In our previous guide on how to write great PPC ads, we discussed how you can use dynamic search ads to further enhance your campaign. In this article we are going to discuss the benefits of dynamic search ads and why it is good practice to always run at least one dynamic search ad alongside your standard text ads in Google AdWords.

What Are Dynamic Search Ads

Dynamic search ads are the ad equivalent of keyword insertion.

In a standard search ad, you can use keyword insertion to amend select words or phrases in an ad to be reflective of what the user has searched for. This is similar to dynamic search ads in the sense that Google dynamically generates your headlines based on the content of your final URL and user searches.

Dynamic search ads are used to fill in any ad or keyword gaps in your existing campaign as even the most well-managed campaign can be missing relevant, more niche, searches.

Benefits Of Dynamic Search Ads

There are many benefits of dynamic search ads, including:

  • No need to do keyword research as Google will use terms and phrases found on your website/chosen landing page to show your ads to potential customers
  • Your ads will stay up to date as Google will update your ad to reflect any changes made to the page (as long as it is in their index)
  • Your headlines are generated by Google based on user searches and web page content
  • Advanced targeting options to target your whole website, specific pages or an individual URL
  • Get your message across with your description and let Google create clear headlines for you

How To Target Dynamic Search Ads

Dynamic search ads provide you with three different targeting options which will differ depending on your business goals, budget and website type i.e. e-commerce vs non-e-commerce.

  1. All web pages – by selecting this option Google will generate ads for any page on your website. This should be used with caution as some pages will be a higher priority than others. For example, do you want users to be sent to your about, terms and conditions or specific product page? If not, you should use the next targeting option.
  2. Specific webpages – arguably the most common targeting option for dynamic search ads due to the ability to filter out irrelevant pages. Here you can target specific categories such as ‘recruitment’ or specific URLs/web pages. If you want to run ads solely on products listed on your website, you can target URL’s that only contain the string ‘/product/’ or only show ads on pages related to shoes by targeting pages with titles that contain the term ‘shoes’.
  3. Page feed – if you have very specific business goals and URLs in mind to target, you can use a spreadsheet of all the URLs you want to target and upload to Google. You can target your entire list or only parts of it by labelling certain URLs with identifiers.

Need help setting up dynamic search ads for your business? We can help. Find out more about our PPC services or get in touch now.