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About responsive search ads

Note

Display URL options are available for pharmaceutical advertisers. This setting allows advertisers to choose how they want to display their website's URL in pharmaceutical ads.

Important

  • Advertisers can no longer create new or edit existing Expanded Text ads or Standard Text ads.
  • Existing Expanded Text ads continue to serve, and you can still view reports on their performance. You can still pause, enable, or remove your expanded text ads.
  • Standard Text ads stopped serving in February 2025.
  • We recommend upgrading your Expanded Text ads and Standard Text ads to Responsive Search ads. Learn more

Responsive Search ads make creating ads easier by eliminating the need to figure out which headlines and descriptions work well together to maximize your ROI. You can provide up to fifteen headlines and four descriptions or you can save time and maximize ad performance with autogenerated assets. Microsoft Advertising will use the most optimal combinations to create effective ads for potential customers. Enhance your headlines and descriptions by reviewing your ad strength score and implementing our suggestions for improvement. Our suggestions ensure that your ad text is relevant and appealing to people searching for your product or service. See Best practices for creating effective Responsive Search ads for more information about setting up your Responsive Search ads for success.

You may choose to leverage your Responsive Search ads by copying them to Multimedia ads. We'll take your existing Responsive Search ad assets and use them to convert your ads to Multimedia ads. To learn more, see Multimedia ads.

Responsive Search ads take care of analyzing ad performance. The best performing ad combinations are automatically identified and reported to you, while the ineffective ads aren't shown again. Adapting your ad's content to match what potential customers are searching for can help to improve your campaign's performance. See View Responsive Search ad performance reports for information on viewing your asset reports.

Save time by seamlessly adding images from your website to your Responsive Search ads. Learn more.

About Display URL options

Note

Not everyone has this feature yet. If you don't, don't worry—it's coming soon!

Display URL options is a campaign-level setting that allows pharmaceutical advertisers to control how their URL appears in ads. This helps advertisers meet governmental guidelines, regulations, and restrictions by providing two distinct options for how website URLs appear in their pharmaceutical ads:

  • Show Final URL: This is the landing page URL. In other words, the URL of the page that displays after a customer clicks on your ad.

  • Show website description: This shows a description of the advertiser's website, rather than a URL. When potential customers click the website description, they are taken to the advertiser's landing page. Advertisers can choose the website description and the language it serves in from the predefined list. If you choose this option, the website description will always appear in your ads even if you enter a Display URL or Final URL at the ad level.

    Note

    This option is only available for pharmaceutical advertisers in the United States.

Note

Pharmaceutical advertisers also have the option to show a Display URL in their ads instead of a Final URL or a website description.

See Create a Responsive Search ad in a new campaign for further instructions about setting your Display URL options during campaign creation. You can also adjust and update your Display URL options in your campaign settings:

Adjust your Display URL options in your campaign settings

  1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Campaigns.
  2. Select the appropriate campaign.
  3. Select Settings.
  4. Choose Show Final URL or Show website description below Display URL options.
  5. Select Save.

Create a new Responsive Search ad

You can create a Responsive Search ad in a new or existing campaign.

  • Create a Responsive Search ad in a new campaign

    1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Create.
    2. Choose Drive conversions or Generate leads as your campaign goal.
    3. Select Search as your campaign type.
    4. Select Search ads below Which ad type would you like to serve?
    5. Below Political advertising declaration, you need to declare whether your campaign is intended for political advertising. If your campaign isn't intended for political advertising, select the checkbox next to By selecting Continue, I confirm that this campaign is not intended for political advertising. Otherwise, you must remove any political advertising from your campaign and then proceed. Learn more about how we define political advertising.
    6. Select Continue.
    7. The campaign creation wizard will then walk you through the process:

    • 1. Campaign settings

      • Campaign name

        Give your campaign a unique name. It's a good idea to have your campaign's name reflect its goal.

        Note

        A campaign name cannot contain scripts, HTML, or other markup language.

      • Campaign budget

        This is the amount of money you want to spend per day. Learn more about your budget options

      • Location

        This is where in the world you want your ads to appear. You can target or exclude specific countries/regions, states/provinces, cities, or zip/postal codes. Learn more about how language and location targeting affect who can see your ads

      • Who?

