How to Use Responsive Display Ads Specs for Better GDN Campaigns

The world of paid advertising has dramatically transformed over the past few years. There is now a wide range of tools, reports and features that provide marketers with more dynamic ways of reaching their target users.

However, despite these advancements, marketers struggle to create display advertising programs. They either don’t have the design expertise or the capacity to develop attractive advertisements. Even when they’re capable of designing great-looking ads, they may not know the ins and outs of the specs, such as ad sizes and types.

This issue is one of the reasons why Google introduced responsive display ads (RDAs). The purpose is to help online marketers while filling more ad placements. This article will discuss how advertisers can use responsive display ads specs to design better ads and therefore, better campaigns

What are Responsive Display Ads?

Responsive display ads automatically adjust to the size, format, and appearance needed to fit within available ad spaces. Introduced few years back these are a version of Google Ads that combines machine learning (ML) elements  to increase your display ads’ effectiveness.

Responsive display ads allow for scale and performance while enabling you to customize all assets to match your brand’s look and feel. They allow you to get a higher return-on-investment (ROI) and scale on Google and Google Partner Inventory.

How to Make Responsive Display Ads

Suppose you own an apparel brand and you want to create a responsive ad for it. There are two ways to go about it. Either you use an already existing campaign, or you may create a new campaign.

Case 1: You Already Have a Campaign

First, click on left top of the Google Ads dashboard. You will see a few options. Now, click on the Display campaign option.

Next, Click on Ads & extensions and select Ads. Next, click on the plus sign.

Click on Responsive display ad.

Look for the name of your existing campaign by entering its name.

By clicking on your desired campaign, you will get the list of Ad Groups in it. Choose your Ad Group here.

Now, enter your Final URL.

Enter your Images and Logos by clicking on + Images and Logo.

You can choose 15 images and five logos to use in your ad.

Use SEARCH A URL option if you want Google to scan images from your website. Google will automatically grab all photos from your website that are needed by Google Ads.

If you want to upload your ad images, use the UPLOAD option. As mentioned, you can upload 15 photos and five logos for your ad.

Go for STOCK IMAGES if you don’t have any images on your site, and you want to use relevant images by searching stock photos.

After you select all images, click on SAVE.

If you want to add a video to your ad campaign, you can also put a video link from YouTube by clicking on + Videos. However, Google Ads will show only the first 30 seconds of your video in the ad.

You can add a headline, it’s 30 characters, which could be a punchline or slogan. You can enter five different types of headlines.

Next, add a Long Headline of up to 90 characters.

In the Description field, you can describe your product or service that you are advertising. It allows up to 90 characters, and you can add five different types of Descriptions.

Add your Business Name (Company’s name).

To create more ad formats, click on Additional format options. Google Ads will create random videos for you. You will only have to add some images.

Next, click on Save.

Case 2: Create New Responsive Display Ads

Creating new responsive display ads will automatically reformat them into many unique formats. These ads include almost all formats, so your reach can be much higher.

To create a new campaign, click on New Ad.

Next, click on the Responsive display ad in the pop-up window.

Another window will appear.

Add your Final URL.

Include your Images and Logos by clicking on + Images and Logo.

As mentioned in the first case, use SEARCH A URL if you want Google to scan your website’s images.

Alternatively, you may use the UPLOAD option to add your ad images. You will have to upload 15 images and five logos.

Use STOCK IMAGES if you don’t have any images on your website or in your collection.

After selecting images selection, click on SAVE.

To add videos to your campaign, include a video link from YouTube by clicking on “+ Videos.” Google Ads will show only the first 30 seconds of your video.

You can add a 30-character headline, which could be a punchline or slogan. Include five variations of the headline.

Next, add a 90-character Long Headline.

Then, describe your product or service in the “Description” field using up to 90 characters. You can have five different variations of “Description.”

Next, add your Business name.

For more ad formats, click on “Additional format options.” Google Ads will then create random videos for you while only requiring you to provide some images.

Next, click on Save.

When Should You Use Responsive Display Ads?

1. When You Don’t Wish to Hire an External Designer

Creating standard display ads can involve a great deal of effort. You will require a wide range of images in a variety of sizes. Often, small businesses don’t have internal design experts that can help them create these ads.

