Successfully set up a Google Dynamic Search ad campaign for your website.
An up and running Dynamic ad campaign that can help you find customers without relying on keywords.
You need a Google Ads account. If you don’t have one please follow SOP 014 (web version): Create a Google Ads account. You will also need to set up tracking prior to launching this campaign, if you have not, then please follow SOP 025 (web version): Adding Google Ads conversion tracking to a site.
Dynamic ad campaigns are great supplements and can fill in the gaps of your keyword based campaigns. There’s no need to map keywords and headlines are dynamically generated so you save a lot of time in this process.
Google Ads manager.
When you have existing keyword-based search campaigns and want to maximize the number of keywords to target.
The person responsible for media buying.
How to set up a Google Dynamic Search Ad Campaign
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Head to https://ads.google.com/ and log in to your account.
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Select an account that you want to create for the search campaign.
3. Click “New campaign” under “Campaigns” from the top left corner.
4. Select one of the campaign goals.
Important: There are 7 goals to choose from. For a search campaign, you’re only able to choose sales, leads, website traffic, or “Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance” as your campaign goal.
Sales — Drive sales via app, phone or online store.
Leads — Collect leads and encourage them to take action.
Website traffic — Increase visitors to your website.
App promotion — Get more installs and interaction for your app.
Reach, awareness, and consideration — Reach a broad audience and build awareness for your business.
Local store visits and promotions — Drive visits to local stores. For example: restaurants or dealerships.
Create a campaign without a goal — Create a campaign without seeing a goal's recommendations.
5. From the list of campaign types, select “Search”, since we’re setting up a dynamic search campaign.
6. Add your website URL:
7. Give an appropriate name to your campaign and click “Continue”.
8. Next, set a bidding option for your campaign such as conversions or clicks and click “Next”.
9. Next in “Campaign Settings”, leave only the “Search Network” checked. Since this is a search campaign you won’t need to show your ads on Google’s display network.
Fill out the locations and languages:
Either search or create a new audience segment. For instance, if you are a travelling agency in the USA, you may use keywords like “Trips to the US”. Tick “Observation” below for a wider targeting.
[Recommended] Tick “On Use broad match keywords for your entire campaign” to help improve the bidding of your campaign and reach your campaign goals. This setting is only available if the campaign is using conversion-based smart bidding.
10. Set a daily ad budget.
Set the bidding focus to Conversions (recommended).
Optionally set a target cost per action (CPA). When selected Google Ads uses your target CPA to set a bid for your campaign so the average cost to convert is below the target CPA.
Once done click “Next”.
Expand the Dynamic Search Ads setting.
Note: If you don’t see the Dynamic Search Ads setting, click “More Settings” instead and you will find the Dynamic Search Ads setting here.
11. Add your website URL in the Dynamic search ads setting. Here you’re informing Google to serve dynamic ads based on the content of your website.
Enter Domain — The URL of your website.
Targeting Source — By default Google will create dynamic ads based on all of your web pages that are currently indexed on Google. Leave this option as is unless you want Google to specifically use a subset of pages on your website, which you then have to select “Use URLs from my page feed only” and upload a Google Sheet or Excel file.
Once done click “Next”.
You’re now about to set up the ad group(s). There are two parts to this which are:
Entering keywords
i. Enter your website URL
ii. Key in your products or services keywords
iii. Enter other relevant keywords or phrases that are used to match your ads
iv. You will have the option to click “view” at the bottom to reveal a projected campaign optimization score or how well Google thinks your campaign is set to perform.
12. Entering Ad details e.g. Final URL, Display Path, HEadlines, Descriptions, Business name and logos, Sitelinks, and Callouts
Note 1: Google ads will automatically suggest what you can do to improve your chances for better performance (light blue box at the top).
Note 2: Adding more asset types would help improve your campaign performance as well.
13. Next, Add Ad extensions to increase the click-through rate of your ads.
Add sitelink extensions.
Sitelink extensions are additional links and ad copy that show up below your main ad. They take up more real estate and allow you to direct people to specific pages on your site.
14. Create and fill in the ad copy details for your sitelink extensions.
15. Click on the “+ Sitelinks” on your left
Next, fill out the sitelink details. You will need at least 2 sitelinks to save later.
16. Add Callouts.
Callout extensions are snippets of text below your ad where you can promote unique offers to shoppers, like free shipping or 24-hour customer service.
Add at least 2 benefits or offers to promote your products or services then click “Save”.
Click the down arrow next to “Callouts” and add your callout texts.
(Optional) You can set a schedule to show your call extension. This is useful if the phone is operational during certain hours (e.g. 9-5 during the weekdays).
17. Once done, click “Save”.
18. Once you’ve completed the extensions, click “Next”.
19. Next, select the recommended “Average daily budget”. Click “Set custom budget” at the bottom, if you have a certain budget in mind:
In the last stage, review the search campaign that you’ve set up. Make sure the budget, campaign and ad settings are correct. Once you’ve reviewed the campaign, click “Publish Campaign”.
Note 1: Google ads will inform you if there are any issues and recommendations to improve your campaign performance. Ensure you have run through these before clicking “Publish campaign”.
Note 2: If you enable a new domain for Dynamic Search Ads (DSA), it's recommended to wait at least 2 days to allow your campaign to ramp up, so performance results are more thorough.
As part of an experiment to simplify experiences, some advertisers may not find a “Dynamic Search Ads setting” while they create a new campaign. To continue creating a Dynamic Search Ads campaign, follow the steps above.
After you've created your new “Search” campaign, click on the "Campaign" page and then click on the campaign you have created earlier:
20. Click on the plus button:
21. Set up your ad group type to “Dynamic”:
Name your ad group at the top. Depending on your objectives, you may include categories recommended for your website or specify which webpages you would like to target the campaign for or all webpages. We recommend selecting “Specific webpages”.
For instance, if you have a full URL that contains certain keywords, copy and paste it into the box as highlighted below as a rule for Google to target, click “Add” and then “Save and continue”.
22. Fill out the description texts and proceed to click “Save and continue”:
That’s it! You should be able to see this page after completing the steps above. Click “Save and continue”.
You have now set up and published your dynamic search ad campaign!
You can then head to your campaign dashboard and check the status of the campaign you just set up.
At this point, the campaign and ads are not live yet. Google will review all your ads automatically. Once your campaign passes Google’s ad review process (which takes up to 1 business day), the status of your ad campaign will turn eligible and your ad will start running.
Note: If your ad is still under review after 2 business days contact Google to
resolve the issue.