How do I write Google Ads ad copy, and tell which lines work?

The Ads table gives a responsive search ad one row, and Google says its figures are “the totals for all of the ad combinations that were created using the headlines and descriptions you entered.” Each line’s own figures are one level down, in the ad’s asset report.

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Ads and find the responsive search ad.
2. 02Select View asset details at the bottom of the ad. The Assets column holds each line, Asset type says whether it’s a headline or a description, and Position pinning says where a pinned line is held.
3. 03Read each line’s Impressions, Clicks, Cost, Conversions and Conversion value. Where a column is missing, select the columns icon at the top right of the table to add it.
4. 04Download the report to work on it in a sheet.

• The performance labels are gone. Google’s page says the Performance label column “has been deprecated as full performance statistics for each asset are now available.” Its page on writing ad copy still tells you to replace “Low” lines with ones based on your “Best,” but the report no longer rates them, so the figures are what you read.
• The figures start on June 5, 2025. Google says the full statistics are “only available for dates on or after June 5, 2025.”
• A line can show nothing. Google says an asset may get no impressions when others are predicted to perform better, and suggests replacing one that has had none after several weeks.

Two more views sit beside it. The Combinations tab, in the same asset details, shows the combinations created from the ad and which of them showed most. Google says not to copy one into a fixed ad, because “they’re not guaranteed to perform the same as your ads.” And Campaigns › Assets lists the lines of every responsive search ad in one table, for one campaign or all of them, as long as the line is in an active ad and had an impression in the last 30 days.

Google gives two cautions on the report’s own page. An ad shows several lines at once, so “if a single ad impression includes 3 different assets, those 3 assets will each register one impression”: the lines’ impressions and clicks overlap, and don’t add up to the ad’s. And a line’s click-through rate (CTR) depends on the lines shown beside it, so Google calls ratios at this level “directional indicators only.”

So don’t rank the lines against each other. Set each one against its own ad. Every impression of the ad either showed the line or didn’t, which splits the ad’s impressions into two counts that don’t overlap.

1. 01On Campaigns › Ads, set the date range to the last 8 weeks and note the ad’s Impr. and Clicks.
2. 02In its asset details, over the same dates, read each line’s Impressions and Clicks.
3. 03Divide a line’s clicks by its impressions. That is the ad’s click-through rate on the impressions that showed the line.
4. 04Subtract the line’s impressions and clicks from the ad’s, and divide again. That is the ad’s rate on the impressions that didn’t show it.
5. 05Read down the two rates. A line whose rate is under half the ad’s without it, on 200 impressions or more, is the one to look at. A line pinned alone to headline position 1 or 2, or to description position 1, shows in every ad, so it has no rate without it to read.

Before you replace a line on that reading, three things Google says:

• Judge the whole, not the line. Google’s advice on the report’s page is to “evaluate performance at the asset group level or campaign level, rather than at the individual asset level.” So a line’s reading is a reason to look, and what the ad group does after the change is the result.
• It’s a comparison, not a test. Google chooses which lines show on which search, so the searches that saw the line may not be the ones that didn’t. For a wording you want tested, Google has ad variations, which “allow you to easily create and test variations of your ads across multiple campaigns or your entire account,” and its advice for any ad test is to “wait until you have served enough impressions to be confident in your results.” The experiments guide covers ad variations and how to compare two whole ads.
• Variety comes first. Google says to reach an Excellent ad strength by adding a diverse range of lines, up to the most the ad holds, “before replacing or refreshing assets.” So an ad with room left gets a new line before it loses an old one.

To change a line, hover over the ad on the Ads page, select the edit icon, then Edit. Google notes that removing or editing lines “can change the ads that are serving and may impact your performance,” and a changed ad goes through review again.

Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions, and Google says you can use it “to gauge which ads, listings, and keywords are successful for you and which need to be improved.” For one ad, the useful reading is against its own past.

1. 01On Campaigns › Ads, select the arrow next to the date range and choose the last four weeks. Turn on Compare and leave it at Previous period.
2. 02Select the double arrows in the CTR column’s header. The column opens into four: this range, the one before, the change, and the change as a percentage. Do the same for Impr.
3. 03Look for an ad whose rate fell by a quarter or more, with at least 500 impressions in each range. On fewer, a handful of clicks moves the rate.
4. 04Read it beside the other ads in its ad group, then read the ad group beside the campaign’s others on Campaigns › Ad groups. A fall they share belongs to the searches, not the ad.
5. 05To find the week it turned, set the range to the last 8 weeks, select the segment icon, then Time and Week. Day works only for a date range of 16 days or less.

Read the impressions before you blame the words. Google says a responsive search ad’s own click-through rate “won’t paint a full picture,” because the ad qualifies for more auctions and may be showing in “a low clickthrough rate placement that you might not have qualified for before.” A rate that fell while impressions and clicks both rose points to that. A rate that fell on about the same impressions is more likely the ad’s own, and the answer is a new ad beside it that takes another angle.

These three are faults in the words themselves, so the figures above won’t show them. Read every line in one place: go to Campaigns › Assets, select the download icon above the table, and search the sheet. A line with no impression in the last 30 days isn’t in it, so open any ad that hasn’t been showing from the Ads page.

