Advanced Guide: Dynamically inject Google Ads keywords into your page

Keyword insertion matches your content with a visitor's search. In this article we'll teach you how to use dynamic keywords for both - Google Ads and personalization. This way, instead of juggling dozens of landing pages, one for each ad, you just need to create one and use Unless to inject the visitor's seach term dynamically.

Here's an example:

Keyword insertion is an advanced feature of Google Ads (AdWords). It lets you match the wording of your ad with users' search terms. The feature aims to increase ad relevance and helps you create message symmetry (= symmetry between your copywriting and a user's search intent).

By combining Google Ads' keyword insertion with Unless's dynamic content insertion, you can create a perfect landing page experience. Below, a video explaining the broader value of personalizing Google Ads (AdWords) campaigns and a step-by-step guide taking you through the whole process.

Quick Start: Personalization for Google Ads

This video covers the how-tos and benefits of personalizing Google Ads campaigns. Skip ahead to 00:08:10 for the part about Google Ads' Keyword Insertion.

Guide: How to set up keyword insertion

1. Create a default version of your ad

• Log into Google Ads, select a campaign and click on the tab "Ads"
• Choose an existing ad (or create one), and click on the pencil icon to edit it.
• Add a curly bracket ({) to the text in the headline or the description and select "Keyword Insertion" from the drop-down menu:

• Now, create a default version. The default keyword will appear if either a) Google Ads can’t match a search term with a more specific keyword, or b) the user's search term is too long (=more than 25 characters):

Example:

Let's create the ad "Plan your {KeyWord: City Trip}". When a customer's search only contains the word "City Trip", Google Ads will show the add "Plan your City Trip":

However, if the ad group contains a more specific keyword (for example, “Paris Trip”, “New York Trip”, or “Amsterdam Trip”), and the customer uses that keyword in their search, Google Ads will display it in the ad:

• Don't forget to save your ad!

2. Add your keywords

• Now, switch to the tab "Keywords" and click on “+” (make sure you're in the right ad group).
• Enter one keyword per line. Each keyword can contain multiple words.
• Save your keywords.

Okay, now that the setup within Google Ads is done. It's time to switch to Unless and make our landing page dynamic. For illustration purposes, we'll stick with our "Plan your City Trip" example.

3. Insert dynamic placeholder on landing page

With Unless's dynamic content insertion we'll create a placeholder for our keyword on our campaign's landing page.

Example:

As you can see, we added a placeholder in the phrase "Plan your ...". If you haven't used this Unless feature before, take a look at this Starter Guide to learn how to use dynamic keyword insertion.

4. Update the URL of your Google Ads ad

Lastly, let's go back to Google Ads. In order to hand over your keywords from Google Ads (AdWords) to your landing page, you have to add the keyword parameter to your URL.

Original URL: mysite.com

URL with keyword parameters: mysite.com?dynamic={KeyWord:City%20Trip}

Important:

Have you noticed the %20 in the URL above? This is called URL encoding. In Google Ads, if your keyword parameter is made up of more than one word, you need to use URL Encoding to convert characters into a format that can be transmitted over the Internet. In this case, it means that instead of a space you have to use %20.

As you can see, the new URL (→ mysite.com?dynamic={KeyWord:City%20Trip}) contains a parameter for your website's keyword placeholder (→ ?dynamic=). This placeholder is filled in with keywords handed over via Google Ads (→ {KeyWord:City Trip}).

Example:

This is how the landing page looks like to a person who clicked on our ad searching for "Paris Trip" (→ "Plan your {KeyWord:Paris Trip}") :

Hint (for advanced users):

If you wish, you can use Google Ads' advanced URL tracking options to add the Unless parameter as a tracking template. This way you don't reset any tracking data.

For more information about Google Ads' keyword insertion, you can also head over to Google's official documentation.

How does Google Ads Parallel Tracking affect me?

Parallel tracking has no impact on your personalizations. Any URL parameters that you attach to your ad's URL through the final URL, a URL suffix, or the tracking template will work. To learn more, take a look at this blog post about parallel tracking.