A Responsive Search Ad (RSA) is Google Ads' current standard text ad format. Advertisers provide up to 15 headlines (30 characters each) and up to 4 description lines (90 characters each). Google's machine learning tests different combinations — showing three headlines and two descriptions simultaneously — and serves the combinations that generate the best performance for each user and context. RSAs replaced Expanded Text Ads (ETAs) as the primary Search ad format in 2022 and allow significantly more creative testing surface area within a single ad.
RSAs give Google's algorithm flexibility to assemble the best-performing ad for each individual auction context — showing a mobile-focused headline for mobile searchers, a price-focused headline for deal-seekers, and an expertise-focused headline for professional searchers. This contextual optimisation is the primary advantage of RSAs over the older Expanded Text Ad format, where every searcher saw the same combination of headlines and descriptions.
How to create effective RSAs
- Fill all 15 headline slots — more headlines give Google more combinations to test; underutilised slots limit optimisation
- Make headlines diverse — provide a variety of angles: features, benefits, price, social proof, urgency, brand, location
- Avoid repetition — Google penalises RSAs where headline content is highly repetitive across slots
- Use ad strength indicator — Google's RSA quality assessment (Poor/Average/Good/Excellent) provides immediate feedback on variety and relevance
- Pin critical elements — use headline pinning sparingly for legally required text or mandatory messages; pinning restricts testing
- Test one variable — run two RSAs per ad group with a different headline theme to identify the most effective messaging approach
- Include the keyword — at least one or two headlines should contain the target keyword for relevance
Ad Strength Poor typically indicates: too many similar or repetitive headlines (e.g. multiple headlines with the same keyword), insufficient variety in the headline content (all price-focused or all feature-focused), headlines that are too similar to each other for Google's diversity assessment, or descriptions that don't complement the headlines. Adding more diverse headline themes (social proof, benefits, call to action, location, price, unique selling point) and ensuring headlines don't repeat the same phrases typically improves Ad Strength.
No — Google discontinued the creation of new Expanded Text Ads in June 2022. Existing ETAs can still serve impressions and are visible in the account, but they cannot be edited or created. All new text ads must be RSAs. For accounts that still have active ETAs, they may continue to run alongside RSAs but should be reviewed — ETAs without ongoing optimisation capability will gradually become less competitive as RSA performance improves through testing.