How to take advantage of DSA wins in Performance Max

Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) have been a staple of Google Ads and Microsoft Ads management for years.

This powerful campaign type/configuration enhances advertisers’ ability to use the power of organic search to inform their PPC campaigns.

By allowing Google to crawl your site and find the right landing page for a user’s query, advertisers can take advantage of well-optimized content and turn it into compelling headlines.

One of the reasons DSA was so powerful is that it could work with channel-specific pages or an entire site index, allowing advertisers to target specific categories effectively.

DSA was especially popular in industries such as:

automotive Travel. real state Electronic commerce Any business with numerous landing pages to cover their products or services.

Essentially, it allowed brands to focus on core goals instead of having to consider every landing page and budget for each one.

DSA also played an important role in discovering keyword concepts for other campaigns. Advertisers could bid on these exact concepts with exact match or leverage predictive AI with broad match.

However, dynamic search ads seem to have been phased out in favor of maximum performance (PMax) campaigns.

Advertisers have seen a decrease in DSA performance over the past few months (i.e. a lack of delivery) and accounts serving all campaigns have seen PMax increase.

April 2023 performance comparing a PMax campaign with filtered brand terms, DSA, traditional brand campaign and Spanish campaign.

Performance Max supports all Google ad types:

search: Ads that are served in the SERP/SERE (Search Engine Results Page/Search Engine Results Experience).

show: Display ads that are served on third-party sites.

YouTube: Video ads that run on YouTube or watch spots depending on the format.

discover: Part-visual, part-text ads that run on Google Discover.

Local ads: Google Business Profile targeted ads that are served in the maps section of the SERP/SERE.

purchases: Product listing ads that run on SERP/SERE, youtube and display sites.

Advertisers are actively forging the rules of engagement for PMax, which represents an operational change for those used to serving dynamic search ads.

First, this means considering visual placements (view, video, discover), which have higher funnel value and cheaper auction prices.

However, it also means adjusting expectations for PPC campaigns. Many think of PPC campaigns as transactional; if it doesn’t lead to a sale, it’s a waste.

However, with top-of-funnel visual placements, the success criteria must also change.

This publication is intended to prepare advertisers and their SEO counterparts who rely on DSA as part of their SEO strategy to leverage what they have gained from DSA within PMax.

While Google hasn’t made an official statement about phasing out DSA, the recommendations for updating DSA indicate a potential change.

It is crucial to note that this post was written when both dynamic search ads and PMax could run simultaneously.

If this changes, the article will be updated accordingly to reflect the new rules of engagement.

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What we lose in the transition from DSA to Performance Max

Before talking about what we are gaining in the transition, it is important to understand the losses and how to mitigate them.

First, the idea of exclusions on the site itself. A big part of configuring the DSA was adding rules for site exclusions (home page, blog, etc.).

Although Performance Max allows the use of feeds and URL expansion, it does not provide the ability to exclude specific parts of the site.

This means that certain categories may trigger DSA components within peak performance, resulting in ads that you don’t want to budget for.

To counter this, it’s crucial to include audience signals for search terms that reflect your desired categories and add negatives to Performance Max.

While not everyone has it yet, the “Where/When Ads Were Shown” statistics report can help advertisers know which placements to exclude at the account level.

Budgeting for DSA used to mean purely transactional search.

Because budget can now be allocated to other campaign types, it’s important to keep an eye on metrics like engagement rate (click-through rate or CTR for anything with a visual component) and average CPC (cost-per-click) to ensure that the budget is not It is not disproportionately allocated to the top of the funnel.

We’re missing the clear answer with impression share (which would tell us if we were losing by budget or ranking). The use of these intermediaries will be essential to ensure adequate budgeting.

Gains in the transition to Performance Max

The transition from DSA to Performance Max offers several significant gains. One of the key benefits is the ability to control all assets used, not just descriptions.

Although a good SEO strategy could greatly influence the headlines, there was no guarantee of getting the desired headlines in DSA.

With peak performance, while you won’t know the exact combination that was served to each person, you can be sure that each campaign includes the right creative.

Source: Google Marketing Live 2023

In addition, Performance Max enables the discovery of additional audiences that may have been overlooked due to the emphasis on visual creativity.

As PPC and SEO move towards a future of more visual content along with consumers demanding easier information processing, Performance Max enables advertisers to find the best landing page and category for the query or interest a user and prepare it with visual content that speaks to their preferences.

While the dynamic search ads phaseout may not yet have an official statement from Google, the writing is on the wall.

Ask me anything with Ginny Marvin on the Paid Search Association Slack