Better RSA creation and optimization in 3 steps

Learn key mistakes to avoid when running Google responsive search ads, plus expert optimization tips to enhance your ad strategy.

Whether you’re a seasoned PPC marketer or just starting out, creating and optimizing Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) is challenging.

At SMX Advanced 2024, I highlighted the biggest pitfalls marketers face with RSAs, which make a difficult task even harder. Explore these common RSA mistakes and catch the full session replay to turn your ads around.

Mistake 1: You’re looking at the wrong metrics

You’ve heard a million times that you need to use the “right metrics,” but there are so many competing scores, metrics and diagnostic tools for evaluating RSAs that it can feel impossible to know what your KPIs should be.

“Isn’t the job of the ad to get the click, not to drive sales?”

“What if the best ads have the worst ad strength?”

Let’s set you up for success by clarifying a few ideas:

Your KPIs should align with business growth

Ask most business owners how they gauge the success of a Google Ad and they’ll likely say it should drive more clicks and sales.

On the surface, those metrics seem to go hand in hand; more visitors to your site means more potential customers.

The reality is that there’s often an inverse relationship between click volume and conversions.

The average CTR is up 5% year-over-year, while the average conversion rate is down -1%. Last year, conversion rates fell by -10%, despite an increase in CTR.

In other words, we’re getting more ad clicks than ever, but those clicks aren’t turning into sales.

Most accounts will benefit from running ads that better qualify the click, filtering out wasted clicks from your anti-audience and driving more conversions with less spend.

This Google Ads statistic table shows metrics for an ad that’s been optimized for conversions:

Impressions, clicks and click-through rates are all down compared to the previous period. However, conversions, cost per conversion and conversion rate have all improved.

It’s rare to improve click volume and conversion efficiency simultaneously, so know your KPI for your ad and don’t expect it to lift every metric at once.

Ad Strength is not a factor in Ad Rank

If you’re struggling to balance ads that drive results with ads that have an “excellent” Ad Strength, there’s good news: your Ad Strength is not a factor in the auctions.

Ad Strength measures four categories:

• Number of headlines.
• Uniqueness of headlines.
• Keyword relevance of headlines and descriptions.
• Uniqueness of description lines.

“Ad Strength is not used in Ad Rank and is *not* a ‘factor in stopping a keyword from going to auction due to Ad Rank’.”

Remember, Google makes money when your ad is clicked, while you make money when your ad drives sales or conversions. Their definition of an “excellent” ad will be different from yours.

The best way to measure the impact of your RSAs is how well they’re helping you grow your business.

Mistake 2: You aren’t using a brief

In the “golden age of advertising,” successful ad campaigns always started with a strategic brief.

Today, most marketers don’t have the budget or resources to create a brief. Ads get written on the fly, often aided by AI, with no foundation in strategy.

We end up with head-scratcher ads like this:

This nonsensical, keyword-stuffed ad is absolutely real, but it would never have existed if the process had begun with a strategic brief.

A brief takes into consideration details about your brand, audience and goals before you ever start writing. It can be modified to your own needs and will typically include categories like:

• Background and objectives.
• Target audience and consumer insights.
• Creative requirements.
• Media and campaign strategy.
• Message and tone.
• Success metrics and reporting.
• Compliance and approvals.

While the challenge of budget and resource constraints remains, generative AI can help solve that.

Here’s an example of a prompt you could ask ChatGPT to discover more about your target audience without investing in focus groups:

• “Please list 5 reasons a person might be looking for a {your product or service}. For each reason, explain what a person would need to know or believe about a company in order to make a purchase decision.”

Using generative AI to help build a brief is a fast and affordable way to make sure your ads connect to your audience’s needs and campaign objectives.

Mistake 3: You’re phoning in your ad copy

We wish this weren’t the case, but Google Ads has never been harder than it is today. Marketers face:

• Mad Libs-style ad creation with limited control and ambiguous asset reporting.
• 15 headlines and four descriptions, resulting in over 40,000 ad combinations per RSA.
• Conflicting goals, incentives and advice.

It’s no wonder many marketers are giving up on messaging ownership, relying instead on Google’s “best practices” to serve the best combinations of ad assets.

While this benefits Google, it’s not ideal for advertisers.

Here’s another real-life plasma ad, this one checking the boxes of what most marketers would agree are best practices:

On the plus side, this ad manages to avoid gibberish and features a compelling benefit.

Yet, despite following the conventional wisdom of what makes a good ad, it fails to help prospects know if the plasma center is right for them.

The text is redundant, repeating “get up to $800” four different times and ignoring potential pain points or anxiety that might keep prospects from converting.

How to fix it

Using the ChatGPT prompt shared earlier in this article, we can find out what prospective plasma donors are likely to care about. The list may include things like:

• Financial compensation: Offers fair compensation and transparent policies.
• Health monitoring: Provides thorough health screenings in a safe environment.
• Regular donating as a routine: Efficient processes and comfortable donation experience.

An effective RSA will define and differentiate the offer, making it more likely your target audience will click.

Here’s how we could write a well-defined and differentiated RSA for a plasma center:

Our competitor’s ad focuses only on earning potential, but ours emphasizes comfort, safety and convenience in addition to the $800 payout. By addressing these concerns, our ad stands out from the competition, making it easy for a nervous new donor to see the value in our offer.

This is how you go from generic to compelling.