Dynamic Search Ad Examples and Best Practices

Benefits of Dynamic Search Ads 

They save time

Setting up these catch-all campaigns when you have a ton of products that you offer is a huge time saver. Rather than setting up many different campaigns, creating keywords and ads for each of them, Google does the work for you. 

Google will dynamically generate the landing page, the headline and the display URL. They also take the work out of picking keywords to target. All you need to do is create your description!

Constant updates to ads

Dynamic search ads are not only a huge time saver, they also ensure your ads are getting constant updates. When you have a ton of search ads running, it’s really difficult and time consuming to go back to old ads and refresh the creative. Google will be constantly crawling your site for your dynamic ads, ensuring up to date and relevant information is being included in your ads and headlines are generated accordingly!

They ensure your entire catalog is being targeted

We’re constantly adding new products and brands to our website. It’s difficult to stay on top of changes and always ensure ads are getting set up and updated for each change we make on our site. Dynamic search ads ensure we have ads running that can target our entire inventory catalog at all times. They make sure we’re not missing out on anything and give all products a fair chance of being shown.

They’re a great complement to existing search campaigns

When setting up your regular search campaigns, there’s no possible way you’re going to be able to target every possible keyword for each product you’re selling. Dynamic campaigns help you fill in these gaps so you’re not missing out on new potential customers. 

When we’re targeting all pages on our website, we know that even if we have other campaigns set up for certain pages or brands, our dynamic campaign will fill in any missing gaps.

You can set negative dynamic ad targets

You may have certain products or brands that don’t perform well on Google ads. One great aspect about dynamic search ads is that if you have a poor performer, you’re not stuck serving ads for it, even if your ad is targeting your entire website. You can utilize negative dynamic ad targets so that poor performers can be paused. 

Learn More: Utilize Search Terms Report to Formulate a Killer Negative Keyword List

You can see in the image below, we’ve added negative dynamic ad targets to some of the brands that we no longer want to promote, either because we aren’t selling them anymore or because they don’t perform well for us on Google ads. We also make sure to set our blog pages as negative dynamic ad targets. We want people to come to our product pages through these ads so they can make purchases, not our blog pages, where people are more likely just searching for information.

Alternatively, if you have great content on your blog pages and want traffic coming there, you can choose to only target your blog pages in your dynamic search campaign. This is an idea that we’ve had for The Media Captain!

How to Create Dynamic Search Ads

Creating dynamic search ads on Google is really easy. Google does a great job of walking through the steps. I also recorded a video setting up a dynamic search ad so you can have a visual reference. 

Dynamic Search Ads vs. Responsive Ads (the difference)

While both responsive and dynamic ads dynamically respond to user search queries and give Google the ability to customize ads to the viewer’s search queries, they are really very different. 

According to Google, “Responsive search ads let you create an ad that adapts to show more relevant messages to your customers. Enter multiple headlines and descriptions when creating a responsive search ad, and over time, Google Ads automatically tests different combinations and learns which combinations perform best.”

With responsive search ads, you can create multiple headlines and descriptions so you have a lot more creative freedom than with dynamic ads. You’re able to choose your final URLs and display URLs and also pick all of the search keywords you want to target. 

Below is an example of a responsive search ad. As you can see, there’s a lot of flexibility when it comes to how your ad will display.

Dynamic ads, on the other hand, only allow you to create descriptions and Google takes care of the rest. You don’t choose keywords, and instead pick specific pages or categories on your website to target.

Although responsive search ads give you a lot more freedom when it comes to headlines, final & display URLs and keyword targeting, they are both really great options and serve different purposes.

Learn More: How to Create PPC Responsive Search Ads that Work

In Closing

• Dynamic search ads are a great option for those with large scale websites.
• Google does most of the work for you when it comes to dynamic search ads, so they can be a big time saver.
• Dynamic search ads ensure your entire catalog is getting served and are a great complement to regular search ads.
• While there’s not a ton of customization that can take place with dynamic search ads, you can choose which pages on your site to target. 
• While both responsive and dynamic ads dynamically respond to user search queries and give Google the ability to customize ads to the viewer’s search queries, they are really very different.