Responsive Ads for Google Display

On January 31, AdWords publishers will no longer be able to create or edit standard text ads for the display network, as Google is encouraging the adoption of responsive ads instead.

To begin with, what are responsive ads?

Responsive ads can automatically adjust themselves to fit into available ad space across GDN, the Google Display Network. The ad’s format, appearance, and content will be tailored to match the look and feel of the web page. Theoretically, this new development means a more naturally and visually pleasing ad experience for the users and better campaign performance for the advertisers.

What are the responsive ads’ main advantages?

• The “one size fits all” approach spares advertisers time and money since they do not have to create multiple variations of the same ad in different sizes. To set up a responsive ad, you need to upload the assets including the business name, logo, headline, a description, images and a final URL to the AdWords interface. Also, you can customize the URL parameters if you want.
• Based on the ads’ past performance, Google will optimize the creative assets you have uploaded, so as the ads begin to get more data, you will see the incremental improvements in their performance.

• Responsive ads are also able to adjust to the type of device used. With the rise of ad inventory available on mobile and tablet devices, ads of this sort will give advertisers more freedom to place their ads and ensure the ads are shown, harmonizing with screen size and page content.

But, everything has two sides; there are also some disadvantages of responsive ads.

• The advent of responsive ads limits the option available for ad testing. In the past, you could split out the performance by text and image ads and look at metrics for each ad size independently, allowing you to adjust bids for ad formats and optimize the best performing ad sizes. Now, for advertisers, this is no longer possible.
• Make sure you remember that not all uploaded creative assets will appear when ads are displayed, some elements, such as description or headlines will not be shown, which depends on who Google determine which kind of combination is the best for CTR.

How are they performing so far?

Initially, advertisers witnessed the poor performance of responsive ads when compared with standard ads, but it usually takes about two or three weeks before they start to outperform the old ones.

As stated earlier, Google will optimize responsive ads based on its historical data to obtain more traction. It will usually take the algorithm several weeks to build up performance knowledge. This is also why we run standard and responsive ads simultaneously before ultimately switching to responsive ads.

To conclude, it seems Google has already recognized the need to make Display campaign setup easier for advertisers, as well as the underlying need to create and place ads that harmonize with the look and feel of the webpage on which they are displayed, ensuring a positive and beneficial ad experience for the user.