Variety Is the Spice of Life Google’s Latest Search Ad Format

This article is one from the achives and covers Google’s now deprecated Expanded Text Ad Format and introduces the Responsive Search Ads format.

You may have noticed that Google has been mixing things up lately, and two huge changes to the format of search ad copy are among some of the latest shake-ups. 

Previously, ad formats may have seemed a little restrictive.  With a bit of adjustment, you probably found you were able to shape your writing style to best use the space to talk to your potential customers about your product or service in a way that also conveyed some of your unique attributes.

Now Google is encouraging people to be creative once again, giving you even more space to add the finer details to help your ads stand out…

Change 1) Expanded Text Ads

Expanded text ads allow up to three headlines of 30 characters and two descriptions of 90 characters. Even though your third headline and second descriptive text field may not always show. It simply depends whether Google decides on whether to let you show off your more verbose ad copy.

The new ad format provides an opportunity for advertisers to use additional text to capture consumers’ attention. Whether you use that additional space to be more creative, to forge an emotional connection, or to simply add additional details of a product, event, or service, is completely up to you.  

Expanded Text Ads will display across both mobile and desktop devices.  You can view previews of the format on both types of devices whilst creating your ad.

Change 2) Responsive Text Ads

As Google continues to assure you that the machine knows best and following in the footsteps of the responsive display ad format, you can now make your Search ads responsive!  

Responsive Text Ads allows multiple variations of headlines and descriptive text to be tested and optimised to deliver the most relevant and high-performing ad copy. 

Up to 15 different headlines and 5 descriptions can be tested. 

Google enables you to pin headline variations to only be shown in either position 1, 2, or 3, so that key information is never excluded from the ad copy.  

As per the expanded text ads, up to three headlines and two descriptions will be shown at a time. 

Google aims to deliver the best combinations of ad copy to each person, based on search terms used, device and other signals, such as location and past browsing behaviour. 

It’s Time To Get Creative…

Getting to grips with the changes may feel a little bit daunting at first, in comparison writing copy for the old ad formats it might even feel like you’re writing a novel.  The additional space will give you the opportunity to be more creative with your ads and show more relevant and personalised messaging, it’s something that everybody should be testing.

To make things a little easier, Google is now ‘marking’ your ads, indicating whether the creatives are poor or excellent.

The Google Ads interface allows you to see the mix of ad copies that may appear before setting your ads live.  Once live you can pull reports to see the best performing text combination. 

This ad format is currently in Beta, so it’s worth keeping a close eye on developments as Google tweaks the approach.