What Are Dynamic Search Ads?
Dynamic search ad campaigns don’t use keywords like traditional PPC campaigns; instead, they show dynamic ads (automatically) based on your website's content. When creating DSA campaigns, you don’t specify keywords but pages from your website that Google will use to generate the ads.
This means you don’t have to worry about creating and maintaining a list of keywords; you can specify which pages of your website to get Google Ads traffic, and Google will do the rest.
When creating the ads for your campaign, Google will choose the ad headline based on your content (and search phrase) and the landing page URL. You can specify the ad description (2 lines up to 35 characters each) and the display URL.
Why Should You Use Dynamic Search Ads?
There are several reasons why you should use DSA in your PPC campaigns.
1. They are very easy to setup
You don’t have to research keywords, set match types, or create too many ad groups. With DSA campaigns, you specify the website URL, create ads, and are ready to go.
2. You still have control over the content and when your ads will be shown
You don’t need to add keywords to your campaigns, but you can add negative keywords to control which query to show your ads. In addition, you can also select the pages of your site that will participate in DSA campaigns.
3. DSA campaigns can run in parallel with your search and display campaigns
The really great advantage of DSA campaigns is that they can run in parallel with your standard campaigns without worrying about targeting the same keywords or having any other ‘duplication issues’.
Google Ads is clever enough to distinguish between normal PPC campaigns and DSA and will show your non-DSA ads for search queries that are a better match. It will only show DSA ads for search queries you don’t already have in your other campaigns (or even your whole account).
4. It’s a great way to find new keyword opportunities
As explained above, the fact that DSA campaigns don’t compete with your normal campaigns allows you to run DSA to find out what other search phrases are good candidates to add to your search and display campaigns.
For example, suppose you have search campaigns targeting certain keywords. You can also create DSA campaigns and run them in parallel. Adwords will show dynamic ads when people search for keywords that are not included in your search campaigns (and are not also in your negative keywords).
After a few weeks, you can review the SEARCH QUERIES that triggered the DSA ads and decide which keywords to add to your search campaigns.
It’s like fishing for keywords but letting Google Ads do the tough job.
Who Should Use Dynamic Search Ads?
Any business can benefit from DSA, and it is worth a try to see if you can get some good results. They are particularly useful with:
- Websites that have a lot of products and services
- Websites that have prices that change frequently (but not daily)
- Websites that have search and display campaign runnings and want to find out new keyword opportunities
- DSA can also serve as a testing tool when you want to explore new markets. You can quickly set up a DSA campaign and see what kind of queries you can get, cost, etc.
Best Practices For Using Dynamic Search Ads
1. Monitor and optimize
The fact that DSA campaigns are easy to set up doesn’t mean that they don’t need monitoring and optimization. After you set up your initial campaigns, you need to monitor search queries and add negative keywords to exclude queries you don’t need.
As the campaigns grow, you can also add in the negative search queries that did not create any conversions.
2. Don’t be afraid to start with broad targets
When you set up a DSA, you can choose which pages or parts of your website to use in the campaigns. It is good practice to let Google Ads use your website as a whole, and then, depending on the results, you can narrow down your targets to the pages you want.
The main idea of using DSA is to find missing opportunities, and this will be more effective if you allow the system to use all the pages of your website.
3. Separate ‘Winners’ from ‘losers’
Once you have enough data in the campaign reports, you can create targets with your winners and losers. In other words, you can group pages that perform well together and add a more aggressive budget and pages that you still want but are low-performing in a separate group.
4. Use ad extensions and device targeting
DSA works with ad extensions, so make sure that you activate them. They also work with devices, so you can adjust your mobile bids as usual and create mobile-specific ads.
5. Test different ad copies
You cannot change the ad headline since Google dynamically generates this, but you can still change the description (2 lines), so there is room to make your A/B tests and find ad copies that perform better.
6. Give Dynamic Search Ads time
Dynamic Search Ads need more time to deliver some good results, so be patient and give it some time before deciding whether to stop using them. One of the reasons is that they have less priority than your normal campaigns, so if you already have good-performing search and display campaigns, it may take some time for DSA to collect enough impressions and clicks to generate conversions.
Dynamic Search Ads and SEO
How are DSA and SEO related? In an indirect way. Google uses its website crawling mechanism to read and understand the structure of websites and use that in DSA campaigns.
A website with an SEO-optimized structure, with good categories, proper page names, titles, etc., will perform better in dynamic ad campaigns than a website that is not SEO-friendly.
When Not to Use DSA?
Dynamic Search Ads have many advantages, and they can offer a lot of PPC benefits to businesses but, in some cases, are not suitable:
1. If you sell products or services that change prices daily, Dynamic search campaigns cannot handle last-minute content changes, so if you change your website content (prices, adding new offers on a daily basis that have a short expiry date), you can keep to keyword-based campaigns.
2. Non-SEO-friendly websites—If your website is not optimized for SEO, it will be very difficult to set up your DSA targets correctly, and maybe it’s better to avoid them altogether.
3. When long-tail keywords are not useful for your business—DSA is good at surfacing long-tail searches, and if these are not useful for business purposes (this is a rare case, but it’s a possibility), you can stick with your keyword-based campaigns.
Conclusion
Dynamic search ad campaigns are very easy to use, and you can give them a try and see if they can add value to your PPC efforts. They will not compete directly with your keyword-based campaigns, so you can use them without worrying about raising the bids for your target keywords.
When starting with DSA, monitor them as usual, optimize them, and give them enough time before deciding whether to keep them or not.
