Advertising on Google Shopping is the go-to method for merchants from any and every industry. It involves complicated steps requiring extensive knowledge, creativity and dedication to create and maintain.
The responsibility of simplifying such processes falls on the shoulders of researchers and writers. To fulfill our responsibility for the same, we have brought to you a well-sought-out guide on how you can create dynamic remarketing campaigns in Google ads.
You might have already heard of what remarketing is. If not, remarketing enables advertisers to reach all those customers who visited their website previously. These customers can be those who have browsed a product page, added products to the cart, or have performed a potential action that may have resulted in a successful conversion.
However, for those merchants who have potential customers that often forget to complete the entire purchase, dynamic remarketing is the right choice.
| Bonus: If you already know what Dynamic remarketing campaigns are, jump directly to the process of creating Google Dynamic Retargeting ads. |
Table of Contents
TL;DR
Process for Setting Up Google Dynamic Remarketing Campaigns:
- Link Google Ads and Analytics:
- Go to Google Analytics > Admin > Product Links > Google Ads Links.
- Choose the account to link, confirm, and submit.
- Create and share audiences from Analytics to Google Ads.
- Prepare a Product Feed:
- Create or use an existing product feed tailored for remarketing.
- Upload the feed to your Google Merchant Center account.
- Ensure the feed includes accurate, complete product data.
- Set Up the Dynamic Remarketing Tag:
- Install the tag on every page of your website.
- Use custom parameters (e.g., product IDs, categories, values).
- Check tag installation status with Google Tag Assistant.
- Configure Tags in Google Tag Manager:
- Create a new tag > Select “Google Ads Remarketing.”
- Enter your conversion ID from Google Ads.
- Add custom parameters and set triggers for specific events.
- Create Responsive Display Ads:
- Provide headlines, descriptions, business name, and landing page URL.
- Customize ads for dynamic remarketing during campaign creation.
- Set Up the Campaign in Google Ads:
- Log into Google Ads > Campaigns > New Campaign.
- Select a goal (e.g., Sales, Leads, or Website Traffic).
- Choose “Performance Max” as the campaign type.
- Link your Google Merchant Center account and dynamic ads feed.
- Review and Publish:
- Set bid, budget, and targeting.
- Review all campaign settings and publish the campaign.
- Monitor and Optimize:
- Check ad performance using metrics like CTR and ROI in Google Analytics.
- Adjust targeting, filters, and bids as needed.
What is Google Dynamic Remarketing?
Dynamic Remarketing allows businesses to re-engage customers who have already visited their website. It serves personalized ads featuring products the customers have previously viewed, gently encouraging them to complete their purchase.
Google automatically creates these ads for each visitor, tailoring them with product images, prices, and descriptions. Advertisers only need to supply an optimized product feed for Google to use in this process.
- Cookies track users who visit your website.
- Google verifies if they’ve visited before and checks if they’re on your remarketing list.
- If a match is found, personalized ads are displayed to the user.
This process makes retargeting highly effective, as ads are relevant and directly connected to the user’s browsing history.
Dynamic Remarketing Campaigns vs Standard Remarketing Campaigns
A remarketing campaign uses website visitors’ information to retarget them with product ads. The key difference between standard and dynamic remarketing lies in what these ads contain.
In a standard remarketing campaign, all users who have previously engaged with your website are shown generalized ads, regardless of the specific pages or products they interacted with. These ads must be manually altered and set up for each variation.
With dynamic remarketing, ads become highly personalized, tailored to the pages and products users viewed on your website. Advertisers can use a one-time template, and Google will automatically update images and product details based on the individual user, requiring no manual intervention.
- Dynamic remarketing excels in targeting by showing specific products users interacted with.
- Advertisers can automate ad creation using templates, saving time and effort.
This ability to deliver personalized, automated ads makes dynamic remarketing more effective and efficient than standard remarketing.
Benefits Of Google Dynamic Remarketing Campaigns
Dynamic remarketing can have several benefits. Apart from a one-time set up, dynamic remarketing campaigns can significantly uplift your campaigns by:
- Improving Conversion Rate, click-through rates and ROI.
- Lowering the average CPC.
- Reminding users about the brand and thus boosting brand awareness.
- Increasing customer retention and brand loyalty.
- Reducing cart abandonment.
- Auto-optimization of layouts, bids and targeting which decreases manual work.
- Making it simple to create and customize ad templates.
At the core, all the benefits simply can be put into a single sentence:
Dynamic remarketing lowers manual effort and increases ad performance.
How to Create A Dynamic Remarketing Campaign?
Let’s learn how to create a dyanamic remarketing ad campaign. But before that, let’s also understand the perquisites required.
Prerequisites To Create Dynamic Remarketing Ads
Before you can make the most of dynamic remarketing campaigns, you must do some prep work.
Link Google Ads and Analytics Account
Before you begin, you must first link your Google Ads account to your Google Analytics account. You can do this on your Google Analytics account itself.
- On GA4’s admin page, you can find Google Ads links under Product links.
- Click on Link, and choose the Google Ads account you want to link.
- Next, click on Confirm.
- Review your settings and submit them.
