![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/learn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/DP-ppc-account-.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Responsive Search Ads contain the following:<\/p>\n
- \n
- 15 Headlines:<\/strong> versus the 3 that an Expanded Text Ad can contain. Google dynamically chooses which mix of headlines to show unless you\u2019ve \u201cpinned\u201d certain headlines into certain positions.<\/li>\n
- Up to 4 Descriptions:<\/strong> versus the 2 you get with Expanded Text Ads, but these descriptions can also be 90 characters long. Google also dynamically determines which description to show.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
RSA\u2019s are intended to give Google\u2019s algorithm more options to choose from in order to help you improve your clickthrough rate, quality score, and ultimately performance.<\/p>\n
The Wrong Way of Looking at RSA\u2019s<\/strong><\/h2>\n
It seems simple, you should add RSA\u2019s into your ad groups and then compare the performance of the ETA\u2019s vs. the RSA\u2019s right?<\/p>\n
Wrong.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a screenshot of some data, at first glance you\u2019d think the ETA\u2019s outperformed the RSA and we should pause the RSA!<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/learn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/RSA-wrong-way-poor-performance-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThis doesn\u2019t tell the whole story though, now let\u2019s look at the right way.<\/p>\n
The Right Way of Looking at RSA\u2019s<\/strong><\/h2>\n
In 2019 I got the opportunity to speak with a higher up engineer at Google regarding this very topic. I asked him straight up why the RSA\u2019s are performing so poorly. He got pretty antsy and said \u201cthey\u2019re not, it\u2019s such a common misconception!\u201d.<\/p>\n
The key sentence was this; the intention of an RSA isn\u2019t to beat the ETA\u2019s, it\u2019s to improve the overall ad group performance<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
He then went on to explain that the RSA\u2019s, when introduced to an establish ad group, instead of stealing all the traffic and wrecking performance they\u2019ll take the worst performing traffic and try to improve it.<\/p>\n
This means that the right way to measure performance of introducing an RSA to an ad group isn\u2019t to compare it to the ETA\u2019s, but look at the performance of the ad group overall before vs. after<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s go back to that ad group from earlier and look through this lens:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/learn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/RSA-right-way-ad-group-level-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe RSA\u2019s performed worse, but the overall ad group CTR increased including the ETA\u2019s!<\/p>\n
So What Do We Do? RSA\u2019s, ETA\u2019s or Both?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
We believe in having a couple ETA\u2019s and at least 1 RSA in every ad group. This gives you, the advertiser some control but also ensures Google has some \u201croom to play\u201d.<\/p>\n
In 2021, we\u2019re seeing RSA\u2019s even outperform ETA\u2019s more consistently as they\u2019re being introduced on a level playing field vs. being thrown into an established ad group with refined copy. We\u2019re also seeing nice quality score improvements as well.<\/p>\n
Not to mention, we can imagine a scenario where RSA\u2019s are eventually the only <\/em><\/strong>ad format. Get comfortable with them and learn how to use them properly now while you\u2019ve still got the old ETA\u2019s to use as backup!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Mid-2018, Google Ads rolled out Responsive Search Ads (RSA\u2019s) to advertisers. At the time, the general consensus was that RSA\u2019s performed poorly in PPC. Now in 2021, RSA\u2019s are a generally accepted format in rotation with the older Expanded Text Ads (ETA\u2019s). However, I\u2019m going to challenge the argument that RSA\u2019s aren\u2019t performing well….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"thumbnail_src":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/DPBlogPost-AreRSAsWorthIt1-2-300x168.jpg","thumbnail_medium_src":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/DPBlogPost-AreRSAsWorthIt1-2.jpg","featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/DPBlogPost-AreRSAsWorthIt1-2.jpg","author_avatar_src":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/roger2.jpg","author_name":"Roger Parent","category_labels":["PPC"],"tag_labels":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1059"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1071,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions\/1071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalposition.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Up to 4 Descriptions:<\/strong> versus the 2 you get with Expanded Text Ads, but these descriptions can also be 90 characters long. Google also dynamically determines which description to show.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n