Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) are a search ad format in which the platform, not the advertiser, decides which queries an ad answers, writes the headline and chooses the landing page, all from the content of the advertiser's website. The advertiser supplies a domain, a set of pages to target and the description text. Google introduced the format in 2011 to reach the long tail of searches that keyword lists miss, particularly for retailers and travel sites with thousands of pages, and Microsoft Advertising later built its own version. As of October 2026, Google is retiring it: DSA's functions are being absorbed into AI Max for Search, and remaining campaigns are scheduled for automatic upgrade from February 2027.

How a dynamic search ad is assembled

The work starts before anyone searches. Google crawls the advertiser's site with its organic indexing technology and keeps an index of the pages, an approach set out in the 2011 launch post by Baris Gultekin, then director of AdWords product management. When a query arrives that the system judges relevant to an indexed page, it generates a headline, selects that page as the destination and enters the ad into the normal auction.

Campaign setup rests on a few objects. At campaign level, a DSA setting names the domain and its language. In the Google Ads API, that setting carries exactly those two fields plus a flag, useSuppliedUrlsOnly, which restricts the campaign to advertiser-supplied URLs. Below it sits a dynamic ad group, which holds targets instead of keywords. Each target is a webpage criterion built from conditions. According to the API reference (revision dated October 14, 2026), conditions can test five operands - URL, category, page title, page content and custom label - using two operators, equals and contains. An empty condition list targets every page on the site. Negative targets use the same structure to fence off sections such as careers pages or out-of-stock products.

Google's help documentation describes the practical routes. URL_Equals targets individual pages, URL_Contains targets groups of pages sharing a string, categories are themed clusters of pages that Google generates itself, and page feeds are spreadsheets of URLs uploaded by the advertiser, optionally tagged with custom labels. An account can hold up to 100 page feeds. One category, "Landing pages from your standard ad groups", restricts targeting to pages already used by keyword ads.

The ad is formally an expanded dynamic search ad. The advertiser writes the description fields, listed in the API as description and description2. Google generates the headline, chiefly from the page's HTML title, and sets the display URL to the domain of the final URL. The help page warns that Google may alter capitalisation or strip characters, and that the advertiser cannot know in advance which headline will serve.

Reporting has its own view. The API's DynamicSearchAdsSearchTermView returns, for each query, the generated headline, the landing page selected, any page feed URL used, and flags showing whether the query also matched a keyword, a negative keyword or a negative URL.

Who operates it

On the buy side, DSA has played three roles. Large-catalogue retailers, travel companies and classified marketplaces used it as primary coverage where keyword lists could not keep pace with inventory; the launch post cited ApartmentHomeLiving.com, whose campaigns had passed 15 million keywords. Advertisers with tidy keyword accounts ran it as a catch-all and mined its search terms for new keywords. On the sell side, the search engine is the operator: it crawls, generates and sells.

The format was meant to sit beneath an advertiser's own keywords rather than compete with them. Google's 2011 description said a dynamic ad would be held back on any search where the same advertiser had an eligible keyword-targeted ad.

Origin and evolution

Google announced DSA as a beta on October 20, 2011. Most pilot advertisers saw clicks and conversions rise by 5 to 10%, according to Google. Lawrence Cotter, general manager of ApartmentHomeLiving.com, said in the same post that the format "increased conversions by almost 50% with an average cost-per-conversion that's 73% less".

On October 25, 2012, product manager Tarun Jain announced availability to all advertisers, along with mobile support, ad extensions and automatic bid reductions for weakly converting queries. That post promised that pages with a DSA impression would be crawled at least once a day. An update four days later withdrew the promise, conceding that some such pages "are not crawled each day".

The next significant change came on March 28, 2017, when Walter Vulej, an AdWords product manager, introduced page feeds with custom labels and expanded ads with longer description text. Page feeds answered the most persistent complaint, that advertisers could not dictate which pages the crawler used.

Microsoft followed. Bing Ads rolled DSA out to US and UK advertisers in 2017, according to Search Engine Land. Editor support arrived that October, and labels followed in February 2018. In August 2020 Microsoft extended DSA to eight more countries.

Later changes were incremental. Google extended brand exclusions to DSA in June 2024, a control previously confined to Performance Max, and ad customizers in DSA stopped serving after May 31, 2024. Performance Max itself borrowed DSA's landing-page logic through final URL expansion, and the Google Ads API still carries a recommendation type for migrating DSA campaigns to Performance Max.

Why it matters

DSA was one of the first mainstream products in which a search engine chose the queries and wrote the ad text itself. Its bargain - reach in exchange for control - is the one now attached to AI Max, broad match and Performance Max. For some accounts the exposure is large. Jean-Michel Fontaine, a Google Ads practitioner, noted that accounts where DSA makes up more than half of search spend face particular difficulty in the transition, especially non-retailers without Shopping as a fallback.

The retirement also changes what URL-level control means. PPC Land's weekly round-up argued that such control disappears into a more opaque automated system, with lead generation and multi-brand portfolios most exposed.

