How to optimize product DSA campaigns?

Dynamic search ads are a type of advertising where the artificial intelligence of the search engine and the content on a given web page on an online store is used. The abbreviation DSA is used for Dynamic Search Ads. The principle is that the ad system automatically generates appropriate ads according to the content on a given URL.

For product DSA campaigns, it is very important to have quality content on the store. The more quality content you have, the better the DSA campaign will perform because the search engine will have more data and will be better at matching search terms to products on the store.

First, we’ll briefly talk about DSA ads, then we’ll look at the optimization of DSA campaigns.

With DSA ads, you’re harnessing the power of the search engine, artificial intelligence, and information processing from the target URLs. The way it works is that you enter a landing page into your campaign and when a user searches for a product, the search engine (Google or Bing) automatically matches that search term to the most relevant URL.

For example, if you search for the product “apple iphone 14“, the ad system will dynamically create an ad for that product and when you click through, you will be taken to that product in the store.

For DSA ads, headlines are dynamically created according to the target URL of the page:

The ad looks relevant to that search term and takes you to that product on the eshop.

The main advantages of DSA Ads include dynamic ad creation based on the content at a given URL and easy campaign creation. This means that the ad system will automatically create a relevant ad for the product and the user will be taken to the product after clicking through.

xAnother advantage is the ease of creating a DSA campaign, whether through Google Ads, Microsoft Ads or BlueWinston. Through DSA campaigns you can advertise all products on the store or just a certain group of products (for example, the most profitable products).

You can create DSA campaigns from the feed via BlueWinston for both Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. The advantage is that you only advertise products and automatically exclude all other subpages on the e-shop. A separate ad group is created for each product with its own URL link to the product.

You can also use our filters to choose more precisely which products you want to advertise. For example, by price, category, brand, etc. In this way, you can easily refine the products you want to advertise via a product DSA campaign.

On the BlueWinston website, you can read a guide on how to create profitable product DSA campaigns for Google search as well as for the Bing search engine.

DSA campaigns are created using search terms that are collected in a given advertising account (Google Ads or Microsoft Ads). You can view these terms and optimize them. In the screenshot below, we can see unsuitable search terms because they are too generic to the ad group (to the product).

Search term optimization is where you can exclude low-performing terms at the ad group or campaign level. This means that even if someone searches for a given term, they will no longer see an ad for that product. This will result in a more effective DSA campaign.

You can optimize your DSA campaigns manually, which means looking at search terms and comparing them to ad group names and URL links. Manual optimization is recommended right after you launch DSA campaigns, when the system can pick up quite a few inappropriate search terms.

When manually optimizing DSA campaigns, you need to manually exclude inappropriate search terms and add them as negative keywords.

As for the negative keywords, you can add them at the ad group level or at the campaign level.

If you have a search term that is too general for all products in the campaign, then exclude it at the campaign level. That is, add that term in the ad account (Google Ads or Microsoft Ads) as an exclusion keyword for that campaign.

Consequently, ads for negative keywords will not be displayed for that ad group.

You can add negative keywords to the Negative Keyword List and use it in multiple campaigns as needed.

If you have a search term that is too generic for the product, but could theoretically be appropriate for another product in the campaign, then exclude it at the ad group level (for that product). So add the negative keyword to that ad group.

Consequently, ads for excluded keywords will not be displayed in that ad group.

You can add negative keywords to the Negative Keyword List and use them in multiple campaigns as needed.

You can also optimize product DSA campaigns automatically, i.e. using scripts and rules. In BlueWinston, you can use several scripts that automatically exclude low-performing search terms.

As a first step, you need to set a maximum cost per conversion, either as a fixed value or as a % of the final product price. Then the scripts calculate with the given values.

In this case, the scripts count on 3% of the final product price. You can then select specific scripts and set the conditions for how the scripts should work.

In BlueWinston, you can set up scripts to automatically pause low-performing ad groups, as well as to exclude inappropriate search terms. The scripts will automatically optimize your campaign as you get more and more data.

Once a DSA campaign is launched, it is extremely important to monitor it and continuously exclude inappropriate search terms at the campaign and ad group level.

We recommend optimizing your DSA campaigns not only manually, but also automatically via scripts. With manual optimization, you may find inappropriate terms even before the conditions for automatic exclusion via scripts are met.

As we have already mentioned, it is very important to have good quality content on the store for DSA campaigns, i.e. good quality product descriptions, reviews, images and other product information. This will give more information to the advertising system and make DSA campaigns more accurate.

If you use DSA campaigns for a long time and keep optimizing and improving them, they can reach promising results in terms of ROAS or PNO, usually between 300 to 2000% in the case of ROAS.