Search Ads Creative

Last updated: October 2024

Search Ads play a crucial role in securing high engagement. Following best practices boosts quality scores, competitiveness in auctions, and drives clicks and conversions.


Multiple creatives are supported under one ad group including Single Videos and Carousel Image Ads. Videos and Images can be repurposed from in-feed campaigns. It’s important to use both Carousel Image Ads and Video Ads to ensure ad format diversity and optimize campaign performance. Teams are encouraged to test creatives tailored to the advertiser's specific keywords in each ad group. Creative selection logic follows the same principles as feed-side logic.


Creative Best Practices

Suggestions:

  • Ensure ad creatives align with the keywords in the ad groups. The Search Ads Campaign will analyze titles, descriptions, audio, video, and text overlays to assess how well the content matches the ad group's targeting keywords. A high correlation results in a higher score, making the ad more competitive in auctions.

    • Every creative and keyword within an ad group has a unique score. The score is not averaged for the entire ad group.

    • It is recommended to include targeted keywords in your ad's title and description. This ensures your ad creative matches the terms people search for.

  • Use a strong thumbnail to make a great first impression and drive clicks and conversions.

  • Group keywords related to a specific product or service into one ad group. Review relevant ad creatives for that product or service and add 1 to 3 ads that are highly relevant to the keywords within that ad group. Use different ad creatives in different ad groups to ensure relevance.

    • For example, if one ad group targets shoe keywords, use shoe-related creatives. If another ad group targets shirt and blouse keywords, use creatives for shirts and blouses in that group.


Creative Thumbnails

Within the Search Results Page, the first thing a user sees is the first frame of your ad creative. To be compelling and inspire clicks, it's recommended to have an exciting and engaging first frame. A well-crafted thumbnail significantly impacts ad success by boosting user engagement and overall ad effectiveness. It's the gateway to higher click-through rates and better ad performance.


Depending on placement and a user's device, ads may autoplay. In these instances, having a strong first frame and thumbnail is less crucial.


How to use Creative Thumbnails

The Search Ads Campaign supports thumbnail selection and image upload. Thumbnail image upload is currently an optional attribute.

  • You are encouraged to upload your own thumbnail image, and ensure your selection has additional text aligning with your selected ad creative, thus improving potential ad CTR


Creative Fatigue

Search Ads are intent-based ads, where ad content is served against specific user queries matching the advertiser's selected keywords. Since ads are aligned with keywords and users are actively searching for related content, ad fatigue is less of an issue for Search Ads compared to in-feed video ads or other social/display ads. Therefore, there is no need to frequently refresh ads as long as they perform well and remain relevant to user searches, the advertiser's keywords, and the product or service being offered.