Are your DSAs really outperforming standard ads? Find out with this ad copy length performance analysis script

I’m sorry to say it, but the rumors are true: size matters. Well, ad copy length does, anyway.

Why else would Google keep increasing character limits? Their research found that the new expanded ads got 15% more clicks than other formats.

But are you actually making use of the space that’s available to you?

If you’ve never tested this before, it’s high time to assess your ad performance based on copy length.

With this script, you can do just that… and more! It can compare the performance of standard ads against Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) across your account so you can check whether DSAs are actually working for you. As much as I love Google, you shouldn’t always trust them blindly – testing is key!

What does the script do?

This script allows you to see the performance of your ads over the last month aggregated by the number of characters used in each part of your ad copy: headlines, descriptions, and paths. So you get aggregated statistics for headline 1 with 30 characters, 29 characters, and so on.

It downloads a report of the account in a Google spreadsheet and creates a number of tabs: Headline 1, Headline 2, Headline 3, Description 1, Description 2, Description 3, Path 1, Path 2, and Path 3. It also creates three tabs (Headline, Description, and Path) where it concatenates all the respective components.

For each one of these components, the report shows the number of ads with a certain character count, and then the sum of those ads’ clicks, impressions, cost, and conversions. It also shows an average cost per click, click-through-rate (CTR), and cost per acquisition (CPA).

In the headline tabs, DSAs are the ones shown having zero characters (though zeroes in descriptions and paths aren’t necessarily DSAs), so they’re easy to spot. By comparing them to the standard ads, you can check whether DSAs are really outperforming expanded text ads.

Why does it matter?

With more ad space, you can be more relevant to the search query and landing page. In other words, a better quality score (and who wouldn’t want that?).

For example, if your CTR performance is underwhelming for two headlines with 30 characters, you might want to consider adding a third headline or using your word count more effectively.

If you spot paths only a few characters long, you’re probably missing out on valuable space. Longer paths look more natural to users, and improve relevance by telling users exactly what to expect from the landing page.

You can also verify what percentage of your spend is coming from small ad space, e.g. old accounts with old ad formats that haven’t been updated yet.

How to get started

The setup for this one is super easy. First, create a blank spreadsheet. Then, copy the script below and paste it in the scripts section of Google Ads. Replace YOUR_SPREADSHEET_URL_HERE at the top with your blank spreadsheet’s URL, and you’re ready to run it. Easy peasy.

You can also play around with changing the date range and metrics if that works better for you. Here’s a link to the script. Have fun!

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Daniel Gilbert

Daniel Gilbert is the CEO at Brainlabs, the best paid media agency in the world (self-declared). He has started and invested in a number of big data and technology startups since leaving Google in 2010.