Effective June 30, 2022, Google will no longer allow advertisers to create Expanded Text Ads (ETAs). This comes after the company transitioned to responsive search ad type (RSAs).
What would Google benefit from cancelling ETAs?
Google noted that it will now dynamically create ads for specific search terms at the time of auction. Of course, one could argue that this step takes control away from advertisers and puts it in Google’s hands.
No matter the reason, the fact still is that I and many other performance marketers have seen far better conversion performance with ETAs.
What does this mean?
As of now, all that is known is that post June 30, 2022, ETAs will continue to serve, they can be paused and unpaused, but no edits can be made and no new ETAs can be created.
With the move toward RSAs, advertisers will definitely lose some control. Previously, best practices entailed having 2 ETAs and 1 RSA in every ad group, which is now down to having 1 RSA only in each ad group.
Unfortunately, because of the format of RSAs, it cannot provide granular performance breakdowns. It makes it hard for advertisers to truly know what is working and what isn’t working.
What should you do?
Creating new ETAs is hard enough, so just test them in the next few months. Then, make sure to add some evergreen ones as well. It will allow you to continue testing even after you’re done.
Aside from testing and improving RSAs, advertisers should also consider which copy lines work best for their organization.