        If you're targeting by location, who exactly should see your ads? People in your targeted locations, people searching for or viewing pages about your targeted locations, or both?

      • Language

        This is the language you'll write your ads in. This should match the language of the sites that you'd like your ads to appear on. Learn more about language options in Microsoft Advertising

      • Autogenerated assets

        When enabled, this setting automatically generates relevant, high-quality assets for your ads to save you time and effort. This helps boost ad performance and click-through rate.

        Note

        Autogenerated assets are enabled by default. Learn more.

      • Disclaimer

        If you're advertising products that require additional caveats for legal or other reasons, select the checkbox to add a disclaimer.

      • Display URL options

        Note

        Not everyone has this feature yet. If you don't, don't worry—it's coming soon!

        This is a campaign-level setting that allows pharmaceutical advertisers to control how their URL appears in ads. This helps advertisers meet governmental guidelines, regulations, and restrictions by providing two distinct options for how website URLs appear in their pharmaceutical ads: Show Final URL and Show website description. See About Display URL options for more information.

    • 2. Ad groups

      Learn more about keywords and how to build keyword lists

      • Your website

        Enter the URL of your website, and Microsoft Advertising will search it for ad group and keyword suggestions. If your website doesn't have all its necessary content yet, select the My website is not ready checkbox.

      • Get keyword suggestions

        If you entered a URL for Your website, this is where you'll see our suggested ad groups and keywords. You can also enter a different URL or a word or phrase relevant to your product or service and get keyword suggestions for it. Select the arrows to move ad groups or keywords into the Enter keywords box on the left.

      • Enter keywords

        If you're entering keywords manually, type or paste them here. In this box, you'll also set the appropriate match type for your keywords. Learn more about keyword match types

      • Add new ad group

        You likely have more than one facet of your campaign, so it's a good idea to create a separate ad group for each. For example, if you sell men’s clothes, you might have separate ad groups, with separate keyword lists, for dress shirts and casual shirts. Learn more about organizing your account and campaigns

    • 3. Ads & ad extensions

      • Ad type

        Choose Responsive Search ad from the dropdown.

      • Creating ads

        Create your ads by following the steps provided below.

      • Ad extensions

        Ad extensions are additional pieces of information about your business that you can add to your ads. We will feature the ad extensions that are most relevant to the campaign goal you set at the very start. Learn more about ad extensions

    • 4. Budget & bids

      • Campaign budget

        This is the amount that you set in the first step. You can make changes to it in this step and see how it affects your estimated performance.

      • Bid strategy

        Your bid strategy setting tells Microsoft Advertising how you want to manage your bids. Learn more about bid strategies

      • Ad group bid

        Try changing the bid amounts and see how the performance estimates in the table change. Learn more about these performance estimates

      • Advanced campaign settings

        Here you have the option to change your campaign's targeting settings.

  • Create a Responsive Search ad in an existing campaign

    1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Ads.

    2. Select Create ad, and then select an ad group.

    3. For Ad type, select Responsive Search ad.

    4. Enter your landing page URL in the Final URL box.

    5. Enter your Mobile URL.

    6. (For pharmaceutical advertisers only) Enter your Display URL (optional). Learn more about Display URLs.

    7. There are two options for creating your Headlines and Descriptions:

      • Manually enter them. If you manually enter them, you can have between five and fifteen headlines and up to four descriptions. Optionally, you can pin them to specific positions.
      • Enable Autogenerated assets for Responsive Search ads. If you enable Autogenerated assets for Responsive Search ads, you must still provide at least three headlines and two descriptions.

    8. Under Image extensions, select Add image to create a new image extension or choose from your image Recommendations.

      Note

      Please consider all regulatory policies and risks before using image Recommendations if your ads are for highly regulated industries, such as pharmaceuticals.

    9. Select Save.

    Note

    • At least one eligible headline must be available for each position. You can't pin all of the headlines to the same position. A headline will only be eligible for its pinned position, or any position if not pinned. Bing AI chooses the best headline per position when ads are shown.
    • At least one eligible description must be available for each position. You can't pin all of the descriptions to the same position. A description is only eligible for its pinned position, or any position if not pinned. Bing AI chooses the best description per position when ads are shown.
    • For example, you can have 3 descriptions pinned to position 1, as long as you have at least one description that is either not pinned or pinned to position 2.

