Introducing Dynamic Search Ads (beta)

For many online businesses, each day you might have hundreds of new listings, items that temporarily change availability, or items that are permanently removed from stock. And at the same time, user search behavior can be a moving target -- each day, 16% of searches that occur, Google has never seen before. So even well-managed AdWords campaigns containing thousands of keywords can miss relevant searches, experience delays getting ads written for new products, or get out of sync with what's actually available on your web site.  That's not great for advertisers. It's also not great for end users, who appreciate relevant ads linked to landing pages with in-stock items that perfectly match what they're searching for.

To help with these challenges, we're launching Dynamic Search Ads, a new way to target relevant searches with dynamic ads generated right from your website. Dynamic Search Ads complement your existing keyword-targeted ads to help you sell more with less effort.

Dynamic Targeting, Ads and Landing Pages

With Dynamic Search Ads, we maintain a fresh index of your inventory using Google's organic web crawling technology.

When a relevant search occurs, we dynamically generate an ad with a headline based on the query, and the text based on your most relevant landing page.

The ad enters the auction and competes normally -- but we'll hold it back for any search where you also have an eligible keyword-targeted ad. So you get additive results from broader exposure for more of your in-stock inventory, without disrupting your existing keyword campaigns.

User Experience & Performance

Ads are answers. And when users see ads and landing pages that deliver exactly what they're searching for, they're more likely to click and convert. So it's not surprising that we've seen solid performance in limited testing so far. While results vary, the majority of advertisers in our pilot have seen 5-10% increase in clicks and conversions with satisfactory ROI.

Some advertisers have the potential for better results. ApartmentHomeLiving.com, a leading U.S. apartment shopping website, is one example. Lawrence Cotter, General Manager, manages their huge online inventory of apartment listings that's constantly changing and growing. Over the past 5 years, his AdWords campaigns have topped 15 million keywords. Several weeks after implementing Dynamic Search Ads, he reported:

"Using Dynamic Search Ads increased conversions by almost 50% with an average cost-per-conversion that's 73% less than our traditional search ads. Dynamic Search Ads are doing a really good job finding the right searches to tap into, creating good ads, and getting visitors to the most relevant page on our site."  

You're In Control

You can choose to target your whole site, specific categories of products on your site, pages containing certain words, or pages containing certain strings in your URL. And all controls can be used as negatives, along with traditional keyword negatives, to refine your targeting and prevent the promotion of out-of-stock items.

Reporting and optimization work in familiar fashion. You get full reporting on searches that generated clicks, destination pages that matched ads, ad headlines that were generated, as well as average CPC, clicks, and conversions. Many popular third party tracking systems are also supported. To optimize, use familiar techniques like adjusting your max CPC bid and negatives.

Availability & More Details

At this time, Dynamic Search Ads are available in all countries and languages as a limited beta. You can join the interest list by contacting your Google account representative or signing up here. To learn more, please visit our Help Center FAQs.

Posted by Baris Gultekin, Director, AdWords Product Management