Setting up Google Ads can be massively time consuming, particularly if you have a lot of products or services to sell or lots of keywords you want to target. Breaking down your campaigns into tightly themed Ad Groups can seem like an unnecessary complication, however, it’s a vital step in making sure your keywords and ads are highly relevant, improving your quality score and overall account performance. Thankfully, Google introduced a simpler way to promote all your products with Dynamic Search Ads.
What are Dynamic Search Ads?
Dynamic Search Ads (or DSAs) are a new ad type which uses the content on your website to create and target your ads to searchers.
Benefits of Dynamic Search Ads
Dynamic Search Ads use your website’s content to determine what searches your ads will show for. Therefore, there’s no need to add your own keywords as such. Google will find relevant keywords based on content displayed on specified pages of your website.
Not having to choose your own keywords means you are likely to show up in searches for keywords and phrases you hadn’t thought of, but are still highly relevant.
Google will also use the content on your website for some of the ad text, so you can leave the fine art of crafting click-worthy headlines to Google.
You can specify which pages of your site you want to advertise and group pages into categories. This means you have control over what content is promoted.
Drawbacks of Dynamic Search Ads
Allowing Google to pick your keywords and ad text means you have to relinquish some of the control of how and when your ads appear in the search results. This isn’t an issue for most advertisers, but if you like having complete control, DSAs may not be for you.
DSAs don’t work well for all websites (see below for when not to use them).
When to use DSAs
If you have a well established and optimised website, Google’s Dynamic Search Ads work well in choosing the right keywords and ad text for your campaigns.
Use DSAs alongside your standard search ads to fill the gaps in your keyword lists and make sure you’re showing up for every possible relevant search. You can do this by specifying “Landing pages from your standard ad groups” when you set up your targeting. This way, Google will only use the pages on your site you’re currently advertising.
When not to use DSAs
If your SEO isn’t up to par (we’re talking Page Titles and content), DSAs are unlikely to get the best results, so we’d recommend prioritising your on-page SEO before setting up dynamic ads.
If your website changes frequently (e.g. new stock, special offers, seasonal sales) DSAs won’t be the best option for you.
If your website is written in a language Google finds difficult to access or contains elements Google cannot read (Flash, for example), or has a lot of content behind a login screen, Google won’t be able to effectively access the content on your site to determine relevant keywords, so avoid DSAs in this situation.
Summary
Whilst Dynamic Search Ads are a great addition to the Google Ads platform, they’re not for every advertiser. They rely on your website being well optimised and relatively static in its content. However, used alongside your exisiting ad campaigns, we can prove to perform better for many advertisers, so they’re worth testing. For more information about DSAs visit Google’s support centre.
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