Update an existing Responsive Search ad

  1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Ads.
  2. In the ad table, select the pencil icon pencil icon next to the ad you would like to edit.
  3. Enter your changes.
  4. Select Save.

Edit your text assets

  1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Ads.
  2. Select View assets details below the appropriate Responsive Search ad.
  3. Hover over the text assets (headlines or descriptions) you want to edit.
  4. Select the pencil icon and make your edits as necessary.
  5. Select Save.

Note

Your edits will go into effect and will start serving in your ads about five minutes after selecting Save.

Update multiple Responsive Search ads at the same time

  1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Ads.
  2. Select the checkbox next to the ad you want to edit and select Edit > Change ads.
  3. In the Make changes to drop-down list, choose Responsive Search ads.

To replace text in multiple ads: In the Action list, select Find and replace text, and then select the field in which you would like to replace the text. In the Find box, enter the text you want to replace. In the Replace with box, enter the new text you want to use. Select Save.

To add more headlines or descriptions: In the Action list, select Add and select Headlines or Descriptions. Enter the new headlines or descriptions text. Select Save.

To remove headlines or descriptions: In the Action list, select Remove and select Headlines or Descriptions. Select Contains, Equals, or Starts with and enter the text to find the headlines or descriptions you want to remove. Select Save.

To change current pin settings: In the Action list, select Pin and select Headlines or Descriptions. Select Contains, Equals, or Starts with and enter the text to find the headlines or descriptions you want to re-pin. In the Pin to list, select the position you want to pin the headline or description to. Make your changes and select Save.

Add images from your website to your Responsive Search ads

The redesigned ad creator experience allows you to choose which images from your website you would like to include in your Responsive Search ads.

You can easily add images from your website to your ads:

  1. When creating or updating your Responsive Search ad, under Image extensions, select Add images > Website images.
  2. Choose which image you would like to show with your ad.
  3. Select Save.

View Responsive Search ad performance reports

  • View your Responsive Search ad assets for a single ad

    1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Ads.
    2. Select View assets details below the appropriate Responsive Search ad.

  • View your assets for all Responsive Search ads across campaigns

    1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Assets.
    2. Check the columns in the grid to view asset performance.
    3. To view your assets for all Responsive Search ads across ad groups within a campaign, you can select a specific campaign and then select Assets.

  • View your combination report In the combination report, you can view the best performing ad combinations and assets for your Responsive Search ads.

    1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Ads.
    2. Select View assets details below the appropriate Responsive Search ad.
    3. Select Combinations.
    4. View your Responsive Search ads.

    Note

    If you've enabled autogenerated assets, any autogenerated assets that served in your ads will be included in the combination report.

About ad strength

Your ad strength score rates the diversity, quality, and quantity of your Responsive Search ad assets (Headlines and Descriptions). The ad strength score can be “Poor,” “Average,” “Good,” or “Excellent.” This score tells you how effective and relevant your Responsive Search ads are. To help ensure that you maximize ad performance and don't miss out on opportunities, we provide suggestions for improvement along with your ad strength score. Advertisers who improve their ad strength score from "Poor" to "Excellent" see 33% more CTR (click-through rate) on average. To help improve your ad strength, you can enable autogenerated assets and Microsoft Advertising will automatically generate assets (Headlines and Descriptions) to maximize your ad performance.

Note

Your ad strength rating takes autogenerated assets into account if you've enabled them for your campaign.

There are three ways to view your ad strength score and suggestions: During Responsive Search ad creation, in the ad grid, and in reporting.

  • View your ad strength in the ad grid

    1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Ads.
    2. Review the Ad strength column for the appropriate Responsive Search ad.
    3. Review our suggestions by hovering over the ad strength score in the column.
    4. Download your ad strength report from the table toolbar.

