On June 30th, Google officially sunset Expanded Text Ads in favor of Responsive Search Ads (RSAs), which are now the dominant ad format in Google Ads accounts. Following suit, Microsoft Advertising will also sunset their version of Expanded Text Ads next week, August 29th 2022, to serve only RSAs out of all Standard Search campaigns.
With this update, the good news is that your current Expanded Text Ads in Microsoft Ads will automatically be updated to Responsive Search Ads. However, you’ll find yourself missing lots of potential headlines and descriptions since the newer ad type allows for much more ad copy. Additionally, any new search ads created will automatically be Responsive Search Ads.
The Microsoft Ads Responsive Search Ads format works very similar to Google Ads, and the setup is as follows:
You will have 3-15 headlines at a maximum of 30 characters each to work with, along with 2-4 descriptions at a maximum of 90 characters each. Remember that spaces and punctuation count toward your character count, and you can “pin” certain headlines or description lines if you want them to always show.
If you are developing ads in the engine as shown above, you can also keep an eye on your Ad Strength indicator as you develop your ad copy. Note: The more headlines or description lines you pin, the lower your Ad Strength will be, as the point of RSAs are to allow Microsoft Ads to use their machine learning capabilities, and the “pinning” impacts that.
So how does it work? Based on all possible combinations, Microsoft Ads will select the best headline and description lines for each query and for the searcher. The idea of this is to allow machine learning to ensure that the right message is being served for each of your potential customers at the precise time based on their user-behavior and other signals.
Responsive Search Ads, when served, will appear almost exactly like Expanded Text Ads and will show up to 3 titles and 2 descriptions.
Have you updated your account yet for the new Responsive Search Ads? If you run a parallel Google Ads account, we definitely recommend the Microsoft Ads import tool to help move things along! It can be accessed in the top navigation, under Import > Google Ads.
How to import responsive search ads from Google to Microsoft
If you need help transitioning to the new ad formats, or are unsure of what ad types you are running, reach out to our team and let us help guide you!