There is an ongoing debate in the PPC expert community about the validity of AdStrength as a reliable indicator and a North Metric to optimize in our campaigns.
To Dolnai this is something extremely important and we wanted to go beyond and understand the phenomenon in its entirety to reach conclusions that are as scientific as possible.
Yes, there is a correlation between AdStrength and the KPIs of your campaigns.
But be careful—it's not all obvious or black and white.
This is very relevant because the essence of every advertising campaign is based on two aspects:
Targeting depends on our keyword structure, match types, automations, smart bidding, etc. We know this, but we won't go into it this time.
The other key factor is creativity. And this is where the RSA algorithm comes into play—by the way, RSA stands for “Responsive Search Ads.”
Each ad consists of 15 headlines and 4 descriptions that Google will combine randomly, knowing that a maximum of 3 headlines and 2 descriptions will be served at a time.
If your ads have 15 valid and active headlines, this allows for 2,940 possible combinations.
However, if one headline is missing, the number of combinations drops to 2,366. If two are missing, you lose another 494 combinations, and so on.
In fact, if you only have 8 valid and active headlines, you will have lost 86% of the possible combinations.
Because these combinations allow for micro-segmentation, delivering different messages to each user based on what is most likely to make them convert.
It doesn’t know.
It tests.
It runs many iterations and A/B tests to find what converts best.
Google talks about something that sounds both intriguing and promising: User Signals.
A little bit of everything—ranging from the obvious ones, such as time of day, device, and location, to those Google keeps to itself, like a user’s previous searches.
So, the more creative angles your ads contain (rich and varied headlines), the better the RSA algorithm will be at crafting strong messages.
Having 15 headlines is not synonymous with them being good or earning an “Excellent” rating. There may be areas for improvement, such as:
And Google doesn’t hold back. Headlines it doesn’t like? It disregards them, stops serving them, and penalizes you.
But sometimes, I get an "Excellent" rating without having 15 headlines.
Yes. That can happen.
Google wants you to follow qualitative Best Practices to create the best possible ads, and these are independent of your KPIs.
Its goal is to increase creative possibilities and have as many options as possible.
First, let’s clarify that we have analyzed thousands of accounts across industries such as hotels, car rentals, telecommunications, restaurants, aggregators, insurance, real estate, automotive, retail, e-commerce, fashion, food, education, healthcare, law firms,..., in markets including USA, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia, Poland, Turkey, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, and more.
There is a direct correlation between ads with higher AdStrength scores and the impressions, clicks, and conversions they generate. The same applies to Impression Share.
No. There are cases where ads with lower AdStrength scores achieve more conversions than those with high scores.
We investigated further to understand why.
Some advertisers with long-standing experience and account history already know which headlines work best, either because they used them in ETA ads or tested them with thousands of euros in ad spend. In these cases, they tend to write ads with only 5 or 6 headlines and repeat them across all their ads.
These headlines often match their top-performing keywords, which historically drive high volume—such as their own brand name, which tends to be bottom-of-the-funnel keywords.
They also pin multiple positions in their ads to ensure a specific order of appearance.
If one or more of these conditions apply, Google will lower the AdStrength score. If all of them apply, the score will definitely be “Poor.”
But here's the key: These ads might be showing for brand keywords, at a critical moment before purchase, with a winning message refined over 20 years.
But this doesn’t mean there’s no correlation.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
The more enriched the ad, the better its conversion performance.That means that if your highest-converting ad is rated as "Poor," you can improve its performance by enhancing it with better headlines.
By increasing efficiency, Google will make you eligible for more searches.
For the first time, you can increase impression volume without changing your targeting—simply by improving the quality of your creative assets.
Better creatives = higher conversion rates = more conversions.
So, what are you waiting for?
Improve your ads with Dolnai now!
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