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Best practices for creating effective responsive search ads

You can easily set up your Responsive Search ads for success by leveraging Microsoft Advertising's tools and features to enhance your campaigns.

In addition, you can review our list of best practices to ensure that your ads are effective and relevant for your customers.

Best practices for responsive search ads

  • Create responsive search ads in existing ad groups. We recommend you have a minimum of one active responsive search ad in an ad group. Please note that there is a limit of three enabled responsive search ads per ad group.
  • Provide as many unique assets as possible. Aim to provide at least 8-10 distinct headlines that don't contain similar phrases. Use a combination of short and long headlines to maximize space on any device. Create titles that are related to and contain your keywords and use at least 1 brand title. Use a single dynamic keyword insertion. Make sure to have at least 3 other headlines that don't include your keywords—instead, try adding information about your unique features, benefits, or shipping details.
  • Make content distinct. Avoid repetitive language and create distinct descriptions. Include additional product or service benefits and features, a clear call to action, and shipping and return information.
  • Avoid pinning headlines or descriptions, if possible. Pinning restricts the number of headline or description combinations to match a customer's search.
  • Combine auto-bidding to optimize your target metrics.
  • Review your ad strength score and suggestions. Our suggestions can help optimize your assets and improve campaign performance.

We recommend that you consider using the following to streamline the process of creating and maintaining responsive search ads and take advantage of the full range of their capabilities:

Ad customizers

With ad customizers, you can dynamically transform a single ad into numerous variations in real time to appeal to specific customers' web searches without having to manually update the ad. This can save time and help you increase ad relevance and engagement with higher click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates. All you need to do is create your custom attributes (text, number, price, and/or percent) in Microsoft Advertising or upload an ad customizer feed that tells us what information you want inserted into your ads based on potential customers' search queries. See About ad customizer for ads to learn more about creating and using ad customizers.

Ad strength score and suggestions

We recommend that you review your ad strength score and implement our suggestions. Your ad strength score indicates how effective and relevant your ads are for potential customers with the aim of helping you improve ad performance. Ad strength rates the diversity, quality, and quantity of your ad's headlines and descriptions. Along with your ad strength score—ranging from “Poor,” “Average,” “Good,” or “Excellent”—we provide suggestions for improvement. See About Responsive Search ads to learn more about your ad strength score and the suggestions we may have for you based on your ad strength.

Auto-generated assets

When you enable auto-generated assets for Responsive Search ads, you can easily increase the number of headlines and descriptions available for your ads and improve performance by allowing Microsoft Advertising to automatically create them. We leverage information and content from your landing page (Final URL) to generate relevant assets based on your potential customers' search queries. We customize your assets based on what's expected to return the best results, such as higher click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and more impressions. See About Responsive Search ads to learn more about enabling and using auto-generated assets.

Countdowns to events

Dynamic text parameters

Customize the keywords that show in your ads based on what people search for by inserting dynamic text parameters {keyword}, {param1}, {param2}, and {param3} into your ad titles and ad text. Your ads will update in real time to match the search queries and keywords that potential customers are using to find products and services. Dynamic text can help improve your ads' performance, quality score, and ad placement on the page. See Automatically customize your ads with dynamic text parameters to learn more about creating and using dynamic text parameters. Please note that you can also use capitalization of the dynamic text keyword placeholder to make sure that your keywords are always capitalized as appropriate during ad delivery.

IF functions

Like dynamic text parameters, IF functions show specific text based on what potential customers are searching for, but only when the exact conditions of the IF function are met. If the conditions are met, the parameter is replaced by the text you specify to ensure that you're sending the right message at the right time. See About IF functions to learn more about creating and using IF functions.

Location insertion

Tailor your ads to an audience in a specific location to increase ad relevancy with location insertion. You can simply insert different text parameters within your ads' headlines and descriptions based on local areas, states, or even countries. Potential customers in your chosen locations will see the exact headlines and descriptions you want them to see, ensuring that your ad is capturing their attention with the right messaging. See Location insertion for Responsive Search ads and Multimedia ads to learn more about creating and using location insertion.

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