  • View your ad strength in reporting

    1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Reporting > Templates > Performance > Ad.
    2. Review the Ad strength column for the appropriate Responsive Search ad.
    3. Review our suggestions by hovering over the ad strength score in the column.
    4. Download your ad strength report from the table toolbar.

  • Suggestions

    There are several suggestions we may have for you based on your ad strength:

    • Add longer descriptions or headlines: Maximize the amount of ad text you have available and provide potential customers with more information about your product or service.

    • Add more descriptions or headlines: Be sure to add up to four descriptions and fifteen headlines so you can have as many ad combinations as possible.

    • Include popular keywords in descriptions or headlines: Review your keyword metrics in the keyword grid: From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Keywords > Keywords.

      Then, include popular keywords in your headlines or descriptions.

    • Make your descriptions or headlines more unique: Avoid using repetitive language and highlight your product or service by focusing on distinctive selling points to attract customers.

    • Unpin description or headline positions: When you pin your descriptions or headlines to specific positions, you decrease the number of ad combinations. Unpin them to create more ad variation and help attract customers.

    • Use dynamic keyword insertion in descriptions or headlines: Automatically customize your ads to make them more effective and relevant by using dynamic keyword insertion.

Autogenerated assets

Note

Autogenerated assets are enabled by default.

This setting automatically generates relevant, high-quality assets for your ads to save you time and effort. This helps boost ad performance and click-through rate. We'll use information pulled from your landing page (Final URL) to automatically generate relevant assets.

Benefits of using autogenerated assets

  • Save time. Let Microsoft Advertising automatically create your Headlines and Descriptions, so you don't have to create them manually. This will increase the number of assets available for your Responsive Search ads.

  • Improve ad performance. We'll generate assets that are expected to return the best results, such as higher click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and more impressions.

  • More relevant ads. We'll leverage content from your website's landing page to customize your assets based on what potential customers are searching for.

  • Enable autogenerated assets

    Autogenerated assets are enabled by default. However, if you've disabled them and want to enable them again, you can do so either in your campaign settings or in the campaigns grid.

    • In your campaign settings
    1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Campaigns.
    2. Select the appropriate campaign.
    3. Select Settings.
    4. Below Autogenerated assets, select the checkbox next to Automatically generate assets for my Responsive Search ads.
    5. Select Save.
    • In the campaigns grid
    1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Campaigns.
    2. Select the appropriate campaign(s).
    3. Select Edit > Edit autogenerated asset settings.
    4. Select the checkbox to enable autogenerated assets.
    5. Select Save.

  • Disable autogenerated assets

    If you want to disable this setting, you can do so either in your campaign settings or in the campaigns grid.

    • In your campaign settings
    1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Campaigns.
    2. Select the appropriate campaign.
    3. Select Settings.
    4. Below Autogenerated assets, clear the checkbox next to Automatically generate assets for my Responsive Search ads.
    5. Select Save.
    • In the campaigns grid
    1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Campaigns.
    2. Select the appropriate campaign(s).
    3. Select Edit > Edit autogenerated asset settings.
    4. Clear the checkbox to disable autogenerated assets.
    5. Select Save.

  • Delete your autogenerated assets

    1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Assets.
    2. Select the checkbox next to the autogenerated asset(s) that you want to delete.
    3. Select Delete in the blue bar.
    4. Select Yes to acknowledge that your selected asset(s) will be permanently removed from all campaigns, ad groups, and ads associated with your account.

  • View reports for your autogenerated assets

    Asset report

    There are two ways to view asset reports for autogenerated assets:

    • View your autogenerated assets for a single Responsive Search ad:
    1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Ads.
    2. Select View assets details below the appropriate Responsive Search ad.
    3. View the Source column to see if the asset was autogenerated or advertiser-provided.
    • View your autogenerated assets for all Responsive Search ads across campaigns:
    1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Assets.
    2. Select View assets details below the appropriate Responsive Search ad.
    3. View the Source column to see if the asset was autogenerated or advertiser-provided.

    Combination report

    In the combination report, you can view the best performing ad combinations and assets for your Responsive Search ads.

    1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Ads & extensions > Ads.
    2. Select View assets details below the appropriate Responsive Search ad.
    3. Select Combinations.
    4. View your Responsive Search ads. If you have autogenerated assets enabled, you can view those in combination with the ads.

