Creating and testing ads is easier with responsive search ads

Generating the perfect ad copy can be challenging and time-consuming yet reaching customers with the right message at the right time is essential to hitting your performance goals. Testing tens, hundreds, or even thousands of ad copies to achieve the perfect ad balance requires a lot of time and resources, and now we are thrilled to have a powerful new way of helping you manage your ads. Microsoft Advertising is excited to announce the responsive search ads open beta for all our global customers.

To join this beta, we encourage you to reach out to your account team. If you don’t have an account team, complete the responsive search ads open beta form.

What are responsive search ads?

Responsive search ads make creating and testing ads easier by automating the creation of your ad. You can provide up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions and we’ll create and match the most optimal combinations to create effective ads for your potential customers. These combinations can contain up to three titles and two descriptions.

The best performing ad combinations are automatically identified and reported to you, while the underperforming ads aren’t shown again. Adapting your ad’s content to match what potential customers are searching for can help improve your campaign’s performance.

Why use responsive search ads

There are three main ways in which responsive search ads help with your search campaign:

• Reduce bulky operations and save time — One responsive search ad can generate more than 32,000 ad combinations, saving you time and space on A/B testing.
• Serve the right message at the right time — Responsive search ads adapt your text ads to closely match what someone is searching for, when they search for it.
• Improve ad performance — Responsive search ads can drive higher click-through rates (CTRs) and conversion rates (CVRs) due to the improved ad space, higher volume, and effectiveness.

Key things to know about responsive search ads

• The more headlines and more descriptions that you provide, the higher the probability of your ad being more relevant in any given auction.
• Use the ad strength widget to understand how well your responsive search ads will perform. This widget gets populated dynamically as you type your asset candidates, and it provides recommendations on how to better create your ad.

Ad strength widget on the top right.

Best practices for responsive search ads

• Create responsive search ads in the same campaigns with your current expanded text ads to avoid impression and click loss when testing effectiveness of responsive search ads.
• Take advantage of the additional headline limits and provide at least 8-10 unique headlines that don’t contain similar phrases and at least two distinct descriptions with a clear call-to-action message.
• Constantly review responsive search ads via performance results in the combination report page.
• Headlines and descriptions can appear in any order unless you pin a header or description to a specific position. The second description and third headline are optional and might not be displayed in cases where ads won't fit on a specific device. We don't recommend that you use pinning unless you need to show specific content every time. In that case, pin to positions 1 or 2 for headlines and position 1 for descriptions.

During the open beta, you can create and manage responsive search ads via Microsoft Advertising online, Microsoft Advertising Editor, Google Import, and the bulk API. Check out our help page for more examples and details on responsive search ads.

Share your thoughts

For any questions or feedback regarding responsive search ads, reach out to your Microsoft Advertising account manager or contact support. You can also ping us on Twitter, suggest a feature on the Microsoft Advertising Feature Suggestions Forum, or send an email to advertising-feedback@microsoft.com.