Moreover, they may be hesitant or not capable of engaging outside designers. However, with responsive display ads, you only require some high-resolution images and a logo to start running a campaign.

2. When You Don’t Want to Rely on Your Internal Designers

Designing the images required for standard image ads can still be challenging for businesses with an internal team of designers. That’s because their request for pictures may not be the topmost priority for the internal designers.

In case there’s a backlog of work, they may have to wait for days or even months to get the resources they want. During this time, they may end up missing out on good opportunities. In this scenario, understanding responsive display ads specs to create your own can be an excellent interim solution.

3. When You Might Need Better Performance

Often, advertisers witness better performance with RDAs than typical display ads.

However, this isn’t always the case. So you can’t wholly rely on RDAs for ideal performance.

4. When You Want to Deploy Video Assets

Video assets are a great way to gain advertising traction. That’s why many brands today are always seeking ways to deploy them. Now it is possible to do so in responsive display ads.

You can choose up to five videos (maximum 30 seconds in duration) from your YouTube channel to show in your RDAs. Moreover, you can have at least one landscape and square image, along with your headlines and descriptions.

According to Google, instead of images, your videos will be displayed whenever the algorithm determines that videos can better drive the advertiser’s performance.

5. When You’re Looking For Continuous Optimization

Machine learning technology is getting smarter over time, as it gathers more data. Plus, it doesn’t make the same errors that humans do. This guarantees that your advertisements become more optimized over time. Therefore, you can deliver more targeted, engaging ads for every user segment.

6. When You Want More Flexibility for Testing

RDAs give you more space in the base content, with three headlines as compared to two. Plus, you get two 90-character description fields instead of just one 80-character line.

Once you plan to use RDAs, you can create up to 15 headlines and four descriptions, meaning you get a lot of flexibility for testing different ideas.

7. When You Wish to Save Time and Money

Previously, Google Display Network (GDN) advertisers had to make banner ads in several sizes and formats to reach their target users across the web. There are several sizes and types of ads available across the GDN, and making unique ads for each could be a time-consuming chore. This hurdle would generally force a designer to create and reconfigure banner ads in different dimensions. From a design resource perspective, this could be laborious and costly.

RDAs resolve this issue as designers only have to provide some images, and Google Ads automatically adjust the size, appearance, and format to fit available ad spaces.

8. When You Need An Easy-to-Setup and Upgrade System

Setting up RDAs is a fast and easy process that occurs directly in the Google Ads user interface. Marketers enter preferred text and images, and Ads handles the rest. To make an RDA, you only need a headline, description, images, logo, and landing page.

Bear in mind that Google Ads will not necessarily include all of the above responsive display ads specs for every ad format. For example, sometimes, it makes a responsive ad that does not have an image. Make sure you see the ad preview link to check out a few examples of what your ad will look like in different sizes and formats to decide if you should make any modifications.

It is easy to upgrade RDAs, and they also provide many additional benefits to GDN campaigns. The simple configuration and better flexibility can save time, money, and assets. Start testing RDAs in your Ads account to extend reach to your target users. You should also make sure to track performance and keep an eye out for invalid clicks to prevent affecting your conversion rate.

9. When You Want a Fast and Efficient Solution

Suppose you typically run a couple of display ads together. In that case, it can be a laborious process to change image sizes and make other essential adjustments to make sure ads are appropriately sized and shown. Responsive display ads take care of all these tasks for you, making it easier to prepare, run, and administer them.

10. When You Wish to Amplify Your Message

Rather than meticulously preparing a small number of display ads mainly designed to fit specific ad spaces, you can create highly adaptable responsive display ads. This process gives you the chance to get your message out to a broader user segment.

Moreover, Google’s machine learning models automatically decide which headlines will likely work with which ads. This system increases your message’s effectiveness with your target users even further.

11. When You Want to Use Appealing Options and Features

Unsurprisingly, Google has included some extra responsive display ad features since these ads first rolled out. These features enable advertisers to include video elements and monitor how their RDAs are performing. The new features include:

• Combinations Tab – Located under “View Asset Details,” this tab shows which varieties of images, text, video, and other ad elements produce the best results.
• Ad Scorecard – This feature provides every ad a graded score for ad strength and suggestions based on steps to increase your score for that specific ad.

