Dynamic Search Ads – otherwise known as DSA, if deployed can automatically trigger search ads in Google based on keyword search.

Consider, you are an online music academy offering 1 to 1 music classes for Adults and Kids who want to learn Guitar, Piano, Keyboard, Violin, etc. With Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) enabled, when a user searches “Best Guitar Lessons”, Google will automatically trigger a headline that reads “Best Guitar Lessons” which links the ad to the relevant landing page.

This blog post will walk you through Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) to find out the pros and cons of using DSA.

How does DSA work?

First up, you must specify an URL or group of URLs from your website. Google will source content from these URLs for Dynamic Search Ads.

Whenever there is a search query that matches the content on your webpage, Google will choose to use the best landing page (webpage) for the specific search query, and it generates a headline for the ad using the content from the webpage URL.

Make sure the content on the web pages has relevant keywords, to get the best results.

When should you use DSA?

Dynamic Search Ads work much better if you have many products/services and landing pages that you are trying to promote via Google Search. You will be able to reduce the manual work of creating ads for every product/service.

Advantages:

– Dynamic Search Ads can tap into the potential of long-tail keywords. Usually, there is a tendency to overlook or miss long tail keywords in standard or responsive search ads.

– DSA can help you save time and reduce the manual work of creating headlines for ads, especially when you have many products/service offerings.

– It enables targeting more users with relevant search terms.

– It complements and works in parallel with your existing responsive search ads and helps you get more traffic and relevant leads.

Disadvantages:

– DSA should be used together with regular Search Ads. if you use only DSA, your overall ad accounts performance takes a hit

– Remember that DSA extracts content from your web pages, hence there is a possibility that Google might show up ads for keywords that may not be completely relevant to your target audience.  Use negative keywords to prevent wastage of ad spend.

– If the website is poorly optimized, your DSA might struggle to gain traction. The performance of DSA is also dependent on the health and performance of your web pages. For instance: In DSA, you cannot control the headlines of your ads so some results may be underwhelming if your web pages are not well-optimized with relevant keywords.

– While DSA can deliver more traffic, it does not come for free. As your traffic grows, so is your cost.

Set up DSA campaigns

Let us take a look at how to set up your first Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)

1. First, in your Google Ads dashboard, select “New Campaign”

2. In the next step, select one of the campaign objectives such as “Sales” or “Leads” based on your desired marketing goal.

3. Select the Campaign Type as “Search” and select the ways you would like to reach your objective, Namely – website visits, phone calls, app downloads, etc.

4. In the next step, after you set your bidding, navigate to Dynamic Ads under Campaign Settings.

Set up DSA Ad Group

Dynamic ad targets are defined at the Ad Group level which decides the pages of the website this Adgroup will target.

You can choose one of the three options to set the targeting for DSA at the Adgroup level.

1. Target all web pages

2. Target categories of products/services listed on the website

3. Target specific webpages only by inputting exact URLs

Set up DSA Ads

After you set up the DSA Campaign and DSA Ad Group, now it is time to set up DSA Ads. You just have to write the descriptions for DSA and Google will automatically create headlines and images.

You only get 90 characters to generate descriptions, so use them well. Ensure the description of the ad has a strong Call-To-Action (CTA) to entice a click from the audience.

Wrap Up

In 2022, Google’s AI is smarter than ever before and that is why it is important to utilize the potential of Dynamic Search Ads (DSA). Remember, it is not completely hands-off. You still need to do your part and with careful monitoring, experimentation, and best practices (read how to improve your Google ads), DSA can complement your efforts along with your regular Search Ad campaigns.

To learn best practices about how to set up your regular Search Ad campaigns right, do join our Google Ads course!