• A date that has passed. Search for each month’s name and for the year. An ad still saying “Sale ends Sep 8” three weeks later offers something that’s over, and the click costs the same. A Google Ads countdown keeps a date from going stale: type a brace in the line, select Countdown, and set when it ends. It starts showing 5 days before the end unless you say otherwise, and Google says ads with one “automatically stop showing after their specified end date.” In a responsive search ad, Google asks for at least 3 headlines without a countdown. A sale’s dates can also go on a promotion asset, which takes the dates it’s eligible to show.
• A misspelling. Google’s Style and spelling policy doesn’t allow “ads or assets that don’t use commonly accepted spelling or grammar,” and its example is “Buy flwres here.” So a typo can get a line disapproved, which the disapproved ads guide covers. A brand or product name spelled its own way is the exception: Google asks you to request a review before creating the ad, and to show that the name appears that way throughout your site or app.
• A word you never want. A claim you can’t make, a word your brand doesn’t use, a competitor’s name (the trademarks guide says what Google restricts there). Keep the list written down, and search the sheet for each word.

Every day Goldbeater reads the same figures for every enabled responsive search ad over the last 8 whole weeks, and does the sum above for each headline and description shown 200 times or more. It raises a line where the ad drew under half the clicks per impression with it that it drew without it, and only where so few clicks are unlikely to be luck.

That test allows for two things a sum by hand can’t. Google shows each line on the searches it picks, so lines differ from their ads by more than chance alone: Goldbeater measures how much the lines of your other ads do, and holds this one to that. And it corrects for every line it tested, at 5% across the account, so reading a hundred lines doesn’t turn up five by accident. A line that showed on every impression of its ad, as one pinned alone to the first position does, has nothing to be set against, and isn’t judged.

That is the marked row of the table, with the impressions and clicks behind each rate. A finding is medium where the ad takes a thousandth or more of the account’s spend and the line showed on a quarter or more of its impressions, as here, and low otherwise. It is advice: the replacement is copy, and yours to write, so Goldbeater drafts no change, and it says to keep the line if it’s wording you have to use. The same words failing in several ads are raised together, as one piece of copy.

Four more checks read your ads’ words and clicks every day:

• A falling click-through rate. An enabled Search ad whose rate over the last 4 weeks fell by a quarter or more from the 4 before, on at least 500 impressions in each. Goldbeater judges it week by week beside the other ads in its ad group and the campaign’s other ad groups, whichever fell further, so a fall they share isn’t raised, and it allows for luck the same way. It’s medium where the ad’s own fall, beyond theirs, halved its rate, and low otherwise. The answer is a new ad, so Goldbeater drafts no change.
• A date that has passed. A headline or description of an enabled responsive search ad naming a date whose last day is over, read in English, German, Spanish, French and Japanese. A date without a year is read as the one nearest today, and a year alone, a plain number and a date after “since” or “from” aren’t raised. It’s medium where the line is pinned, and low otherwise. Where every date the ad names has passed and another ad Google shows in its ad group names none, Goldbeater drafts pausing the ad for you to approve; otherwise it names the lines to rewrite.
• A misspelling. A word on a published list of common English misspellings, each with one right spelling, in a line you wrote: an ad’s headline or description, a sitelink, callout, structured snippet, promotion or price asset, or a Performance Max asset group’s text. Goldbeater reads only text written in English, and never raises a word of a keyword, a product title, a brand term, a name or your site’s address, anything Google fills in, or a word in capitals. It’s low, and advice.
• A word you never want. An enabled ad, or one in a campaign waiting to launch, whose headlines, descriptions or paths hold a word you’ve listed under Words you never want in your ads in the account’s Settings, whole and in any capitals. It’s low, and advice: rewrite the lines. With no words listed, it raises nothing.

The audit checklist has every ad and asset line with where to find it in Google Ads.

What is ad copy in Google Ads?

The words of your ad. In a responsive search ad that is up to 15 headlines of 30 characters and 4 descriptions of 90. Google assembles a combination of them for each search and can show them in any order, so each line has to make sense on its own.

How do I see which headlines perform best in a responsive search ad?

Go to Campaigns, then Ads, and select View asset details at the bottom of the ad. The asset report lists each headline and description with its impressions, and the columns icon adds clicks, cost and conversions. Google calls ratios at this level directional indicators only, because each depends on the lines shown beside it.

What happened to the Low, Good and Best performance labels?

Google’s asset report page says the Performance label column has been deprecated, as full performance statistics for each asset are now available. Those statistics cover dates on or after June 5, 2025.

How do I improve CTR in Google Ads?

Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions. Google says the more your keywords and ads relate to each other and to your business, the more likely a searcher is to click, so put your keywords’ words in your headlines and say what the searcher gets. Then find the line your ad is clicked least with, and replace it.

What is a good CTR for a Google search ad?

Google says a good CTR is relative to what you’re advertising and on which networks. Its page on monitoring ads draws one line: generally, a CTR under 1% on the Search Network indicates that your ads aren’t targeted to a relevant audience.

How do I keep a sale’s date from going stale in an ad?

Use a countdown. Type a brace in the headline or description, select Countdown and set when it ends: the line counts down by day, then hour, then minute, and Google stops showing the ad after the end date. A promotion asset is the other way, since it takes the dates it’s eligible to show.

Does Google check the spelling of my ads?

Its Style and spelling policy doesn’t allow ads or assets that don’t use commonly accepted spelling or grammar, so a misspelled line can be disapproved. A brand or product name spelled its own way needs a review, where you show it’s spelled that way throughout your site or app.