Right after this past Labor Day long weekend, I logged onto Google Ads Tuesday morning to start creating ads for a client at our agency, and when I went to make a Text Ad – a small pop up appeared on my screen…
Starting June 30, 2022, you’ll no longer be able to create or edit expanded text ads.
EXCUSE ME WHAT? Also, fun fact, that will be my 30th Birthday!! But back to the topic at hand.
Maybe some of you already knew this change was coming, but I certainly did not. It also seemed to happen really – quickly. I swear, I was writing Google Ads the Thursday or Friday before the long weekend and that notification did not appear when I went to create one.
When the time comes, if you already have text ads created in your campaign, not to worry they will not get be deleted and will continue to get served and you will still be able to access reports on them BUT you will not be able to create new ones or edit already existing ones (so make sure there are no typos and that you love them because there is no turning back without deleted them permanently).
Because of this Google is “strongly encouraging you to” transition into responsive search ads prior to June 30 2022 so you can get used to this change.
Here at HEEDGROUP we use a mix of both responsive and text ads within our campaigns – and what I personally like to do is use 1 responsive text ad and 2 -3 text ads depending on if there are enough popular keywords to create 2 – 3 text ads. Sometimes certain products or services only have enough to create 2 text ads and that is also fine.
I do think responsive ads are beneficial and were created with the intention to increase campaign performance. Why? Because they adapt to what your users are searching for based on your pre-defined headlines and descriptions. They test different combinations of titles and descriptions and see which ones are getting more engagements and then serve those ads.
With that said, although I entirely believe they are beneficial – I do wonder if it’s necessary to not allow brands the option of making them moving forward. If brands want to have full control over the ad being shown that is promoting their own product or service, let them!!!!!! They are not hurting anyone so let them live their best life and do what they want!
With multiple clients over the years, I have seen the best results come from text ads rather than responsive ads and I do not believe for one second I am the only person who has seen this while working on ads for themselves or their clients.
This change came as quite a shock to me personally and I am happy it is not coming into effect until June of 2022… or maybe there will even be a delay if I cross my fingers hard enough.