“Do you use DSA campaigns?”
It’s a question that frequently pops up when I speak with fellow PPC practitioners.
Here’s my take: 99.9% of GAds accounts will benefit from running Dynamic Search Ads.
They are the perfect keyword research tool to grow your account.
Here’s how I use DSAs:
1) Create a separate DSA campaign (I use two types of ad groups, one for category-based targeting and another for URL-based targeting)
2) Add a ‘DSA negative keyword list’ that is populated with all the keywords from your standard campaigns (this way, the DSA campaign will not cannibalize your standard campaigns)
3) Start with manual bids that are similar to the average CPC of your standard campaigns
4) Optimize the campaigns after every 1,000 clicks
4.1) Analyze your search terms and negate everything that seems irrelevant
4.2) Watch for search terms that should have been matched by keywords in other campaigns -> add them to the DSA negative keyword list
4.3) Add your best-converting search terms as keywords in your standard campaigns and add them to the DSA negative keyword list
5) Every 100 conversions, reconsider your CPC bids or your bidding strategy (A/B test different strategies)
The scripts I use to facilitate this process:
1. Add keywords as negative to DSA (my own custom script)
-> Here’s an example to help you get started: https://adsscripts.com/scripts/google-ads-scripts/exclude-exact-in-dsa
2. Negative keyword candidate alert (my own custom script that alerts me when search terms accrue over X clicks and show zero conversions)
-> https://developers.google.com/google-ads/scripts/docs/solutions/search-query
3. Duplicate query checker – reports the same search query leading to different ad groups
-> https://searchengineland.com/want-see-search-query-appearing-different-ad-groups-265616
4. New keyword candidate alert (my own custom script that alerts me when search terms show good conversion rates and have impression potential)
Are you using DSAs?
If so, how does your strategy differ from mine?
Hit reply, I read every response.
– Nils