Create a Google responsive display ad campaign

You can create responsive display ad campaigns for Google from your Hootsuite Ads dashboard. You simply upload variations of your campaign's creative assets, including images, videos, headlines and descriptions, to Hootsuite, and Google does the work to create and test different versions of your ads to fit available ad spaces. See Google’s help article About responsive display ads for more information.

Responsive display ads are the default ad type for the Google Display Network, including websites, YouTube videos, mobile devices, and apps. Responsive display ads can show as banner ads on some websites, or dynamic text ads on others.

Google fits the size, appearance, and format of your assets to what works best for the space where it shows the ad. Videos are prioritized over images if Google determines they will perform better for you. Google's machine learning model displays your best-performing combinations based on your own ad performance history.

Hootsuite Ads does not support display campaign subtypes (for example, Gmail, Smart campaigns).

Before you begin

You must connect your Google Ads account to Hootsuite Ads before you can create a Google responsive display ad campaign in Hootsuite. See Connect your Google Ads account to Ads for more information.

Create a campaign

1. On the Hootsuite Ads home page, select New Campaign.
2. Enter a campaign name, select a Google billing account, and then select the Display Ads campaign type.
3. Select Save and proceed.
   

Define campaign settings

1. Optional: Select Set campaign URL options to add a tracking template and custom parameters to the links in your campaign. You can also add custom parameters later at the ad group level.
2. Enter one or more locations to target with your ads, or exclude from targeting. Enter a country, city, region, postal code, or address. Addresses can include a radius in kilometers (km) or miles (mi).
3. Enter one or more languages to target with your ads.
   
4. Enter an average daily budget, and select an ad delivery method. See Google’s help article About ad delivery for more information.
5. Select a start and end date for your campaign. If you don't specify an end date, the campaign will run indefinitely.
6. Select a bidding strategy from the list.
7. Choose to target your ads on all devices, or select Set specific targeting for devices to specify desktop, mobile phone, or tablet (or any combination of those devices).
   
8. Select Save and proceed.

Set up the ad group and ads

1. Enter a name for your first ad group.
2. Select Keywords to enter keywords that surface your ads on relevant websites. Press ENTER between each keyword to add one keyword per line. Use match types to control the search terms that can trigger your ads. See Google’s help article About keyword matching options for more information.
   • Broad match - your ads may show where searches include your keywords, related keywords, or close variations like synonyms and misspellings. Example: tennis shoes.
   • Broad match modifier: similar to broad match, your ads may show where searches include your keywords designated with a plus sign or close variations.
     Example: +tennis, +shoes.
   • Phrase match: your ads may show where searches include exact phrases and close variations.
     Example: “tennis shoes”.
   • Exact match: your ads may show where searches include exact keywords and close variations.
     Example: [tennis shoes].
   • Negative match: your ads will not show where searches include your negative keywords.
     Example: -men.
   
3. Select Placements to enter specific placements that narrow the targeting of your responsive display ads. Placements must be in the form of URLs or app IDs for specific websites, videos, or apps where you want your ads shown.
4. Select Validate placements.
   
5. Select Advanced Ad Group options to:
   • Select an ads rotation strategy. Optimize is selected by default. See Google’s help article About ad rotation settings for more information.
   • Include or exclude target audience lists that you have saved in your Google Audience Manager.
   • Select an audience targeting setting.
   • Add up to eight custom parameters to the links in the ad group.
6. Select Create Ads.
7. Enter the following elements to build various combinations of your ads. Note that not all elements appear when your ads are shown. Sometimes Google may show them as just text ads, depending on the placement. We recommend including variations of each element, to make it easier for Google to optimize your ads.
   
   • Destination URL
   • At least two images (to a maximum of 15) , one square, and one landscape (required), with the following guidelines
     • PNG, JPEG, or GIF (not animated) format
     • maximum 5120 KB file size
     • text can cover no more than 20% of an image.
     • size must be greater than 600x314 for landscape, and greater than 300x300 for square images
     • landscape images must have a ratio of 1.91:1
   • Optional: one or more logo images
     • one square logo recommended
     • recommended size is 1200x1200, but it must be at least 128x128.
     • maximum 5120 KB file size
   • Optional: one or more YouTube video links (videos should be 30 seconds or less)
   • one headline (maximum five headlines)
   • one description (maximum five descriptions)
   • one long headline
   • business name
   • preferred format for your ads: All formats, Native, or Non native. Native means the ads take on the format and font of the website where they're shown, for a more seamless experience.
   
8. Select Save. If Hootsuite detects any issues, they appear in red for you to fix.
9. Optional: Select Add Ad Group and repeat steps 1-8 if you want to add another ad group to the campaign.
10. Select Save and proceed.

Review and publish

1. Review the summary of your campaign, and then select Publish to Google Ads.

Hootsuite sends your campaign to Google for review and publishing. Ads must comply with Google's advertising policies. See Google’s article on Advertising policiesAdvertising policies for more information.

You can monitor your campaign’s results and edit any campaign settings in the campaign dashboard. Select Your Campaigns, and then select the Google Ads campaign from the list to access the campaign dashboard.

Edit or delete ads from the All Ads tab of the campaign, and edit or delete ad groups from the Ad Groups tab.

You can create PDF reports from your responsive display campaign results with the report generator. See Create PDF reports for ad campaigns for more information.