FAQs About Responsive Display Ads

What are Responsive Display Ads?

Responsive Display Ads (RDAs) are Google’s new default ad format for GDN powered by Google’s machine learning technology to test several inputs by marketers and then optimize for the best-performing combination shown to the users.

What Are the Main Advantages of RDAs?

RDAs automatically optimize your inputs for more conversions. They have a broader reach with adjustable sizes to fit more placements. Moreover, they save you time and money and work with dynamic remarketing. You can easily monitor the performance of every asset.

Best Practices for Creating RDAs

Optimize for Image Scaling

RDAs enable marketers to upload a few images with ads in square and landscape formats. This feature can work wonders if you have images that are not easily cropped. Even though the image upload process displays the pictures relatively large on the screen, not all resulting advertisement units will have large images. This means the images you upload can get scaled down to fit into the right space.

Suppose you’re running ads for a travel company that plans exciting trips to safari. So you have been running RDAs to produce higher user interest. When selecting your images, you observe that rhinos are favorite among the users, so you decide to use images of rhinos in your advertisements.

When selecting pictures, consider how they look at full scale. At the same time, you should also think about how they will look if scaled-down. If the pictures seem confusing or aesthetically displeasing when scaled-down, you may be losing out on the influence of a supporting image.

No Size is Optional

Approach all sizing situations on an as-needed basis. This process ensures all resulting ad variants will have the best possible representation in any space they occupy. If everything else fails, utilize the same picture, but use the crop tool to create a landscape image square or vice versa.

Be Flexible with Your Logo Where You Can

As a company, it’s natural to love your logo. However, to be recognized on the GDN, the advantage of making slight adjustments to guarantee Google identifies your logo can be worth the sacrifice.

The logo image uploads are the same as the image elements: square and landscape. The issue is that some logos are always designed to be landscape or square, and scaling can deteriorate the image quality.

If you have only a square or landscape logo, think about adjusting it for a better fit or consider removing part of it for aesthetics. Do not be afraid to utilize only the icon portion of your logo for the square portion or change alignment to make things fit better.

Be Aware of Text Combinations

In the RDA format, Google Ads gives several text fields, as seen below.

• Short Headline – 30 Characters
• Long Headline – 90 Characters
• Description – 90 Characters
• Business Name – 25 Characters

You get more text space as compared to the past. However, it is essential to note that not all text will appear together. Plus, be aware of which text fields can and will appear together, so you take maximum advantage of your given ad impression.

Headlines Will Never Appear Together

Your headlines can be different versions of the same message as they will never appear together. Therefore, you do not have to get caught up in repeating yourself.

Descriptions Can Appear with Either Short or Long Headlines

Keep in mind that descriptions can always add more weight to the headline. They will never appear without a headline, so you’ll never miss out on context. Plus, descriptions can also appear with either short or long headlines. Therefore, make sure you are not repeating text from the description headlines.

Sometimes Headlines Appear Without the Descriptions

Think about crafting headlines that are all-encompassing of a message or are attractive enough to get clicks through to learn more without the description’s help. If possible, try to include a call to action (CTA) in your long headlines.

Both Long Headline and Description Can Get Truncated

As these text fields can become cut off, you should consider front-loading the message. This ensures the audience will get all the information they need at the beginning of the text, so nothing is missed if the end is truncated. Once you know the text field combinations, it is simpler to create a copy that is educational, consistent, and non-repetitive.

Always Check Previews

Even though RDAs are generated in real-time, and there are more combinations than you think of a single ad, previews give you a small glimpse into how these ads may look. There are a series of sections that will display what your advertisements might look like once they are running during the design process. However, these are mostly limited to square versions and a single mobile-friendly view.

Wrap Up

To run responsive ads on the GDN, you don’t need a physics degree.

However, there are a few steps you can take to improve your performance without too much effort. For starters, select pictures and text wisely, know how they will work together, and ensure you have covered your regulatory bases before you start creating RDAs. Most importantly, you have to make sure to follow all responsive display ads specs to get the best possible results.

RDAs are attractive as just about any ad space can include them. Eventually, this enables advertisers to be more creative with their ads and showcase their intended message with increased conversion rate.