Limitations and disputes

DSA is only as good as what the crawler can read. Google's documentation says it suits neither sites that change daily nor pages built mainly from images or hidden behind sign-in, and that ads can be disapproved if robots.txt blocks AdsBot-Google. Matching could be loose, and practitioners relied on negative keywords and negative URL targets to keep spend away from support pages and blog posts.

Performance evidence has come mostly from Google. The 2012 post said beta testers gained 10% more traffic and conversions on average and beat their non-exact keywords by 10% on click-through rate, cost per click and cost per acquisition. Independent cross-account studies of DSA were rare. Its replacement faces the same scrutiny. Google said at launch in May 2025 that AI Max delivered 14% more conversions or conversion value; when it left beta on April 15, 2026, the figure was 7%, based on internal data for non-retail advertisers. Ezra Sackett, director of paid search at Monks, reported in August 2025 that 99% of AI Max impressions across about 30,000 search terms produced no conversions.

The migration left practical questions, including how campaigns mixing dynamic and keyword ad groups would be handled, a point Joao de Braganca raised on LinkedIn. Google's help page now says that in experiments on mixed campaigns only the non-DSA ad groups upgrade in the treatment arm, and that fully dynamic campaigns cannot use templated experiments.

Not the same as

  • AI Max for Search. A bundle of settings on standard Search campaigns, not an ad format. Search term matching combines broad match with landing-page and asset signals, text customization writes query-specific copy and final URL expansion picks the page. It inherits DSA's functions but runs on keywords and responsive search ads; the match type explainer covers its reporting label.
  • Dynamic product ads. Feed-driven ads that show catalogue items, often to past visitors. DSA uses no product feed and no retargeting.
  • Dynamic keyword insertion. A substitution that drops the matched keyword into an advertiser-written ad, which still depends on keywords.
  • Digital Services Act. The EU platform regulation shares the abbreviation, which can confuse searches of trade coverage.

Recent developments

Google's April 15, 2026 announcement, by Brandon Ervin, director of product management, set September 2026 for automatic upgrades and the end of new DSA campaigns, citing searches that have become "more complex and unpredictable". On June 11 Google moved the automigration to February 2027; Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Liaison, cited advertiser feedback and the fourth-quarter peak. Creating and editing DSA campaigns was restored on June 15, and creation is due to be removed in January 2027. Upgraded campaigns convert dynamic ad groups to standard ones with search term matching, text customization and final URL expansion switched on and URL controls kept; legacy ads are paused only after the replacement responsive search ads pass policy review. A June 23 documentation update added search terms report views separating DSA traffic from AI Max. Campaigns using automatically created assets or campaign-level broad match, which were on the original schedule, began moving on September 1.

Microsoft is taking a different line. Its August 27, 2026 post on AI Max said DSA campaigns "will continue to be supported in Microsoft Advertising until further notice", and that Google campaigns already upgraded from DSA will be converted back into standard DSA campaigns when imported.

Timeline

  • October 20, 2011 - Google announces Dynamic Search Ads in beta; pilot advertisers report 5 to 10% more clicks and conversions
  • October 25, 2012 - DSA opens to all AdWords advertisers, with mobile support and extensions
  • October 29, 2012 - Google withdraws its promise of daily crawling for pages with DSA impressions
  • March 28, 2017 - Page feeds, custom labels and expanded DSA ads launch
  • 2017 - Bing Ads rolls out DSA to US and UK advertisers; Bing Ads Editor support in October
  • February 2018 - Labels for DSA arrive in Bing Ads Editor
  • August 2020 - Microsoft extends DSA to eight more countries
  • May 31, 2024 - Ad customizers in DSA stop serving
  • June 2024 - Google extends brand exclusions to DSA
  • May 6, 2025 - Google announces AI Max for Search, claiming 14% more conversions or conversion value
  • April 15, 2026 - Google announces DSA retirement and AI Max general availability; voluntary upgrade tools roll out; automatic upgrades set for September 2026
  • June 11, 2026 - Google moves DSA automigration to February 2027
  • June 15, 2026 - Creating and editing DSA campaigns restored
  • June 23, 2026 - Google help documentation adds DSA-specific search terms report views
  • August 27, 2026 - Microsoft says DSA remains supported until further notice
  • September 1, 2026 - Automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match campaigns begin moving to AI Max
  • January 2027 - Scheduled removal of new DSA campaign creation in Google Ads
  • February 2027 - Scheduled start of automatic DSA upgrades to AI Max

Summary

Who: Google created Dynamic Search Ads in 2011 and Microsoft Advertising offers its own version. Retailers, travel companies, marketplaces and other advertisers with large websites are the main users.

What: A search ad format that uses a website's content, rather than keywords, to decide when an ad shows, to generate its headline and to choose its landing page. Advertisers control targeting through URLs, categories, page feeds and negatives, and write only the description text.

When: Announced in beta on October 20, 2011 and opened to all advertisers on October 25, 2012. Google announced its retirement on April 15, 2026; automatic upgrades to AI Max are scheduled from February 2027.

Where: Google Search and Microsoft Advertising's search network, set up in dynamic ad groups inside Search campaigns.

Why: Keyword lists cannot cover every query a large site could answer. DSA filled those gaps automatically. Google now argues that searches have become too complex for landing-page data alone and is folding the format into AI Max, while Microsoft continues to support it.