This is the 4th post in the SEM Advanced Series, a continuation of the SEM Intermediate Series and SEM Beginner Series. These posts are intended for search engine marketing professionals looking for guidance in monitoring and adjusting the key performance indicators (KPIs) that determine the success of a PPC campaign.
The dynamic text blog series includes previous posts that covered the basics of dynamic text and simple uses of dynamic text. Building off of those posts, this post provides information and examples of the more complex usage of dynamic text in your ad copy.
Using dynamic text allows you to easily revise multiple ads at the same time with minimal changes. You need to insert dynamic text placeholders, such as {keyword}, {param2} or {param3}, into your ad titles and/or ad text. Let's take a look at a few examples.
Ad Titles
The example below shows how you could insert the same {param2} variable into your ad title for different products, yielding a different displayed ad title for each product. Please note that the {param2} variable is assigned at the keyword level.
Next you may want to update your ad titles to include a % off. All you would need to do is change the {param2} variable for each keyword. Voila! You have new ad titles across multiple campaigns and ad groups. In this example, no changes need to be made to the ad title itself.
Ad Text
You can also insert different variables into the same ad text within a campaign or ad groups. Let's look at another example. On the Ads tab, you would create the following ad... here's how it would look in the preview section to the right of where you enter in your ad copy:
Then, you would need to assign the {param2} and {param3} dynamic text variables for each keyword. This can be done on the Keywords tab in adCenter or when you upload your keywords in bulk using the adCenter Desktop tool.
Below are examples of keywords and their assigned dynamic text variables:
Using the above ad copy example and inserting the assigned keyword variables, the following ads would be displayed:
Default Text
Inserting dynamic text into your ad titles and text could result in ads that exceed adCenter character limitations. Microsoft adCenter allows 25 characters for ad titles and 70 characters for ad text, both including spaces. To prevent this from happening, you can define default text for each variable: {keyword:default}, {param2:default} and {param3:default}. So, if your ad copy exceeds the allowable characters, adCenter will automatically use the default text.
For example, your ad title is "{param2} Deals" and the {param2} value is "Southern California Hotel". This would result in the ad title "Southern California Hotel Deals", which exceeds character limitations and your ad would not be displayed. You can insert default text into your ad to prevent this from occurring. The revised ad title could be "{param2:Find Hotel} Deals". In this case, if someone searches for "southern california hotel", the ad title would be displayed as "Find Hotel Deals", which fits within adCenter character limitations.
Make sure you read through the full dynamic text series: SEM Beginner Series: What is Dynamic Text? and SEM Intermediate Series: Simple Uses of Dynamic Text in Your Microsoft adCenter Campaigns. Good luck using dynamic text in your adCenter campaigns. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
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