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Google is making strides in the automated search campaign market, and one of its relatively new offerings is Dynamic Search Ads.
James has brought on his trusty traffic expert friend Ilana Wechsler to share what she knows of this feature, and whether it’s something she herself uses and recommends.
They discuss exactly what a dynamic search ad is, and how it differs from the Performance Max campaign.
They talk about the best uses for the campaign.
And Ilana explains how things like a negative keyword finder can help users get the most out of dynamic ads.
Table of contents
1. A done-with-you traffic program
2. Is the Dynamic Search Ad for you?
3. Could you have just the net?
4. The advantage of knowing
5. PMax versus dynamic search
6. A couple of starting tips
7. The pros and the cons
A done-with-you traffic program
Ilana currently runs an agency that provides bespoke traffic services to clients. She also offers a “done-with-you” education program, where she uses her agency team to build campaigns for time-poor clients, hands over the accounts with campaigns built correctly, and teaches them how to run the campaigns with four one-on-one sessions.
The sessions aim to help clients understand how to run traffic by explaining the reasoning behind each step. Because, says Ilana, you can watch a course and say, Well, that makes sense for that particular account that we’re looking at in this video. But how does that apply to me?
Is the Dynamic Search Ad for you?
Now James would like to discuss the tools Ilana uses to help people, in particular a dynamic campaign he knows of that may be a good idea for some people. He understands Ilana has made a few discoveries regarding this.
Sure, says Ilana. Google’s Dynamic Search Ad campaign is a type of search campaign that uses a website feed or select URLs to show ads based on the words on a particular page, rather than bidding on keywords.
Initially skeptical, Ilana was pleasantly surprised by the results of testing the campaign. It’s now one of the core campaigns she and her team roll out for clients.
So often, says Ilana, it’s only once you launch campaigns that you get a true sense of keyword variations and traffic volume. Traditional keyword research can be limited in its accuracy and usefulness, making the dynamic campaign a good alternative for keyword research, particularly for the 20% of Google searches that have never been searched for before, and particularly in expensive niches.
The dynamic campaign differs from fully automated campaigns like Performance Max and is limited to text ads on google.com search. Ilana emphasizes that bidding for these campaigns is done super low, making them ideal for targeting low-cost conversions that may have been missed by more targeted campaigns.
Could you have just the net?
Would there be some people who use only the dynamic campaign, asks James? As a sort of catch-all?
There’s no reason you couldn’t, says Ilana. For her, though, they serve a couple of purposes.
One, it gives you keyword ideas that you can possibly incorporate into your main keyword campaigns, that you wouldn’t have otherwise thought of.
Does it show you what it was bidding on? In hindsight?
It does. It will tell you the search term, and it will tell you what associated page it sent the person to.
Second, it’s useful for SEO, providing keywords that serve as a basis for content, and converting quite well.
It could be someone’s entire campaign if they’re in early stages, James concludes.
It can be used as a catch-all for someone who has other campaigns in play, and Ilana has found it works very well for e-commerce businesses as well. She has, in fact, rolled the tool out across the board as a low-budget test, and believes it has its place in the world for all types of businesses.
The advantage of knowing
In a way, Ilana has an unfair advantage, having seen how the campaign performs in different industries and niches.
James likens it to his experience of driving to a secluded surf spot. Without having gone with someone who knew where and how to reach it, he’d be clueless, and could make a lot of mistakes.
He imagines Ilana helping a person with their account. Without her telling them, they generally wouldn’t know what boxes to tick.
They wouldn’t, says Ilana. It’s not wildly talked about – when you create a Google account, Google is basically pushing for a Performance Max campaign, or a full smart campaign.
PMax versus dynamic search
James and Ilana have previously talked about PMax. How does it differ from the dynamic search?
PMax, says Ilana, distributes ads across the entire Google Ad ecosystem, including search, shopping, display, discovery, YouTube, and Gmail. It is best suited for e-commerce businesses – Ilana would not recommend someone in lead generation to do a PMax campaign.
Dynamic Search, on the other hand, only runs on Google search and is useful for any business that wants to improve their Google Ads performance.
Dynamic Search is somewhat automatic, but it allows for an amount of control over the campaign’s structure. For example, ad groups can be separated for different category pages.
James is interested in using Dynamic Search to promote his book and increase its visibility on Google.
This could be a very valuable episode, he says, to people who didn’t know about Dynamic Search. And with Ilana’s help, there could be a lot more they could access.
A couple of starting tips
It’s worth giving people some tips, says Ilana, if they’re thinking of giving dynamic search ad campaigns a shot.
First would be adding URL exclusions – “negative ad targets” – to avoid Google crawling irrelevant pages like Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Second would be adding negative keywords to prevent showing up for irrelevant terms.
Then, once your campaign is running, monitoring it and make adjustments as necessary, such as adding new exclusions or negative keywords.
So while you can’t bid on keywords, says Ilana, you actually have a lot of levers that you can pull within the dynamic campaign.
The pros and the cons
Nice, says James. So, would Ilana like to list some pros and cons? He’s pretty sure the data analyst in her has worked it out.
The pros, Ilana says, are easy setup, time-saving in keyword discovery, and the ability to give keyword ideas to incorporate into normal search campaigns. Another pro is that it works well in conjunction with other campaigns.
A con, on the other hand, is that advertisers must relinquish some control – the dynamically generated headlines, for instance, may not match the ad closely, and advertisers cannot edit them. However, marketers can negate certain keywords and incorporate them into normal search campaigns.
James loves what Ilana is doing. If you think she knows what she’s talking about, check out her offerings at TeachTraffic.com, and look forward to her future guestings.
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