Parsing ad effectiveness: answers to all the tough questions about ad effectiveness from @sejournal and @adsliaison

Deep Dive into Ad Strength: Addressing All Your Tough Questions

Recently, Ad Strength in Google Ads has been a hot topic of discussion, with debates centering around its value, how it functions, its non-role in the auction process, and how it should be perceived within your accounts.

Ad Strength, like most aspects of paid advertising, is nuanced. It’s not a flawless predictor of ad performance, nor should well-performing ads with lower Ad Strength ratings be dismissed as irrelevant.

Moreover, the phenomenon of Ad Strength dropping with the use of pinning will be explored in detail.

Understanding Ad Strength

To start, it’s crucial to grasp the basics of Ad Strength and its intended purpose.

Ad Strength is a diagnostic tool that emerged with the introduction of responsive search ads (RSAs). It aims to help advertisers comprehend how the diversity and relevance of their creative assets can enhance the potential number of relevant ad combinations displayed for a query.

More ad combinations generally translate to more opportunities to show pertinent ads to a broader audience.

Ad Strength is rated as Poor, Average, Good, or Excellent.

As you build or modify your RSAs, the Ad Strength rating updates in real-time to reflect the variety and quality of your assets.

Having diverse, high-quality assets (e.g., avoiding repetitive headlines) is beneficial for the system’s learning and allows you to serve relevant assets to different subsets of searchers, potentially reaching audiences you might otherwise miss.

This explains why some assets perform well despite having relatively few impressions.

Why Does Google Ads Emphasize Ad Strength?

After years of developing and testing static text ads, RSAs required a shift in mindset regarding ad creation, testing, and optimization.

While the fundamentals of good advertising remain the same, the mechanics have evolved.

Responsive search ads leverage AI to experiment and determine which assets and combinations perform best for each query.

Ad Strength was created to provide advertisers with insights into attributes that correlate with improved RSA performance.

You’ve probably heard that advertisers who elevate their Ad Strength from “Poor” to “Excellent” see, on average, a 12% increase in conversions. This statistic, derived from global search campaigns, indicates that Ad Strength can be a valuable tool, though individual results may vary.

Key Components of Ad Strength

Ad Strength evaluates four main categories known to enhance performance through Google’s regression analyses:

  • Number of headlines.
  • Keyword relevance of headlines and descriptions.
  • Uniqueness of headlines.
  • Uniqueness of description lines.

The score reflects the variety and relevance of your assets. Improvements in ratings are generally expected to lead to better performance.

Ad Strength now also considers automatically created assets if enabled in your campaign.

This concept has also been extended to Performance Max campaigns, with more details coming up.

Is Ad Strength a Factor in the Auction?

A common misconception is that Ad Strength impacts the auction. It does not.

Ad Strength is a feedback tool for your creative assets, meant to guide you in improving ad effectiveness, but it does not influence the auction process.

Ad Strength has no bearing on bidding or your ads’ eligibility to enter the auction.

As stated in the Help Center’s “About Ad Strength” article:

“The Ad Strength rating of an ad doesn’t directly influence your ad’s serving eligibility. Instead, it identifies opportunities (during the ad creation or editing stage) to improve your ads to optimize their performance.”

Does Low Ad Strength Limit Impressions or Ad Serving?

While a low Ad Strength could suggest fewer impressions due to limited asset diversity or relevance, it doesn’t prevent your ads from entering auctions. Ad Strength is not an auction factor.

Ad Strength is a forward-looking tool indicating whether you’re maximizing the number of high-quality, relevant ad combinations your ad can serve.

Ad Strength vs. Quality Score and Ad Rank

Ad Strength is distinct from Quality Score and Ad Rank.

Quality Score, an older diagnostic tool in your account, assesses expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. It does not factor into the auction, but reflects some values in Ad Rank, which determines ad eligibility and ranking.

Ad Strength does not influence Ad Rank, nor does bidding affect Ad Strength.

Why Does Pinning Affect Ad Strength?

Pinning, while sometimes necessary and beneficial, restricts the number of ad combinations that can match a query, impacting Ad Strength.

A lower Ad Strength score shouldn’t deter you from pinning when needed. It’s recommended to pin two or three headlines or descriptions per position to increase available combinations, which many advertisers find effective.

Addressing Low Ad Strength Notifications

When creating new ads, Ad Strength suggestions are based on the previously mentioned categories.

These recommendations are not absolute rules but starting points based on past performance.

A low Ad Strength notice suggests limited impression opportunities due to insufficient number, diversity, or relevance of assets.

Still, low Ad Strength doesn’t prevent auction participation, and lower-rated ads can still perform well. There may be opportunities to replace low-rated assets and test new ones to appeal to different audience subsets.

Does High Ad Strength Ensure Strong Performance?

Generally, campaigns with at least one ad rated Good or Excellent Ad Strength per ad group perform better. However, high Ad Strength doesn’t guarantee performance will meet your expectations.

Continue evaluating ad performance and testing optimizations regardless of Ad Strength rating.

Ad Strength in Performance Max & Demand Gen

Introduced to Performance Max in February, Ad Strength in this context reflects the variety and quantity of assets serving across Google channels, not just search.

Poor Ad Strength in Performance Max indicates a lack of asset diversity for all inventory formats, while Excellent Ad Strength shows a wide variety of included asset types.

Ad Strength is also available in Demand Gen campaigns, with guidelines in the Help Center for various ad formats.

Utilizing Ad Strength

In summary, Ad Strength is a creative content feedback tool intended to guide ad effectiveness improvement.

It is a tool, not a key performance indicator, and is not used in auctions. It should not inhibit testing.

Use Ad Strength as a guide to improve ad performance during creation and optimization. Having at least one ad with Good or Excellent Ad Strength per ad group is recommended as it tends to enhance conversion performance.

For more detailed insights, the Responsive Search Ads technical guide provides additional information on Ad Strength on pages 5 and 6.

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