Google has slowly been improving their opportunities recommendations. They must be feeling pretty good about it, because they’re also starting to move those recommendations into the interface more aggressively. Behold this example I caught today:

Please, Please, Please Add Responsive Search Ads

Right there, at the top of the main content area, we see the recommendation to add responsive ads. That is above the performance chart so that it pushes the real content (you know, the current, active ads I’m running in this ad group) almost off the screen.

Then again, they have the “+ Responsive Search Ad” box ABOVE my current, active ads. Just to hammer home the point.

I understand Google’s position here. They created responsive search ads to give advertisers another tool in the ad creation toolbox. They probably have the stats to show how much better the responsive ad unit performs and I’m sure it’s from a truly humongous number of impressions and clicks. Promoting the feature is fine with me.

However, I feel like this crosses the line into overkill. By having the full-on recommendation above the chart and again above my ads in the data table below it pushed my active ads almost off the page. I have to scroll to see my actual ads. Now it’s a user experience issue and Google needs to think this through a little more.

Don’t Forget, It’s Recommended

Look at the small print on the lower notification. It says “Recommended” and the tool tip there reads as follows:

When you have multiple ads in your ad group, Google Ads can show your better performing ads more often. For example, Google Ads can show the ad that’s most relevant for a given search term. To help improve the performance of your ad group, include at least two text ads and one responsive search ad.

So the official recommendation from Google on this is 2 text ads and 1 responsive search ad.

What do you think about responsive search ads? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.