Best practices for upgrading Expanded and Standard Text ads to Responsive Search ads

Upgrade your Expanded Text ads and Standard Text ads to Responsive Search ads to maximize your ad performance. Here are a few tips for effectively making this transition:

  • There are two ways to upgrade your existing ads:

    Manual upgrade: Create new Responsive Search ads in Microsoft Advertising. For more information, see Create a new Responsive Search ad. We recommend that you leverage top-performing content from your ads by applying that content to distinct Responsive Search ad assets (headlines and descriptions).

    To view your ad performance, you can create an ad performance report. For more information, see Understanding the Report Builder.

    Automatic upgrade: Keep in mind there are different types of recommendations and not all of them may be for ads. Here's how to view our recommendations specifically for the purpose of creating new Responsive Search ads:

    1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Recommendations.
    2. Select Ads & extensions.
    3. View and apply our recommendations for automatically creating new Responsive Search ads.

    To learn more about Recommendations, see Ad recommendations can help boost performance.

    • Use Google import if you already have Responsive Search ads set up in your Google Ads account, Google import is your shortcut to mirror your campaigns/ad groups in Microsoft Advertising and Microsoft Advertising Editor. We highly recommend automatically scheduling Google imports to make this migration easier for you.

  • Make sure there's at least one active Responsive Search ad in each standard ad group in your Search campaigns.

  • Get familiar with Responsive Search ad performance reporting. Optimize your current Responsive Search ads by reviewing asset strength, combination reports, and other details within the Asset tab. You can also edit your text assets.

Common questions about Responsive Search ads

  • How do I add Disclaimer in ads to my Responsive Search ads? Disclaimer in ads is now available for Responsive Search ads. Learn more about Disclaimer in ads

    Learn more about Disclaimer in ads

  • What's the difference between Responsive Search ads and expanded text ads? The format for the two ad types are the same, with up to three headlines and two descriptions. Unlike expanded text ads, you can enter up to 15 headlines and four descriptions for Responsive Search ads. You can also pin a header or description to a specific position.

  • How can I monitor my Responsive Search ads' performance?

    • Track ad group metrics. Ad groups that contain both text ads and Responsive Search ads generally perform better, with improvements across different variables like click-through rates, conversions, and impressions.
    • Monitor performance data before and after creating Responsive Search ads. We recommend that you check your ad group's performance data a week before adding Responsive Search ads, let them run for at least one week or more, and then check how your ad group is performing. Keep in mind that each ad should have a minimum of 1,000 impressions to be able to properly evaluate the ad's performance.
    • Evaluate asset performance. You can view impressions by asset and combination by selecting View asset details under each Responsive Search ad in the table. Pay attention to the impression data and focus on updating assets with the lowest impressions to improve performance.

  • With the third ad title and second description, is it guaranteed that all will serve at the same time? The system is constantly evaluating best ways to show the text ad based on screen size and other constraints.

  • Will Responsive Search ads work with all existing ad extensions? Yes, all existing ad extensions will continue to display on Responsive Search ads.

  • What does pinning a headline or description to a specific position do?

    Headlines and descriptions can appear in any order, unless you pin a header or description to a specific position, when headlines or descriptions are shown. We recommend that you pin positions 1 and 2 for headlines and position 1 for descriptions.

    Keep in mind that pinning restricts the number of header or descriptions combinations to match a customer's search.

    To maximize impressions across all ad formats, the descriptions might not always be shown in your ad.

  • What is ad strength? Ad strength indicates the diversity, quality, and quantity of the assets that make up a Responsive Search ad, ranging from "poor" to "excellent". This gets populated dynamically as you type your asset candidates and provides corresponding recommendations on how to better create your ad.

  • How do I view and apply Responsive Search ad recommendations?

    1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Recommendations.
    2. Under All recommendations, find the Responsive Search ad recommendation tile and select View recommendation.
    3. Review the recommended Responsive Search ad and select Apply.
      You can also make edits to the recommended ad, which go through a review. During the review, which typically takes less than three hours (but could take up to one business day), your ad might not run.
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