, thousands or even millions of ads through our platform, something that no human would be able to do.

If you would like to read more, read our blog on Enhanced Search Campaigns for Machine Learning

Our Platform is similar in a way to Dynamic Search Ads – it uses your website to automatically build ads, making them relevant and saving you time, however, our platform gives you more control over your brand messaging, which queries to target and ability to stop low performing ads, keywords, ad groups and campaigns.

How To Create A Dynamic Search Ad

You can set up your Dynamic Search Ads within the same structure as your normal Search Ads, but the creation is a little different. To create a Dynamic Search Ad, log into your Google Ads Account.

From there, on the left hand side, to go All Campaigns > Campaigns > Click on the “Blue Plus Button”

Here, choose the goal of this campaign.

Once you have chosen your campaign goal, click on search and click next.

From here, put in the desired campaign name, and decide whether you want your ads to show on Google Search Partners and the Google Display Network. It is not necessary to tick any of these boxes to run DSAs.

Then you want to click on “show more settings”

Open up “Dynamic Search Ads Settings” and enter your domain, language and targeting source. If you have not uploaded a spreadsheet of URLs (advanced) do not fear. Select “Use Google’s Index of my website” and move to the next step.

Finish this page by adding in your desired location targeting, language, campaign budget and bidding strategy. Click “Save and Continue”.

The next page is where we create our ad group.

In this page, you decide how you would like to target. There are 3 options:

1. Use Dynamic target categories recommended for your website by Google
2. Use specific pages from your website domain based on their category, page content, page title of URL
3. Generate DSAs based on all web pages available in your website domain.

After you have selected your targeting type, click “save and continue”.

In the last page, you will be asked to create the ad by adding in descriptions. Remember that both the headline and URL will be dynamically generated.

Once you’ve added in your description, your campaign set up is completed!

For more information on how Dynamic Creative can remove the limitations of Dynamic Search Ads and help you achieve the best possible returns from your advertising, please contact us.

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