Google Introduced New Features for Responsive Search Ads

In an official announcement, Google has announced introducing two new features: location insertion and countdown customizers, to Responsive Search Ads (RSA) to make it more relevant and easier to manage.

The new features added to Responsive Search Ads ad copy options come with dynamic features, which increases its helpfulness with the launch of cross-campaign asset reporting and improved copy suggestions and recommendations.

Responsive Search Ads

Google’s latest, largest, and most flexible search ad format, Responsive Search Ads or RSA’s lets a brand create an ad that adapts to show more text to its customers. This ad type shows more relevant messages to customers, and it automatically assembles the ad copy a user sees by bringing together copy elements the advertiser specifies.

In traditional search ads, one should write their headlines and descriptions together to create 1 static ad text and the full ad copy must be written out for each version to be tested. Whereas, in RSA one can write up to 15 different headlines and up to 4 different descriptions, which means the ad testing possibilities are nearly endless because around 43680 different permutations can be arranged with those different headlines and descriptions. The components of an RSA text ad –both headlines and description- are broken down into two different elements or “assets”.

Over time, Google Ads will test different promising ad combinations of a copy.

After learning the best combinations which are most relevant for different queries, it will begin to favor the highest performing combinations.

Some other benefits of RSA are:

1. It creates ads that adapt to device widths.

2. Time-saving by offering options for multiple headlines and descriptions.

3. Let Google Ads show the most relevant combinations to your customers.

4. Headlines and descriptions can be tailored according to the customer’s location or area of interest.

5. Reach more potential customers with multiple headlines and descriptions options.

6. Increase ad group performance.

7. Attracts more clicks and conversions.

8. Give the opportunity for the ads to compete in more auctions and match more searches.

To deliver relevant messages to potential customers, RSA uses machine learning and by adapting one’s ad’s content to more closely match potential customers’ search terms, RSA may improve their campaign’s performance. However, not every advertiser is open to RSA. For some, RSAs can feel limiting as the ad copy has to be mixed and matched and sometimes, the overly themed text ad types can be a problem.

So, for effective engagement with customers and to make responsive search ads more relevant and easier to manage, Google introduced some new features. They are:

1. Location Insertion.

2. Countdown Customizers.

Location Insertion

This new feature lets your customers know where your products or services are offered.

The feature lets advertisers tailor their responsive search ad text to their customers’ location or area of interest, based on their campaign location targeting type.

For instance, to customize your ads to your user’s location or area of interest, you can simply create headlines like, “Las Vegas Hotels” or “San Francisco Hotels”.

Benefits of Location Insertion

1. It allows tailored messaging.

2. Offers more efficiency.

Instead of uploading lots of rows and managing an ad customizer file, you can customize your ads to the city, state, or country you want to show with RSA.

How to Set Up Location Insertion for Responsive Search Ads

1. First, create a Responsive Search Ad.

2. Enter ad text, type a brace ( { ) and select Location insertion from the drop-down menu.

3. If a text can’t be substituted by a location, then type the word or words in the “Default text” section (optional).

4. Choose the level of the location you want to display:

• City
• State
• Country

5. Tap the Apply button.

You can also check anonymized and aggregated reports, to evaluate the number of times your ad is shown using location insertion. Once you have applied location insertion, you can view and manage your targeted locations by going to “Locations” in the page menu on the left.

Countdown Customizers

The next feature rolled out by Google is countdown customizers which help advertisers to promote sales and events in their RSA by highlighting upcoming events with countdowns.

By adding a countdown to the ad text, advertisers can bring in a sense of urgency into their ads by dynamically showing when a promotion is ending and let their potential customers know about it. It will automatically show how much time is left on the deal so that potential customers don’t miss out on special offers.

This new feature comes in two formats:

1. COUNTDOWN

2. GLOBAL_COUNTDOWN

The COUNTDOWN format lets the advertiser enter an end date for something. It counts down to a set time, adjusted to the time zone of the person searching. But if you are counting down to a time that’s consistent globally, as the time of a sports match, then you might need to use GLOBAL_COUNTDOWN.

Both the functions can be counted down by day, by the hour, and by the minute.

Apart from location insertion and countdown customizer features, Google has also introduced new copy asset suggestions and cross-campaign asset reporting to highlight an advertiser’s sales, promotions and shipping offerings.

Copy Asset suggestions

With the addition of this new functionality, new categories will be displayed while creating an RSA where advertisers can create more informative ads by providing improved suggestions when an advertiser writes a headline or a description. It will recommend commonly used phrases that highlight online availability – especially updated for the Covid-19 era, with new suggestions for things like Contactless delivery and curbside orders. It will also highlight shipping and return options for your business.

 

New copy asset suggestions when creating a responsive search ad

Once you add a final URL to your RSA, updated headline and description suggestions can be viewed. These suggestions will be tailored based on what Google discerns your business offerings are.

Cross-Campaign Asset Reporting

Google Ads offers cross-campaign asset reporting for copy assets as a solution for time-saving – because 80% of digital marketers’ time is used up on manual tasks like reporting, while only 20% is used upon strategy. It allows advertisers to examine more assets at once, regardless of the campaign. Designed mainly for aggregating results per asset faster, this feature gives the user one snapshot of total performance and recognizes what resonates with the customers better and faster.

This feature is a great help for small advertisers as it combines all the data for seeing larger trends. Once they have determined which assets are performing well, they can apply those learnings to other ads. In case, if assets are performing poorly, the advertisers can take action to replace those assets. 

Cross-campaign asset reporting performance reporting is also now available for description lines.

Other Features Launched by Google

Along with adding new features to responsive search ads, Google also launched new recommendations on their recommendation page and other new features aimed at optimizing ads and improving the e-commerce experience. One of the main features among them is Image Extensions Beta Program that enables advertisers to include product visuals in search ads. Google also upgrades responsive display ads with few features such as new creative layouts, automatically generated video ads, and updated dynamic ads. All these features can now display a retailer’s business name alongside their logo, emphasize a business’s latest promotions, or spotlight a single product. Google also lets users configure Smart Shopping campaigns with free and fast shipping annotations; an immersive, browsable shopping experience; and videos across platforms such as Search, Shopping, and Display ads.