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AdWords IF functions roll out for ad customization as Standard Text Ads sunset

IF functions arrive to let advertisers customize ads based on device and retargeting list membership.

Ginny Marvin on January 31, 2017 at 10:16 am

First, a moment of silence for the Standard Text Ad format that held on for 15+ years. Today marks the end. And with that, Google is rolling out AdWords IF functions globally to give advertisers the ability to customize their ads in much the same way ad customizers allow, but without the feed.

With IF functions, text ads can be tailored based on whether users are on mobile and/or are members of an audience list. For example, Frederick Vallaeys wrote in his column about using the IF function for mobile last fall, when the feature was first announced, as a way for advertisers who were running mobile-preferred Standard Text Ads to continue customizing ads for mobile users.

In the example below from Google, an If function is used to customize the description offer based on whether a user is in the advertiser’s “Cart Abandoners” retargeting list. If they on the list, users will see a “15% off” promotion; if not, they’ll get a “10% off” offer.

google-adwords-if-functions-abandon-cart

Syntax

Broken down, the syntax for IF functions is:

Start with “{=IF”
Add an open “(” after IF
Follow with the targeting of “device=mobile” or “audience IN”
1. If you’re using audience targeting, put the list you want to target inside parentheses. If you are targeting multiple audience lists, separate them with a comma.
Put a comma after the targeting.
Add the text to insert when targeting criteria is met.
Close “)”
Follow with a colon “:”
After the colon, add the default text that will be used when the targeting criteria is not met.
End with the closing curly bracket “}”

Put together it looks like this:

{=IF(device=mobile or audience IN(audiencelist1,audiencelist2), Custom Text): Default Text}

A few more things to note

If you’re creating ads in the web UI, the IF function option will become available when you enter a curly bracket “{“. However, for now at least, it defaults to the mobile targeting syntax: {=IF(device=mobile,insert text):default text}. You’ll have to change it for audience targeting, and be sure to use the exact list name.

IF functions can be used anywhere in an Expanded Text Ad except for the final URL. They are only eligible to run on the Search Network.

And last but not least, with the default text provided with IF functions, advertisers don’t have to have an ad that doesn’t use customizers in their ad groups.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media's Editor-in-Chief, managing day-to-day editorial operations across all of our publications. Ginny writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, she has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.