Responsive Search Ads: How to Write, Pin and Test RSAs

How responsive search ads work in Google Ads: limits, Ad Strength, pinning, asset reports and AI Max, with a full 15-headline example for an Indian clinic.

Published 26 August 2026 by Web Hippo in Paid Ads

Responsive search ads (RSAs) are the standard text ad format for Google Search campaigns. Instead of writing one fixed ad, you give Google a pool of headlines and descriptions, and its system picks and orders them for each search. That sounds like it takes the writing off your plate. In practice it moves the skill somewhere else: into choosing what goes in the pool, what gets pinned, and how you read the results.

This guide covers how to create responsive search ads that actually convert: the limits, what Ad Strength does and doesn't measure, keyword and location insertion, pinning trade-offs, the asset and combinations reports, and the new AI Max text settings. It ends with a complete 15-headline, 4-description RSA for a Hyderabad physiotherapy clinic, organised by angle, plus a pinning decision table you can reuse.

How Responsive Search Ads Work

You enter headlines and descriptions, and Google Ads combines them into different ads, testing over time which combinations work best for which searches. According to Google's responsive search ads help page, each ad shows up to 3 headlines and at least one headline and one description, in varying orders. Text that matches the searcher's query may be shown in bold.

Characters in double-width languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean count as two. If you write ads in Hindi or Telugu, trust the character counter in the ad editor rather than your own count, and check the preview before saving.

What actually shows in the ad

Headline 1 and Description 1 almost always appear. Headline 2, Headline 3 and Description 2 show only when Google predicts they will help or when there is room, so none of them is guaranteed. On mobile, a call button or other assets can push text out, and Google may shorten text with an ellipsis. The practical rule: every headline and description must make sense on its own and in any order.

Google also calls this "enhanced flexibility". A headline can appear at the start of the description line, and up to 2 unused headlines can be shown as sitelink-style links pointing to your domain. Unused assets from another RSA in the same ad group can be borrowed the same way. Sensitive verticals are excluded from this asset sharing.

How many combinations are there?

Here is the arithmetic, which Google doesn't publish as a single number. With 15 headlines filling 3 ordered slots and 4 descriptions filling 2, there are 15 × 14 × 13 = 2,730 headline orders and 4 × 3 = 12 description orders, or about 32,760 possible ads. Pin a single headline to position 1 and the headline orders fall to 1 × 14 × 13 = 182, or about 2,184 ads. One pin removes over 90% of the options, which is why pinning deserves more thought than it usually gets.

How to Create Responsive Search Ads in Google Ads

Open the ad group. Go to Campaigns → Ads, click the plus button and choose Responsive search ad.
Set the final URL and paths. Use the most specific page for the ad group's keywords, not your homepage. Use the two 15-character paths to echo the service, for example /physiotherapy/kondapur.
Write 15 headlines. Start with the three you would want together if nothing else showed, then fill the rest by angle (see the example below).
Write 4 descriptions. Each should carry one full idea plus a call to action, since you can't know which one will appear with which headline.
Pin only what must always show, using the decision table later in this guide.
Check the preview and Ad Strength, then save. Google recommends at least 2 RSAs rated Good or Excellent per ad group, each with a unique final URL.

Ad Strength: What It Means and What It Doesn't

Ad Strength rates an RSA as Incomplete, Poor, Average, Good or Excellent, and lists actions to improve it. Google's Ad Strength help page is clear that it is a feedback tool: it "isn't used to calculate Ad Rank, Quality Score, or auction wins", and it doesn't decide whether your ad is eligible to serve.

What it does measure, per the same page:

Keyword relevance. Whether your most relevant keywords appear in headlines and descriptions. A keyword must sit whole inside one headline to count; it can't be split across two. Keywords longer than 30 characters belong in a description.
Quantity. How close you are to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions.
Diversity. Whether the assets say genuinely different things, rather than repeating the same words.
Sitelinks. Six or more sitelinks across the account, campaign and ad group now count towards the rating.

What it doesn't measure: your landing page, your offer, your price or whether the phone gets answered. Google reports that advertisers who move an RSA from Poor to Excellent see 15% more conversions on average. That is an average across advertisers, not a promise for your account.

Our view: treat Good as the floor and stop chasing Excellent once it starts forcing you to write weaker or repetitive copy. In the accounts we audit, an Average-rated ad with a sharp offer often out-converts an Excellent ad stuffed with keyword variants. Always compare ads on conversions and cost per conversion.

Writing Headlines That Cover Different Angles

The most common RSA mistake we see is 15 headlines that are really 4 headlines reworded. "Best Physiotherapy Clinic", "Top Physiotherapy Clinic" and "Expert Physiotherapy Clinic" give Google nothing new to test. Instead, give each group of headlines a different job:

Keyword: mirror what people type, so the ad looks relevant and earns bold text.
Location: the neighbourhood or city, because local services are chosen by distance.
Service or specialty: the specific problem you solve.
Proof: qualifications, ratings, years in business. Use only claims you can show on the landing page.
Offer or price: a starting price or first-visit offer reduces the fear of the unknown.
Convenience: timings, home visits, parking, WhatsApp booking.
Call to action and brand: what to do next, and who you are.

Mix lengths too. Short headlines (under 20 characters) are more likely to fit alongside others on small screens. For more copywriting patterns beyond the RSA format, see our ad copy examples.

Keyword insertion and location insertion

Keyword insertion uses a code such as {KeyWord:Physiotherapy Clinic}. Google replaces it with the ad group keyword that triggered the ad, and falls back to the default text when the keyword is too long to fit. It inserts your keyword, not the person's exact search term. Use it sparingly: in broad-match ad groups the inserted keyword can read awkwardly, and you are responsible for the result complying with Google's ad policies.

