Expanded text ads are going away, but they can still help you unlock the potential of RSAs. At SMX Next, Joe Martinez shared how he benchmarks with ETAs to get more out of the automated capabilities of RSAs.
“The more the platforms automate, the more we, as search marketers, lose control.” That has largely been the rhetoric over the years, and while there is certainly some truth to it, there are techniques that can help you reap the benefits of automation without sacrificing control.
Google has already announced plans to deprecate expanded text ads (ETAs), leaving advertisers with no choice but to embrace responsive search ads (RSAs). However, marketers can still use what they have learned from ETAs to improve their RSAs, increasing their chances of a successful transition. At SMX Next, Joe Martinez, co-founder at Paid Media Pros, shared how he benchmarks with ETAs to get the most out of the automated capabilities of RSAs.
Create ETAs to use later
“RSAs can really be hit or miss,” Martinez said, noting that “The reporting for this ad format is fairly poor.” “They [Google] give you a ‘good,’ ‘better,’ ‘best’-type aspect of how your ads are performing and we still see the overall metrics within the main columns, but we don’t get the right information on which combinations of the responsive search ads are performing best, because we can add in a variety of different headlines, different descriptions, but we don’t know what combinations are working.”
This lack of performance transparency is even more troubling for advertisers that currently rely on expanded text ads, since Google is sunsetting the format in June 2022.
“So, to prepare for this, you need to start making sure that you are focusing on adding as many expanded text ads in your account as possible,” Martinez said, “I’ve typically held around three to four expanded text ads — well, now we’re starting to add even more.”