Automation Magic: Enhance Results With Google Responsive Display Ads

Introduction

Google Ads is one of the most important ad platforms for digital marketers, who can use it to reach potential customers on multiple platforms. These include Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page), Gmail, Youtube, and millions of content websites and apps on the Google Display Network.

While text ads on the SERP are great ways to reach high-intent prospects while they’re typing in a query, Google display ads help brands and business owners retarget recent site visitors, increase brand awareness and acquire new customers.

Introduced in 2016, Google Responsive Display Ads are a powerful tool and use automation in order to achieve advertisers’ goals. But what exactly are they, and how do they work?

In this article, we’ll take a look at Google Responsive Display Ads and how they use automation to help you create effective advertising campaigns. 

What Are Google Responsive Display Ads?

With standard banner ads, marketers have to create ads in different sizes, to fit into the most common ad placements. The design and content on these banners are usually similar in all banner sizes.

Just like responsive search ads, which mix and match different headlines and descriptions to enhance results, Google Responsive Display Ads are a type of display ad that automatically adjusts its size, format and creative elements to fit the available space on a website or app. This means that your ad will look great, no matter where it appears.

Responsive ads are created using a simple template that you can customize with your own text, images, videos, and logos. Google Ads will then use a machine-learning model to automatically test different ad types and combinations of ad elements and show them to the right people at the right time.

Dynamic Search Ads are another powerful ad type that uses automation.

How do Google Responsive Display Ads use automation?

Google Responsive Display Ads use automation in 3 main ways:

1. Automatic ad testing: Google Ads will automatically test different combinations of ad formats and elements to see what performs best. The algorithm will randomly mix and match the images, text, and videos provided and adjust the ads for each screen size. Moreover, Google data allows it to find the best combination per user. This means, if a certain user is more responsive to video assets, that’s what Google will serve to him. Another user who responds better to image ads will see those.
2. Automatic ad placement: Google Ads will automatically place your ad on websites and apps that are relevant to your target audience, according to your audience settings. Your ads will look and perform differently on desktops and mobile devices.
3. Automatic optimization: Once enough data has been gathered, Google Ads will focus on the best-performing creative elements, format, and ad placements that help advertisers achieve their goals.

This use of automation should save marketers the heavy lifting of testing and optimizing the marketing campaign, and help deliver its maximum performance.

Benefits of responsive display ads

While marketers who use responsive display ads lose some of the control over their ads’ content, they gain other benefits that are far more significant:

1. Save time: Marketers don’t have to create banner sets with 10 different sizes for each possible ad slot or worry about how their ads will show on different devices.
2. Testing and optimization: The automation of mixing multiple images and texts can expose winners and losers much faster than by running each combination separately. The reporting will show the best performers so that marketers can focus on them moving forward.
3. Show ads on Gmail and YouTube: These super important ad placements aren’t available with classic display banners. While marketers can target them specifically with a Gmail or a YouTube campaign, reaching them with responsive display ads saves time on setup, analysis, and optimization. On YouTube, video ads can show between YouTube videos, or as standard display ads.
4. Link to product feed: By linking the display campaign to the advertiser’s product feed, Google’s algorithm can also use products to test against image creatives. This is especially powerful in a dynamic remarketing campaign, where recent visitors to an online store get frequently reminded of the products they were browsing.
5. Improve ROI: Google’s machine learning can tell how each user will react to each ad format and placement. This automation helps drive better performance and improve ROI. 

How to use Google Responsive Display Ads to get the best results

Here are some best practices on how to use Google Responsive Display Ads to get the most out of your investment:

1. Choose High-Quality Images: Use visually appealing and relevant images that are high resolution and properly sized (e.g., 1.91:1 aspect ratio). This ensures your ads look professional and catch users’ attention.
2. Make sure your value proposition is clear: Craft persuasive headlines and descriptions that highlight the unique selling points of your product or service. Experiment with different variations to find the most effective combination.
3. Preview your ads: Make sure as many combinations as possible look good on desktop and mobile devices, on Gmail, and on display ad placements.
4. Leverage Responsive Text: Take advantage of responsive text fields, which automatically adapt your ad’s text to fit available ad space. This helps optimize your message and increase relevancy for different placements.
5. Test Different Call-to-Action (CTA) Buttons: Experiment with different CTAs to encourage users to take action. Options like “Shop Now,” “Learn More,” or “Sign Up” can be effective. Monitor the performance of each CTA to identify the most successful one.
6. Link ads to the most relevant landing page: Users who click your ads expect to find value on your website, the same value you offered them in your value proposition. 
7. Utilize Remarketing and Audience Targeting: Leverage Google’s audience targeting options to reach users who have shown interest in your products or visited your website. Use remarketing lists to display tailored ads to these potential customers. Super important – make sure you run separate campaigns for remarketing and for acquisition. These are very different audiences which will return very different results. 
8. Set Clear Campaign Goals: Are you using responsive display ads for remarketing? For new customer acquisition? Maybe for brand awareness? Define your campaign goals, and your bidding strategy accordingly. If you’re looking for brand awareness you should select a CPM or maximize clicks bidding strategy. If you’re trying to go for sales, a target ROAS or a target CPA would be better.
9. Define your main KPIs: These will depend on the campaign goals and bidding strategies. It can be click-through rate (CTR), Cost per Click (CPC), conversion rate (CVR), or return on ad spend (ROAS). Monitor these metrics regularly and make necessary adjustments to improve campaign performance.
10. Regularly Monitor and Optimize: Continuously monitor your campaign’s performance on Google Ads and Google Analytics (display campaigns often affect other channels such as organic and direct) and make data-driven optimizations. Test different ad variations, adjust targeting options, refine your audience, and optimize bids to get better results over time.

Conclusion

Google Responsive Display Ads are a powerful tool that can help you reach your target audience and achieve your advertising goals. By using automation, Google Responsive Display Ads offer an effective way to run marketing campaigns that are more likely to reach your target audience on the right device, at the right time, and in the right format, and achieve your desired results.

From my experience, responsive display ads perform far better than standard image ads. If you’re looking for an effective way to retarget recent visitors to your website or to acquire new customers, Google Responsive Display Ads will for sure help. 

Further Reading:

• How to Create Powerful Dynamic Remarketing Ads on Google
• How to Craft a Powerful Value Proposition on Google Display Ads
• Google Dynamic Search Ads: A Great Way to Boost Your Online Sales
• How to Create a Google Ads Search Campaign for Ecommerce: A Step-by-step Guide
• 13 Ways To Optimize Google Shopping Ads (In A Profitable Way)
• Performance Max Best Practices To Nail Sales