Every single Google Ads account in ecommerce needs to have dynamic search ads implemented

Why?

Because 15-20% annually searches on Google are new (source: SearchEngineLand)

This makes it hard to capture all the relevant searches with keyword targeting, and this is where Dynamic Search Ads have their place

Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) use content on your landing pages for assets to the ad and can match headlines to search terms, build the ad, and serve it to the person in a split second

But what are the best options for setting up Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) and what are the best approaches I have seen/used for DSAs

Let's dig in and find out!

Targeting options - You get a lot of targeting options with DSA

1. All webpages - This option gives Google ALL the control over which pages and content they use - i would never use this option as you are giving Google to much access to just use content from your refund page (i know you can add those as a negative target, but still) - If you should choose this option be sure to add all your non-irrelevant pages as negative targets
   
   
2. Page titles - This option lets you segment pr. page title on your landing pages - I have never stumbled across a good use case for this, as it takes some work to gain access to all your page titles and then to determine how you are going to segment them
   
   
3. Page Content - This option lets you target landing pages by content criteria - let's say you only want to enable Google to use content from landing pages mentioning "Crocs" (aka the best office slippers) you simply enter "Crocs" as page content. Used this option a couple of times with various success
   
   
4. Landing pages targeting - This option lets you target specific landing pages and only those landing pages that you give Google - This can work pretty well if you only want to target the 10 bestselling items and only want Google to use content from the PDPs
   ‍
   
5. Categories - This option lets target landing pages based be categories that Google categorizes. This can be a dangerous setting, as you give Google way too much power over these pages to target, and if you run with this option you need to regularly check which pages Google categories. I never use this option  
   
   
6. URL rules targeting - This option gives you the ability to target specific URLs with the "URL equals" or "URL contains" rules. Can work in some cases if you have a specific re-seller brand in your categories, but it's not an option that uses
   
   
7. Custom labels - Upload Page Feeds to create a list of URLs (could be blog posts/PDPs) with specific custom labels attached to them, and then target those specific labels.

I usually stick with Custom Labels within a Page Feed which enables me to segment DSA ad groups after e.g. product_type. This gives me the control that i want and gives me little to no extra work on steering Google in the right direction

Exclude "out of stock" products

We all hate sending traffic to products that are out of stock, so be sure to add pages that contain the words "out of stock" as negative ad targets to your DSA campaigns/ad groups

See how

A/B test your Dynamic Search Ads

Giving Google more ads to split-test gives Google more options to match search term with a fitting ad. In Dynamic Search Ads, you only get to add 2 descriptions which leaves you with multiple options to test different description themes - it could be:

1. Descriptions highlighting product features
2. Descriptions highlighting product UPSs
3. Descriptions highlighting company USPs
4. Descriptions with strong CTAs
5. Descriptions with price callouts
6. Descriptions with customer reviews (it works amazingly)

Although your Dynamic Search Ads are 80% automated, it doesn't mean it's a set-and-forget format, so testing different ad themes is essential

Dedicated DSA campaigns vs. Hagakure structure (DSA + Normal Ad groups into 1 campaign)

The general rule for Google Search Ads is "Consolidate Search campaigns as much as possible"

This leaves us advertisers with an option to either run a standalone DSA campaign or to add DSA ad groups into already existing non-brand search campaigns.

There is pros and cons with both, but my overall thoughts are toward consolidation

Let me explain why  

Google needs +5000 impressions per month pr. ad group to learn how well the asset performing and give each asset a performance score/label

If you segment your ad groups into multiple campaigns, you then need a much larger budget to come even close to reaching +5000 impressions per. ad group per. month instead of consolidating it into 1 single campaign with fewer ad groups

On top of that machine learning gets more and more confident the more data you can feed it, so an ad group with +10.000 impressions per month will in theory be more confident and stable in performance than an ad group getting >3000 impressions per month, with the assumption that both ad groups have good performance.

So it's going to be a Hagakura approach for me

Read more about the Hagakure approach HERE

Check if Google "understands" your page content

There is one nifty hack to check how Google sees your landing page, and it all happens in Google Keyword Planner

1. Navigate to Google Keyword Planner
2. Select Discover New Keywords
3. Select "Start with a website"
4. Paste your URL
5. Select "Use only this page"
6. Press "Get started"
   

if the keywords that Google spits out are somewhat relevant for the product/service your are selling - you are good to go, but if the keywords are no way near the product/service you have some on-page optimizations to do

There you have it - if you have come this far i highly appreciate you for taking the time and read this from end-to-end - your are well on your way to upskill yourself in Google Ads!