Setting up Dynamic Search Ads
What is a Dynamic Search Ad
Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) use your website content to target your ads and can help fill in the gaps in your keyword-based campaigns. A DSA is an advertisement that consists of only two user-generated fields: description1 and description2. The DSA headlines and landing pages are automatically generated using content from your website. This makes sure that your ads always use the most relevant and up-to-date content for your products!
It’s not possible to add keywords yourself, because Google automatically matches users’ queries to the type of product on your site or feed and shows a dynamically generated ad, tailored based on all this information gathered by Google.
How DSA targeting works
A vital part of DSAs is their dynamic ad targeting. DSAs are targeted to one or multiple landing pages that Google will use for its auto-generation. There are multiple targeting options on Google, but Channable currently supports one of these: URL Equals. This targeting option looks at specific URLs from your website and uses those pages to dynamically generate ads with the most relevant content.
How to create a DSA in Channable
Creating DSAs has specific settings in each level of ad creation. The campaign, ad group, and ad level:
Campaign level
On the campaign level, two new settings must be added:
Domain name — this is the root domain that all the dynamic ad targets have to use, such as www.channable.com
Do not include any country code (e.g. channable.com/en) in your domain name. Otherwise, you will receive the “DYNAMIC_SEARCH_ADS_SETTING_CONTAINS_INVALID_DOMAIN_NAME” error in the preview.
Language — the language of the pages from your website that you want Google Ads to find, create ads for, and match searches with.
Ad group level
If the campaign settings above are filled in, you can select the new ad group type in the next step:
In the Ad group target URL set the URL(s) which need to be used to generate the ads. This can be a static or dynamic field. If it is a dynamic field multiple dynamic ad targets of type URL Equals will be created.
Please note that the Ad Group Target URL should start with https://. You’ll receive the “WEBPAGE_CONDITION_URL_UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL” error in the preview if it doesn't.
How auto-generation of the ad works
While Google’s process of auto-generation is a black box, there are some things to keep in mind:
Google will not scrape your website’s content in real time, so a rapidly changing website will not show up-to-date headlines.
Google can make minor modifications such as changing capitalization or removing unsupported characters.
Google is unable to guarantee which headlines are shown.
Google offers Editorial Policy Rules for page titles and headlines, and recommends the use of these when using DSAs: https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6021546
Differences compared to Responsive Search Ads (RSAs)
There are three major differences:
DSAs have fewer user-generated fields, and Google will auto-generate all others.
DSA ad groups cannot have keywords (but can have negative keywords), since Google will auto-generate keywords.
DSAs need dynamic ad targets to work. Without one or multiple dynamic ad targets Google is not able to auto-generate headlines, landing pages, and keywords.
Benefits compared to Responsive Search Ads (RSAs)
Saving time — because these ads are generated by Google itself, you don't need to spend time specifically crafting ads with content and keywords.
Showing the most relevant information — since DSAs are based on your website's direct content, the content of the ad will be the most relevant possible.
Capture additional traffic — since DSAs don't work with manually set keywords, you can gain additional traffic or access new opportunities that you aren't targeting yet with keywords in your RSA campaigns.
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