[AMA] “Are DSA campaigns still working for you?”

Friend-of-the-list JD (name hidden upon request) shared a question last week:

“I run Google Ads for my electronic components webshop with about $50k/month in spend. The account is very long-tail heavy, and roughly 80% of converting queries are hidden in the search terms report.

To cover the gaps, I launched a DSA campaign at $300/day. After one month and ~$8k in spend, results are honestly disappointing: ROAS is less than half of target and not even close to my other campaigns.

Is DSA still working in 2026, or am I missing something fundamental here? Are you still using DSA in your setups?”

My answer in short: yes, I still use DSA campaigns, and yes, they still work for me.

I am not sure how much longer they will still be around with Google pushing its AI Max, but here’s how I use DSA:

1. Before running DSA campaigns, I do an SEO check on the pages I want to target (special attention to correct structured data). Use this tool: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data
2. When I use DSA, I use them as a “catch-all that hasn’t been targeted via keywords” campaign type, next to my standard text ads.
3. I use a page feed to segment and target my DSA campaigns. (Don’t let Google send clicks to “All URLs Google knows about the website,” or you’ll get clicks to dead pages and/or irrelevant blogposts.)
4. I typically set the daily budget to anywhere between 5% and 10% of the average daily spend for non-brand last 30 days.
5. I attach negative keywords lists to the campaign (account negatives, and a list with all positive keywords that I target in other campaigns).
6. I run portfolio smart bidding (tCPA/tROAS) with a target and bid limits per segment. Target is the average CPA/ROAS of last 30 days non-brand, and max bid limit is anywhere between 50% and 100% of the average non-brand CPC.
7. I run multiple scripts to monitor DSA search terms like a hawk and suggest negatives, and a script to add my positive keywords to the negative keyword list mentioned in #5.
8. I add negatives like crazy at the start, with decreasing frequency after the initial weeks (start daily, increase interval every week).
9. I update the portfolio bid strategy target and bid limit on a (bi)weekly basis, or after 30 conversions, whichever comes first.

Thanks for asking, JD!

– Nils

PS: Wednesday is ‘Ask Me Anything’ day. If you’ve got a question to which my answer would benefit a larger part of the community, send it my way, and I’ll try to answer it 🙂