More and more brands are using responsive display ads to capture the attention of potential customers. This type of ad has a user-friendly, interactive design that adjusts to the size of the device it's being viewed on.
Responsive display ads are advantageous because they help you reach out to your consumers with messages that are timely, relevant, and easily consumable on any screen. The best part? Advertisers can test multiple variations of their ads in just one marketing campaign!
What are responsive display ads?
With the launch of Google's responsive display ads, small and medium businesses with limited time and resources will find this new ad type an easier way to reach customers across the Google Display Network.
Responsive display ads are a type of ad that change in shape and size depending on the device that they're being viewed on. This means they'll resize to fit the dimensions of a phone, tablet, desktop computer, etc., to make sure it's easily consumable for anyone viewing it.
But that's not all. Responsive Display Ads save advertisers valuable time by allowing Google to automatically test different combinations of headlines, images, descriptions, and even videos — and then display the best-performing combination. The ability to test multiple combinations of images, headlines, descriptions, and logos for a fully-optimized display ad using just one campaign is pretty exciting!
To make this work, advertisers are requested to create and upload several variations of the following elements:
Ad Title or Headline
This is the first line your audience will see. To maximize responsive ads usage, you can create up to five variations of each type. There are two types of headlines you can use, and these are:
- Short Headline - Contains 30 characters or less, and occupies the first line of the ad.
- Long Headline - Contains 90 characters or less, and usually occupies three lines of ad.
Ad Description
The description line is where you are able to tell what your business or offer is about. Similar to the headline, you can create up to five variations of the ad description.
You are allowed to write a description of up to 90 characters. As a best practice, make sure to always include a call to action in this space.
Business Name
This is of course your business name. The only variation you should make here is whether you want to show your business name or your brand. Capitalize as necessary as this will also be shown to your audience.
Images and Logos
This is the most eye-catching portion of your display ad, so make sure you upload pictures that contain a strong visual focus and avoid adding texts in the image.
Since you will be using Responsive Display Ads, keep in mind that the ads will automatically adjust based on the device's screen size as well as the size of the ad placement.
To make sure the images are displayed properly, upload images that follow the size of the top image sizes, which are:
- 300 x 250 pixels
- 728 x 90 pixels
- 160 x 600 pixels
- 320 x 50 pixels
- 300 x 600 pixels
These image sizes can be automatically resized by Google Ads to 95% of all their available placements, allowing your responsive ad to reach almost all placement types.
Video
Video is one of the most engaging content available online today; which is why video ads also make a huge impact in capturing audience attention towards ads. It's up to you if you want to add a video or not, but seeing as this is a Responsive Display Ad, it would be best to do so just to see if showing a video ad is better than usual image-based ads.
Videos need to have been uploaded on Youtube before being used in Google Ads. Copy your video's Youtube link and paste it into the video link box.
Benefits of Responsive Display Ads
Responsive display ads (RDA) are a new advertising model introduced by Google which is more dynamic and interactive than traditional display ads. It's easy to use as it requires no design or technical skills.
With the use of RDAs, you can produce highly adaptable ads giving you the opportunity to reach out to a larger audience base. Google’s machine learning models automatically determine the headlines which can work better, increasing the effectiveness of the brand message.
Here are seven benefits of using responsive display ads for digital marketing campaigns:
1. Wider Reach
With Google claiming that machine learning models determine what will work out better, the ads are produced with a lot of flexibility since they adapt to different environments and placements, seamlessly considering your brand goals and messaging requirements.
In effect, your ads are displayed to as many placements as possible, showing up in relevant locations you never knew existed. Your ad can show up as a text ad, a banner ad, or a video display ad all in one campaign!
2. Saves You Time
Instead of manually creating multiple ad creatives based on the placement size, Google generates the ad based on a combination of elements you added. For instance, instead of manually creating five ad creatives because you want to test five headlines, you only need to create the ad once!
So think about it: for five headlines and five ad descriptions, which is equivalent to 25 ad creatives, you only create one. And that's just for one ad placement! What more if you want to utilize different ad placements and would have to upload different image sizes? You'll definitely save a lot of time with this.
3. Better Click-Through Rates
Compared to standard display ads which have been seen to be non-engaging, RDAs help you get better conversion rates. The machine-learning capacity of responsive ads that test variations and evaluate them on its own is what helps deliver better click-through rates.
There is no need for you to analyze the performance of each variation every single day—Google Ads does it on its own without prompting. And this is done while you are busy doing something else!
4. Get More Leads
With better CTRs, you can also get better conversion rates, which means more leads! You can allow Google to monitor conversions so that it can track how many conversions you have actually received.
You can then adjust your ads' functions based on your goals (such as more sign-ups or purchases), and the responsive display ads that deliver better results will be shown more often. This allows you to get more leads for the same budget.
5. Better for Mobile Viewing
The design of RDAs is adaptable to different screen sizes so it will undoubtedly perform better if you have a mobile website or an app which has longer or shorter pages. With your brand goals in mind, Google will decide on the layout of the ad, which will help you achieve better results from mobile viewers.
Mobile traffic is, after all, the future of advertising!
6. Allows Monitoring of Performance per Ad Element
Which headline, description, or image is performing better than the rest? Each element's performance is evaluated by Google Ads and given a ranking. Performance ranks are as follows:
- Learning (for when the asset is still being tested and evaluated)
- Low
- Good
- Best
7. Can be Used on Dynamic Remarketing
We all know how important remarketing is to advertising, after all, the conversion rates are always higher when using remarketing campaigns. There are two kinds of remarketing available in Google Ads, one of which is Dynamic Remarketing Ads.
Responsive Display Ads can be used on Dynamic Remarketing when you upload feeds. This means you can test headlines, descriptions, images, and even products for your remarketing campaigns, further improving your advertising strategy. You can learn more about how to set this app in this guide.
In a nutshell…
Responsive Display Ads can answer all your advertising needs—better engagement with catchy and attractive visual elements, better brand measurement capabilities by making use of Google Analytics integration, and more flexibility in ad formats.
Responsive display ads are the way to go for brands who want an interactive design that adjusts to the size of any device it's being viewed on. They also offer different variations so you can test your ad and see which among them performs best. And, with better CTRs, more leads will be generated! RDAs work well across all devices—mobile or desktop—and their ability to adjust automatically is a huge plus when compared to static images.
For those reasons and many others, responsive display ads should definitely be considered as one of your advertising strategies in today’s digital world. If you have questions about how they work or would like help setting up Google Ads campaigns using these types of banners, don't hesitate to send us a message.
And if managing your campaigns from multiple traffic networks is proving to be difficult, why not try managing them in a single ad management platform like Brax? Schedule a demo with us and we'll show you how you can make ad management a breeze.
