Google Responsive Search Ads (Google RSA) allow you to create a dynamic ad tailored to display more relevant and targeted messages to the customer. You enter several headlines and descriptions when creating a responsive search ad, and over time, the Google Ads system automatically tests different combinations and learns on the fly which combinations yield the best performance for quality Google campaigns. To build a quality responsive ad, it is important to maintain an ad that receives a high Ad Strength. In this article, we will talk about Ad Strength in Google RSA ads. But before that, it’s important to understand the concept of Ad Strength.
What is Ad Strength?
Ad Strength is a score that Google gives to the responsive ads you created in a campaign intended for the Search Network, based on the total number of assets (headlines and descriptions) and the diversity of these assets within the ad. Google has four Ad Strength ratings:
- Poor
- Average
- Good
- Excellent
When you add or edit a headline, your Ad Strength changes dynamically. In addition, Google will display further suggestions to improve Ad Strength. The goal of every marketer or business owner creating an RSA ad is to reach an “Excellent” Ad Strength. However, not every business can achieve this in terms of the quantity and quality of headlines and descriptions that can be created for that specific business.
How many headlines are needed to generate an 'Excellent' Ad Strength?
The average number of headlines needed to achieve an ‘Excellent’ Ad Strength ranges on average between 8 and 13. Your Ad Strength is not only related to the number of headlines you created for the ad. Google also checks the keywords belonging to your business that are in the headlines and whether you have enough variety in those headlines. A large number of headlines does not guarantee an Excellent Ad Strength, and even using too many headlines or descriptions will cause the Ad Strength to be lower – which means that to improve the ad, in addition to adding content, we need the content in the headlines and descriptions to be as relevant as possible to the brand and business.
How does pinning headlines affect Ad Strength?
To examine whether pinning headlines directly affects Ad Strength in Google responsive search ads, we conducted tests: we took ads without pinned headlines, ads with one or two pinned headlines, and ads with all three headlines pinned, and checked where the Ad Strength was highest. The test shows that pinning headlines has no effect on reaching an Average Ad Strength, and the ad reached Average both with and without pinning. At the same time, we discovered from the test that pinning several headlines helps reach a Good Ad Strength, and since it is very difficult to reach an ‘Excellent’ Ad Strength, I would focus on bringing the Ad Strength to ‘Good’.
How does Ad Strength affect impressions?
If you have multiple responsive search ads in Google, their Ad Strength may directly affect the number of impressions they receive. We took ads with relatively equally pinned headlines but with different ad scores to test the effect on the number of impressions each ad receives. The results we got in ad performance were not unequivocal – although ads with higher Ad Strength received more impressions, it was not by large percentages, and certainly not at percentages that affect the quantity and quality of conversions.
How does Ad Strength affect CTR?
To test if there is a direct link between Ad Strength and Click-Through Rate (CTR) or Conversion Rate (CVR), we used ads identical to each other in terms of pinned headlines with different ad scores. The test revealed that higher Ad Strength had a lower click-through rate, but by an insignificant percentage, indicating that Ad Strength has no direct impact on CTR. Even after improving Ad Strength across different ad groups, we found that Ad Strength definitely has no effect on CTR, and in most tests we performed, lower Ad Strength had a higher CTR, suggesting that Ad Strength is Google’s internal metric that evaluates how strong your ad is.
How does pinning headlines and descriptions affect your ad performance?
In a large portion of the tests we conducted on Ad Strength, we often found a higher percentage of clicks and conversions in ads that have pinned headlines or descriptions relevant to the business. However, the pinning action itself does not affect these parameters, but rather the content of the headline or description you chose to pin. If you pin well-written assets, then just like writing a good ad – you will get a higher CTR and also a higher CVR because of the ad shown to the searcher. On the other hand, pinning poorly written assets will cause a decrease in performance.
The more unpinned headlines you have, the more headlines Google will need to perform optimizations, and the machine will start learning which headlines work better. Pinning higher quality headlines shortens the machine’s learning process because Google’s algorithm has fewer variables to work with. Assuming you only pin well-written headlines, you will see an improvement in ad performance.
Summary and Conclusions
Google’s system aims to be smart to the point of being autonomous. We are not there yet, and while the system does help guide us, it certainly cannot decide for us which content to use and how to arrange it to achieve maximum performance. A great proof of this is the whole issue of Ad Strength. From the tests we conducted, even an Excellent Ad Strength does not directly affect CTR and CVR in ads, which are the relevant metrics for our business. The conclusions we reached from working to improve Ad Strength:
- Ad Strength reflects Google’s ability to test your ads and the variety of headlines and assets.
- If you use 8 headlines you can achieve an ‘Excellent’ rating, but it’s easier to do so with a larger number of headlines (12-12).
- Your ad can have a low Ad Strength and still maintain a high conversion rate. You can improve Ad Strength from Poor to Excellent and still not see a significant improvement in click-through rate and conversion rate.
- If you have at least 2 responsive search ads, the ad with the higher Ad Strength will usually get more impressions.
- Achieving a Good Ad Strength with pinned headlines is 10 times easier than achieving an Excellent Ad Strength, and sometimes striving for Excellent is not worth the investment.
As Google’s machine learning improves over time, we see changes in the conclusions Google generates for us and our ad account. However, our main goal remains – to generate more conversions. Therefore, regardless of what the Ad Strength is, we need to stick to the ads that generate more conversions for us, and as I mentioned above, Google’s machine is not yet automated well enough to tell us what is right and what is not for our business.
About the Author
Dvir Naaman, 27 years old, graduate of the digital marketing course at HackerU College. Experienced in building WordPress sites, PPC advertising on Google, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok platforms. Specializes at Fialkov Digital in organic search optimization (SEO). Has rich experience in e-commerce and dropshipping, and is the owner of Merchant Center – a website that aggregates information on e-commerce systems and advanced marketing systems to increase business conversions with an emphasis on sales in e-commerce stores.