Location insertion uses {LOCATION(City)}, {LOCATION(State)} or {LOCATION(Country)} and fills in a place from your campaign's location targeting. You can use one location in headlines and up to two in descriptions, and you need at least 3 headlines without location insertion (or a default text). For Indian local businesses the catch is scope: it inserts a city such as Hyderabad, not a neighbourhood such as Kondapur or Gachibowli. Neighbourhood headlines still have to be written by hand.

Example: A Full RSA for a Hyderabad Physiotherapy Clinic

Here is a complete responsive search ad for a fictional clinic, StrideWell Physio, in Kondapur. The ad group targets keywords such as "physiotherapy in kondapur", "physiotherapist near me" and "back pain physiotherapy". The rating, price and review count are placeholders; use your own real numbers, and only claims your landing page backs up.

Read any three headlines together and they still make a sensible ad: "Physiotherapy in Kondapur | First Assessment at ₹499 | Book on WhatsApp in 1 Minute". No two headlines say the same thing, and the keyword, location, proof and offer each appear more than once so they can surface in different combinations. Display paths would be /physiotherapy/kondapur.

A healthcare note: keep claims factual. Headlines like "Cure Back Pain in 3 Sessions" promise outcomes you can't guarantee and invite disapprovals and complaints. Our healthcare marketing team reviews ad claims for clinics as part of every campaign.

Pinning: When to Use It and What It Costs

Pinning fixes a headline or description to a position. Text pinned to Headline 1, Headline 2 or Description 1 always shows; text pinned to Headline 3 or Description 2 is not guaranteed. Google's own advice is that pinning isn't recommended for most advertisers because it shrinks the pool and can lower Ad Strength. If you must pin, pin 2 or 3 alternatives to the same position so testing continues.

Reading the Asset Report and Combinations Report

Many RSA guides still tell you to prune headlines labelled "Low" and keep those labelled "Best". That no longer applies. Google has deprecated the Performance label column in the asset report and replaced it with full performance statistics per asset, available for dates from 5 June 2025.

Where to find it: Campaigns → Ads, then "View asset details" under the RSA. There is also a campaign-level asset view across ads.
What to look at: impressions, clicks, conversions, conversion value and cost per asset, plus the "Added by" column to separate your assets from Google-generated ones.
What not to over-read: asset-level ratios such as CTR or CPA are directional only, because each asset's result depends on what it was shown with. Asset impressions also don't add up to ad impressions, since one ad impression counts for every asset in it.
Zero-impression assets: Google suggests replacing assets that get no impressions after several weeks. It usually means the system predicts others will do better.

The combinations report (the Combinations tab in the same view) shows which headline and description sets actually served and how often. It is useful for checking that awkward pairings aren't appearing and that your key message is getting seen. Google warns against copying the top combination into a pinned, static ad: the combination did well because it was chosen in real time for particular searches.

Our routine: review assets monthly, not weekly. Replace the two or three weakest headlines by conversions (with enough volume to judge), write replacements from an angle that is missing, and leave the rest alone so the ad keeps its learning.

AI Max, Text Customisation and Final URL Expansion

What used to be "automatically created assets" is now called text customisation, and it lives inside AI Max for Search campaigns. When on, Google generates extra headlines and descriptions from your landing page, existing ads and keywords, and serves them alongside yours when it predicts they will do better. Google says it refreshes these assets at least every 48 hours and counts them in Ad Strength.

Defaults: turning on AI Max switches on text customisation and Final URL expansion together. You can switch each off in campaign settings.
Automatic upgrade: from September 2026, Google says campaigns using text customisation are being upgraded to AI Max. Check your Search campaign settings rather than assuming nothing changed.
Final URL expansion can send the click to a different page on your domain and write matching copy. It requires text customisation, and when it is on, your pins are not respected.
Control: review generated assets in the asset report and remove any that are inaccurate. Google is piloting "text guidelines" to exclude terms and set tone, but it isn't available to every account yet.

Where we land: for e-commerce and large sites with accurate, well-written pages, text customisation is worth testing. For clinics, legal and financial services, or any business whose website has outdated prices or claims, we'd keep it off until the site is cleaned up, because the AI writes from what your pages say. If you already run Performance Max, you will recognise the same trade-off between reach and control.

Testing RSAs With Experiments

Adding a second or third RSA to an ad group is not a clean test, because Google's ad rotation favours whichever ad it expects to perform better, so the ads never get an even split. For a real comparison use ad variations under Experiments. You can find and replace text (say, "Book Now" with "Call Now"), add, remove or pin assets, or change URLs, across one campaign or the whole account. Traffic is split by cookie, so each user tends to see only one version.

Test one change at a time: an offer, a proof point, or pinning versus not pinning.
Run it for at least two to four weeks, and longer for low-volume local campaigns.
Judge on conversions and cost per conversion, not CTR alone. A headline with a price often lowers CTR and raises lead quality.
Clean search terms first. If negative keywords are missing, junk queries will muddy any copy test.

Responsive Search Ads Best Practices: A Short Checklist

All 15 headlines and 4 descriptions used, each with a distinct angle, with the main keyword whole in at least two headlines.
Pins limited to what must always show, with 2 to 3 options per pinned position.
Good Ad Strength as the floor, with at least 6 sitelinks, then ads judged on conversions.
Asset stats reviewed monthly, and changes tested with ad variations.
A deliberate decision on AI Max text customisation and Final URL expansion.

If you would rather have someone build and test your search ads, our Google Ads management team writes RSAs, sets up experiments and reports on cost per lead for businesses across India.

Frequently Asked Questions

Last checked September 2026 against Google Ads Help. Google changes RSA features, reporting and AI Max settings often, so confirm limits and defaults in your own account. The clinic, its prices and ratings in the example are fictional.