Google removes Expanded Text ads

Users will no longer be able to create expanded text ads. Keep on reading to find out more.

By the end of June 2022, Google will end Expanded Text ads and no further creation or editing is permitted. After June, users will only have access to modifying Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) in Search campaigns.

Why? Google wants to simplify the creation process of Search ads and drive performance with automation tools. RSAs use machine learning to determine which ads are relevant to each user so that they can be placed up front, so this is “better” for reaching people in need of your product.

Expanded Text ads already created will continue running, with the ability to pause and relaunch, but no new ones will be created. 

Are you currently using Expanded Text ads? How will you adjust to this new change? Let us know in the comments below.

Google recommends advertisers repurpose well-performing text ads into RSAs and improve their ad strength. Using RSAs, you can pin headlines in positions where you ensure they always show, use variations to test different ads and review cross-campaign reporting based on performance.

Also, Google recommends the use of Smart Bidding for broad keywords in RSAs, which can allow marketers to optimize bids.

Our Take

We know that RSAs have been around for a while, -since May 2018 to be exact-. The fact that Expanded Text ads help advertisers have clarity and control over the order in which titles are shown is a valuable feature, and here is where RSAs have their setbacks. 

When pinning titles in RSAs, Google “punishes” advertisers by lowering the ad strength. Crazy, right? What Google doesn’t want you to do is transform RSAs into something similar to Expanded Text ads, so they strip advertisers’ liberty to order their own ads. Google‘s machine learning wants to have total control of your ad display, without any external intervention. 

It’s been clear for a while now that Expanded Text ads were being butchered and RSAs were winning over Google’s heart. Adding RSAs was not the problem since more options and more ways in which advertisers can place their ads are always welcome. Though it would have been great to see them coexist, Google’s flexibility was not ready to bend

So, now that Expanded Text ads are saying their goodbyes: why do advertisers have to lose the ability to build more specific ads by ordering titles as they please?

It would have been better to test ads with actual metrics, such as CTR or expected CTR beforehand. Instead, marketers are bound to trust Google’s machine learning abilities because the alternative is to be punished, and that doesn’t sound right to us

Here’s the thing: if Google added RSAs so that advertisers could have new options, shouldn’t there actually be an option (without any limitations)?

As always, Quantikal will test possible alternatives and keep you in the loop of any new changes. Stay tuned!

About Quantikal

Quantikal is a data-driven performance marketing agency based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We help clients scale their business through profitable digital ad spending by constantly obsessing over clients’ key metrics. Quantikal’s experience working in diverse online companies in marketing roles including media buying allows us to provide solutions in the ever-demanding increase of marketing performance, doing more with less thus becoming a strategic partner.