Responsive Search: what is it and how does it work

Get to know more about Google Search's responsive search ads: what it is, the benefits, how it works, and best practices.

What is responsive search?

Responsive search ads let you create an ad that:

• Adapt to show more relevant messages to your customers; 
• Enter multiple headlines and descriptions when creating a responsive search ad;
• And automatically, different combinations get tested to get to the best performing combination. 

Responsive search ads may improve your campaign's performance by more closely adapting your ad's content to match potential candidates' search terms.

The benefits: better performance

• With the combination of the Google algorithm, it's possible to continuously A/B test for the best performance on headlines and most relevant descriptions.
  • • Example: 4 headlines and 4 descriptions create 288 versions to be tested.
• NOTE: We don't provide reporting on the best ad combination. 
• According to Google, the ads have a 5 - 15% higher CTR. We had slightly better results when testing it. 
• Flexibility and time saving
• Create more flexible ads that adapt to the device's width and save time by creating just one ad with multiple headlines and descriptions. 

How it works

• The more headlines and descriptions you enter, the more opportunities we have to serve ads that closely match your potential candidates' search queries, improving your ad performance.
• After you enter headlines and descriptions, ads are assembled into multiple ad combinations in a way that avoids redundancy.

• Unlike expanded text ads, you can provide up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions for a single responsive search ad.
• Next, in all ads, a maximum of 3 headlines and 2 descriptions will be selected to show in different combinations and orders. 
• By adapting your ad's content to match potential candidates' search terms more closely, responsive search ads may improve your campaign's performance.

Instructions

1. Create a campaigns
2. Go to Google search
3. Enter your headlines. You’ll need to enter a minimum of three headlines, but you can enter up to 15. 
4. Enter your descriptions. You’ll need to enter a minimum of two descriptions, but you can enter up to 4. 
5. Click on create ads.

Best practices 

Responsive Search ads perform best with more headlines & descriptions. 

3 headlines and 2 descriptions are the minimum. However, make sure you have at least 6-7 different headlines and 3 descriptions. It’s recommended to use all options.

1. For best performance, highlight something different in each category. 
   
   Avoid repetitive and boring variants of the same headlines (otherwise Google will not show the different headlines or descriptions).
   
   1. Be creative and highlight different unique selling points of the job. 
   2. Make use of a call to action and try different ones. 
   3. Have headlines and descriptions of different lengths. 
   4. A good, responsive search ad has a lot of unique messages that can be combined. Avoid repetitive language or the same call to actions. 
      
      
2. Create only one add to get the best results

There is no reason to include multiple responsive searches in the same campaigns. Testing more than one responsive search ad can prevent the ads from being properly tested.