All your Google Ads account data will be available on your GA4-linked account within 48 hours.
On your GA4 account, you can now create audiences, which will automatically be sent to all your linked accounts. You can utilize these audiences in your shared library in Google Ads for your remarketing campaigns.
Product feed
You can use the product feed you created for shopping campaigns or create a new, customized feed specifically for remarketing campaigns. (We suggest creating a unique feed with remarketing in mind!)
You must upload this feed to your Google Merchant Center account.
💡Shopify merchants can use third-party apps like AdNabu to sync their data directly to the Google merchant center. AdNabu also offers AI optimization and other features that can help you avoid product disapprovals and feed rejections.
| ✍️Note: Ensure your feed file contains all the necessary and relevant product data to avoid feed rejection. |
Set Up Dynamic Remarketing Ads (Responsive Display Ads)
Responsive display ads are flexible ads that can automatically adjust their size, format and appearance, consequently to fit the available ad space. These ads are specially crafted for Google dynamic remarketing campaigns.
They’re a part of the dynamic remarketing to allow customizations across different devices, websites and users based on the requirements.
| Pro tip: 💡You can also set up these ads as the last step of your campaign creation. |
Responsive display ads can be created on Google Ads too. This help article provides step-by-step instructions.
Your ad will require:
- A short headline
- A long headline
- A description of the product
- Business name
- Final URL (landing page URL)
✍️Note: Your ad approval might take over 7 days.
Dynamic Remarketing Tag
You need to install the Dynamic Remarketing Tag on every page of your website.
This tag communicates with Google and provides information on what shoppers are viewing on your site. Add custom parameters (e.g., product category, value, visitor age) to provide detailed data for Google.
- Google matches the custom parameter ID in the tag to each item ID in your product feed.
- This enables Google to display dynamic, personalized ads instead of standard ones.
By installing the tag on every page, Google can track which products and categories users interact with.
💡Recommendation: Advertisers unfamiliar with coding or JavaScript should hire a professional developer to handle this process.
| ✍️Note: Use Google Tag Assistant to check the installation status of your remarketing tags. |
How To Set Up Your Google Ads Dynamic Remarketing Tag in Google Tag Manager
You can set up your dynamic remarketing tag on your Google Tag Manager. Follow these steps:
Step 1. On Google Tag Manager, under the workspace tab, you must locate ‘Tags’ on your left-panel. Click on ‘New’ button on your right to set up a new tag.
Step 2. You must now select ‘Tag Configuration’ and then click on Google Ads’.
Step 3. Next, you must look for the ‘Google Remarketing Tag’ and click on it.
Step 4. You can find your conversion ID in your Google Ads account. Once you’ve entered your conversion ID, click the checkbox next to ‘Send dynamic remarketing event data.’
To get your conversion ID from Google Ads:
- Navigate to the ‘Tools and Settings’ tab.
- Under the ‘Shared Library’ menu, look for ‘Audience Manager’, click on it.
- On the left side panel, you can now find ‘Your Data Sources’, and under ‘Google Ads Tag’ you can scroll down to locate ‘Tag setup.’
- For the last step click on ‘Use Google Tag Manager.’ and here you can find your ‘Conversion ID’ and copy it.
Step 5 Choose the variable for event name, event value and event items from the list by selecting the symbol next to it.
Step 6 For the final step, set up a trigger for the tag to fire (record data) anytime a specific event occurs. Finally, click on ‘Save’.
You have successfully created a tag. This tag can help you create an audience list.
Additionally, if you are a Shopify merchant, remarketing apps like AdNabu’s offer simplified ways to create, set up and automate this entire process for you using their app.
You can read more about how it works here.
Step-by-Step Process to Create A Dynamic Retargeting Campaign
Now that you have all the requirements fulfilled, it is time to begin setting up your dynamic remarketing campaign.
Step 1. Log on to your Google Ads account, and on the left side panel, locate the ‘Campaigns’ symbol ‘📢’ and click on it.
Step 2. Click on the ‘Overview’ tab and locate the ‘New Campaign’ button.
Step 3. Either you can select ‘New Campaign’ or click on Resume campaign draft, and select the campaign you want to publish.
If you’re setting up a new campaign, pick Sales, Leads, Website traffic, Brand awareness, or Reach as your campaign goals. Click on next.
Step 4. Select ‘Performance Max’ as your campaign type, and enter the URL for your business website. Name your campaign and click continue.
| ✍️Note: For the purpose of this blog, we will show you how to create a dynamic remarketing campaign for Performance Max ads. These campaigns are also available for other ad types offered by Google. |
Step 5. If you have a Google Merchant Center account, select the account. If you do not have a GMC account, you can add a dynamic ads feed.
Step 6. Since your website already has all the required remarketing tags, your campaign will automatically activate dynamic remarketing.
Step 7. Set up all the campaign settings like the bid, budget, assets, etc. Review your campaign settings and you can successfully publish it!
And you’re all set!
Common Issues In Google Ads Dynamic Remarketing (And Their Solutions)
Even if you have set up your campaign and followed all the steps, some hiccups might pop up here and there.
