Responsive Display Ads

Differences between responsive and general display ads.

Responsive Display Ads look and sound similar to normal Display Ads. But, Responsive Display Ads are different from general Display Ads. Responsive Display Ads “respond” to fit the environment in which they are being shown. Normal static display ads that stay in one place on the web page. Responsive Display Ads will change its shape to fit into a specific part of the web page. The ad manager is used to set up all Responsive Display Ads. Later, Google will take over and make adjustments to the ad over time.

*For further explanation on Responsive Display Ads according to Google, please visit the following article:

• About responsive display ads

Setting up a Responsive Display Ad

The person managing the ad campaign needs to complete the content form for the Responsive Display AD. Adding photos or videos, and selecting the ad size. All ad creations must meet Google Content guidelines, which include limitations on the amount of text used for titles, descriptions, images, etc. Seeing as there are various forms of the Responsive Display Ads. The ad manager will setup  several templates to create multiple different versions of the ad. The templates will eventually turn into ready-to-use versions of the same ad. Google will then take care of the rest of the process, approving the ad within 24 hours of creation and officially launching the ad into the rotation immediately.

Responsive Display Ad best practices

Here are the Best Practices to follow when creating a Responsive Display Ad:

• Vary headlines as much as possible (content and length)
• Clearly highlight benefits of your business
• Have at least 2 distinct descriptions
• Ad text should be concise and straight to the point
• Create a feed
• Upload the content for the ads to Google Ads via an upload file

Specific Responsive Display Ad requirements

More specific requirements for Responsive Display Ads are as follows:

• A maximum of 20% of an ad can be text, the rest should be visuals
• Images need to be clean, sharp and can not be photoshopped or include any text
• Images must be less than 11.4MB in size and a maximum of 6 million pixels
• All content must be owned by the ad creator and free of copyright issues
• Visual and logo design must be provided to Google in two formats: square and landscape
• Logos must always be a transparent PNG file
• The information included in an ad must all be directly related to the business

Using Videos

Google also encourages the use of videos in Responsive Display Ads. Google believes that viewers can more easily relate to videos over images. A video in an ad need to the following requirements:

• Video must comply with Google’s advertising policies & guidelines
• 15 seconds max in length
• No more than 3 tracking pixels, all SSL compliant
• JavaScript cannot be used for data collection
• Must include high-quality footage of appropriate content

*For more information related to using video in Responsive Display Ads, reference these articles:

• Video ad requirements
• About auto-generated videos for responsive display ads

The limits of Responsive Search Ads

Limitations on Responsive Display Ad campaigns are as follows:

• Maximum of 15 images, 5 logos, 5 headlines, and 5 descriptions per campaign
• No duplicate content usage
• The headline and business name must not exceed 25 characters
• Long headlines and descriptions must not exceed 90 characters
• All provided addresses must follow a specific format laid out by Google

Measuring ad strength is based upon the diversity of an ad and its content. Google encourages ad managers to set up a variety of ads to form an entire campaign, rather than continuously relying on one single ad. The strongest ads are short, pleasing to the eye and include a call to action (encouraging the person browsing to click on the ad and visit the web page).