Brad Geddes analyzed 5,900+ Google Ads accounts. Higher ad strength RSAs win more impressions, but pinned, lower-rated ads often convert better. What to change.

If you run responsive search ads, Google is now steering more impressions toward whichever ad in an ad group carries the higher ad strength rating. That ad has the better conversion rate only 45% of the time.

A new study by Brad Geddes, co-founder of Adalysis, analyzed more than 5,900 Google Ads accounts to answer a question PPC managers have argued about since RSAs became the default ad format. Does higher ad strength lead to better performance?

His answer is yes for some ads and no for others. The difference comes down to one setting, which is pinning.

I’ve known Brad since May 2011, when he became the PPC Faculty Chair at Market Motive while I was the faculty chair of Video and Content Marketing. And as one of the co-authors of Digital Marketing Fundamentals, which Wiley published in 2023, I asked Brad to contribute the chapter on Digital Advertising. So, I can vouch for his Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) in PPC and paid media.

When Brad previewed the findings in a LinkedIn post last week, calling ad strength “one of Google Ads’ most misunderstood metrics,” I went back to read his full study, which follows up on the company’s 2022 ad strength study. That gives us a four-year view of how Google’s ad serving has drifted.

Here is what the data shows, where it collides with what Google says, and what I’d change in your accounts before holiday traffic peaks.

Source link