Fear not! We have compiled a list of common issues and their solutions that might show up while you’re setting up your dynamic remarketing campaigns for Google ads.
Restrictive targeting
Alert message: Your ad group’s ads aren’t reaching people.
What this means: Your campaign settings are too narrow, significantly limiting the number of users your ads can reach. This often happens when you manually set up a remarketing list or add multiple filters and exclusions. Small targeted regions can also trigger this error.
How to fix:
- Increase the geographical region for your campaign to include more users.
- Revisit your campaign settings and expand your target audience.
- Avoid layering multiple retargeting filters or exclusions.
Disapproved Ads
Alert message: All ads in your ad group are disapproved.
What this means: Google has disallowed your ads due to policy violations, incomplete product information, or incorrect ad formats. Disapproval may also result from inappropriate content or violations of local laws.
How to fix:
- Resubmit the corrected ads for approval.
- Check the disapproval reasons provided by Google in your account.
- Correct any issues with product details, formatting, or policy adherence.
Bids too low
Alert message: The bids in your ad group are too low to show your ads.
What this means: Your bids are not competitive enough to secure ad placements, especially in high-demand industries. Low bids reduce ad visibility, limiting impressions and clicks.
How to fix:
- Regularly review and adjust bids to maintain competitiveness.
- Increase your bid amounts based on your industry’s competition levels.
- Evaluate the average CPC for your industry and set bids accordingly.
Not enough people targeted
Alert message: Your ad group targeting isn’t reaching enough people.
What this means: Your remarketing list contains too few users to serve ads effectively. This often occurs with newly created lists or small-scale audience targeting.
How to fix:
- Combine smaller audience lists into larger, more robust lists to improve reach.
- Increase your audience size by expanding the criteria for inclusion in your list.
- Broaden your targeting by removing unnecessary exclusions or filters.
Disabled remarketing lists
Alert message: Your ads can’t run because your ad group targets or excludes disabled audience lists.
What this means: Some audience lists may no longer be valid due to expiration (lists are valid for a maximum of 540 days) or because they were created for limited-time promotions that have ended.
How to fix:
- Ensure that when an audience list is deactivated, it is removed from all campaigns and ad groups.
- Identify and remove inactive or expired audience lists from your campaigns.
Audience list not big enough
Alert message: Your ad group targets audience lists with fewer than 100 active users.
What this means: Google requires a minimum of 100 active users in the last 30 days for ads to run. Small or overly filtered lists may not meet this requirement.
How to fix:
- Consider using broader criteria to include more users in your remarketing lists.
- Grow your audience by increasing website traffic and encouraging user engagement.
- Remove restrictive filters that may limit the number of users on your list.
Conclusion
Dynamic remarketing campaigns are highly effective in improving your online presence and thus increasing your brand’s awareness. As a result, you will begin to notice more customers returning to finish the purchases they left midway. Your customers will undoubtedly turn more loyal as you understand them better and show them what they want to see.
FAQs
What is Google Ads Dynamic remarketing?
Dynamic Remarketing on Google allows merchants to provide customized ads for their customers who have previously visited their website. These ads show products, features, and services that the customers have previously viewed. Additionally, these ads are auto-generated by Google and can be used for retargeting efforts.
How does dynamic remarketing work?
Dynamic remarketing utilizes a product feed and a remarketing tag placed on each page of your website. This tag is set up to collect data based on customer behavior, specifically events such as pages visited or products viewed, products added to cart, etc.
This data is matched with the product data in your feed to create customized ads which are shown to customers that have previously visited your website but left without purchasing. These ads are displayed across other websites across the Google Display Network.
What are the prerequisites for setting up dynamic remarketing?
You need an active Google Ads account linked to Google Analytics, an updated product feed, a remarketing tag on your website’s pages, and audience lists created from Google Analytics.
What are the benefits of dynamic remarketing?
Dynamic remarketing offers personalized ad experiences for users, boosts CTC, CTR, and ROI, reduces manual effort through automated ad creation, and enhances brand loyalty and customer retention, leading to a more fulfilling user experience.
What is the difference between dynamic remarketing and standard remarketing?
Standard remarketing shows generalized ads to previous visitors, while dynamic remarketing creates personalized ads based on the user’s specific behavior, such as products or pages they viewed, offering more effectiveness and additional benefits.
How do I add the dynamic remarketing tag to my website?
You can add the dynamic remarketing tag using Google Tag Manager. You can also insert the code snipped (available on Google Ads) into your website’s code. However, since each page requires a tag, it is suggested you utilize Google Tag Manager or a third-party app to simplify the process.
What are some best practices for dynamic remarketing ads?
Maintain consistent branding, use clear call-to-actions, test ad variations, and tailor ads to different audience segments. Set a frequency cap to avoid overuse of ads and stay updated with Google’s latest policies.
How do I measure the success of my dynamic remarketing campaigns?
Google Analytics and Google Ads will provide detailed analytics for each of your ad campaigns. This includes metrics such as the CTR, Conversion rates, ROI and Engagement Rate.
These metrics will help you to determine the further course of action and ad performance. Using different marketing strategies might prove to be useful in optimizing your ad campaigns.
