One of the most tedious parts of any digital marketing campaign is creating enough ad sizes and formats to cover all your bases. Some websites only show leaderboards (728 x 90-pixel banners at the top of the screen), while other websites only allow text ads. Fortunately, Google Ads has provided a solution in Responsive Display Ads.
Responsive Display Ads is a Google Ads tool that uses machine learning to turn various assets you provide into ads that fit within any context. Think of Google Ads as the baker while you provide the ingredients. As long as the ingredients are fine and the baker knows how to use them, many different types of bread, pasta, and pastries out of a combination of flour, water, sugar, and salt are possible.
Similarly, you provide Google Ads with a few assets. Google Ads then tests these assets in different formats and contexts to find which ones provide you with the highest possible conversion rates. Assets include images, videos, headlines, descriptions, and logos.
You might be wondering, “Why should an advertiser consider using responsive display ads? Is it not better to completely tailor your ads to your target audience?” The answer, dear marketer, is efficiency.
Google Ads still allows you to use standard image ads. That means you can always upload custom-sized ads and exercise complete creative control. Unfortunately, these ads will only show on websites that have space for them, and you might not be able to reach a fundamental part of your target audience.
Responsive Display Ads are all about efficiency. By testing different combinations of your assets on different audiences, Google Ads finds target audiences and tailors your ads to them. As long as you give Google the right ingredients, it should turn them into clicks and conversions.
If your in-house creatives crank out advertisements full of compelling copy and stellar graphics, you might wonder why you should consider using Responsive Display Ads. Heck, you might even have a staff member that knows how to use Google Web Designer to create responsive ads in HTML5.
For starters, Responsive Display Ads uses your performance history when creating ads for each slot, which is significantly more effective than HTML5 ads. Even if your programmers could make HTML5 ads that incorporate your performance history, why reinvent the wheel? Responsive Display Ads are easy, asking only for assets.
Because your control over the Responsive Display Ads comes via the assets you upload, you will still want to keep that team of creatives. They just will not have to worry as much about creating finished image ads. Your graphic designers will provide images and logos for each campaign. Your copywriters will make descriptions and headlines. You are also able to include videos in your campaign.
You should upload at least five images but can upload up to 15. If you have 15 graphics that work, use them. Try including at least two landscape photos, two portrait photos, and one square photo. For logos, you should provide one 1:1 ratio log and one 4:1 ratio logo.
As far as copy goes, your writers can fill up to 11 slots. There are five 30-character headlines, five 90-character descriptions, and one 90-character long headline. Your long headline should be able to stand on its own, as it often will. Your regular headlines and descriptions should each work together. Use the descriptions to elaborate on each headline you create.
You might still be asking yourself, “Why should an advertiser consider using Responsive Display Ads?” There are many benefits to Responsive Display Ads, including asset optimization, expanded reach, and efficient use of time.
The first answer to “why should an advertiser consider using Responsive Display Ads” is that they optimize your assets. If you have great logos, awe-inspiring videos, and remarkable copy, you want them to be able to use them in your ads and have people see them. By using Responsive Display Ads, you will create many different ads out of your assets that suit your audience. That is much better than creating a standard image ad, finding out it does not convert, and scratching your head about whether it was the assets or the ad size that did not work.
Not having the right size ad with the best possible combination of assets for each situation limits your reach. Perhaps your audience is nested on a webpage that only displays skyscraper ads (160 x 600-pixel banner ads), but you created a leaderboard ad. This would cause a missed opportunity and inefficient spending. By using Responsive Display Ads, you ensure that your logos, images, videos, and descriptions reach the right people at the right time.
Another reason to “why should an advertiser consider using Responsive Display Ads?” is that they save you time. You do not need to make ads, run them in campaigns, check how they perform, and go back to the drawing board. The only thing you need to do is see how your bidding affects your performance rate and which assets perform better (if text ads convert the most people, play to your strengths, and focus your energy on descriptions and headlines).
The only reason not to use Responsive Display Ads is if you want complete creative control. In some cases, creative control is necessary. For most situations, Responsive Display Ads work the best.
Answer: They’ll automatically create ads from your images, videos, headlines, logos, and descriptions.
Now you know the answer to “why should an advertiser consider using responsive display ads?” As long as your ads and copy are quality, these versatile ads will serve you well and drive your key performance indicators. An area to boost your campaign further that works well with responsive ad types is incorporating dynamic remarketing. Almost anything you can do with standard image ads is better with Responsive Display Ads.
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