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Expanded Text Ads – The End Is Coming

fiona hawley
Fiona Hawley
3 minutes

Do you know that starting from June 30, 2022, you won’t be able to create or edit Expanded Text Ads (ETAs) in Google Ads? It’s true; the end is coming.
Keep on reading to make sure you’re fully prepared.

One of the things you need to know is that while you’ll still be able to pause and resume your expanded text ads, you won’t be able to create new ones. Don’t wait; now is the best time for you to start transitioning to Responsive Search Ads (RSAs). 

What is it anyway?

So what is an RSA? It is an ad that can dynamically adapt to show the more relevant text (or messages) to your customers. With responsive ads, you can enter up to 15 headlines and four descriptions and let Google mix these into different combinations that will eventually give you the most performing combination. You can check the details about how to create responsive ads here.

While changes like this can be scary, this Google Ads update can give you a lot of benefits. RSAs generally perform better than the usual ads because Google’s algorithm can help you match the headlines and descriptions you submitted on the responsive search ads with your potential customer’s search queries, which eventually can improve your ad performance.

If you have any specific message you’d like to show prominently in the ads, you can always pin them so that they will always appear in the position that you’d like. Pinning means deciding where the ad element will show, either Headline 1, 2 or 3 or Description 1 or 2. 

An article from Smarter Ecommerce outlined the differences between RSAs and ETAs well:

What’s the next step?

Now that you know what RSAs are, the first thing you need to do is to make sure that you have at least one responsive ad on every ad group that you have in your Google Ads account.

Try to keep the headlines and descriptions unique to have better insights on which headlines and descriptions are working best. On the headlines, while you can add up to 15 headlines (keep that brain working, yo!), you can start by adding at least five unique headlines and add more later. The more headlines you add, however, the better the performance could get.

If you have ETAs that are performing well, you can always keep them live, as these ads will still run and will continue giving you performance and insights. However, remember that editing or creating new ones won’t be possible.

How to assess RSAs performance?

Good question! With RSAs, Google provides an asset report for each ad element within your responsive search ad. This will help you see which assets are performing best and which are not doing so well, so you can use these insights to create better RSAs moving forward.

You can check the asset report by following these steps:

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. Click Ads & extensions from the page menu.
  3. Find and click on the relevant responsive search ad.
  4. Click View asset details at the bottom of the relevant responsive search ad.

You can read more about asset report elements from this Google article.

Worried about this change?

If you’re still unsure how to manage RSAs in your account, please contact us today. Our team will be happy to help you manage this transition to make sure it will go smoothly.

    Jon Dawson, CEO of Digital Ninjas
    Jonathan will get back to you soon

    If you need help with the day-to-day management of your Google Ad Grant, paid Google Adwords account or some other area of your digital marketing life, please get in touch, and we’ll let you know how we might be able to help.