Static headlines now available for DSAs in Microsoft Advertising

Advertisers can now set static headlines for DSAs in Microsoft Advertising according to an announcement from the company. One reason PPC marketers may not have taken advantage of DSAs in the past was the lack of control over their ad creation.

DSAs, or Dynamic Search Ads, target relevant searches based on the content on your website. A DSA “identifies a potential customer’s intent and dynamically generates an ad pointing to the right page on your website” based on your site content.

The change means that advertisers will be able to match landing pages to search queries while “retaining complete control over your ad content.”

What are static headlines? “Static headlines are an additional column you can add to your Dynamic Search Ads page feed, which then specifies the specific ad title you want to show up for a particular URL you have in your page feed.”

Because advertisers already have control over the description used, the addition of a static headline means they can specify every element of their DSA ad copy.

What’s dynamic about DSAs? The change means that headlines and ad copy can both be set by the advertisers. The dynamic aspect comes in Microsoft Advertising using the unique searcher query and finding the right landing page on your site based on the search.

How to set static headlines in Microsoft Advertising. Currently, advertisers can only add static headlines to their DSAs through a page feed.

You’ll start with a spreadsheet like the one above and upload it under Tools > Business data > Page feeds > Upload. After your feed is uploaded, you’ll choose a specific campaign to apply to one or multiple feeds by going to Settings and navigating to the Targeting source section. 

Why we care. Dynamic and automated ad copy has been an issue for marketers who have to stay within their individual industry’s regulations. When we announced RSAs becoming the default in Google Ads, many search marketers reacted by saying they’d have to pin ad headlines to ensure compliance. While not one-to-one, static headlines and ad copy in DSAs mean that you can ensure you’re only running approved ads.

DSAs with static headlines can also be used for shopping feeds: “Pull the product page URLs you use for targeting and remove everything else from the shopping feed, you can then use that as your page feed file where you can add your Custom label and Ad Title columns.”