hi, i’m amr. when a client’s legal team wants one exact line in a search ad, pinning a headline is the usual answer. google’s own help page says it isn’t recommended for most advertisers, and spells out what pinning takes away.
what google ads help says
- you can enter up to 15 headlines and up to 4 descriptions per responsive search ad, with a minimum of 3 headlines and 2 descriptions
- pinning is available for headline positions 1 to 3 and description positions 1 and 2
- “Pinning one headline or description causes it to show only in that specific position”
- headlines or descriptions pinned to headline position 1, headline position 2 or description position 1 “will always show”; content pinned to headline position 3 and description position 2 is “not guaranteed to show in every ad”
- “If you have headlines and/or descriptions pinned to all available positions, unpinned headlines and/or descriptions won’t show.”
and the recommendation: “Because pinning reduces the overall number of headlines or descriptions that can be matched to a potential customer’s search, pinning isn’t recommended for most advertisers and can affect ad strength.” if you do pin, google suggests pinning 2 or 3 unique headlines or descriptions to each position, and avoiding identical or very similar text in the same slot. i covered ad strength in an earlier post, where google says it isn’t used to calculate ad rank.
what to check this week
- open your responsive search ads and count how many headlines and descriptions are pinned
- for each pin, write down why it exists. a required legal line is a reason. a headline someone simply likes is not
- check whether any ad has every position pinned, since google says unpinned assets won’t show there
- where you need control, follow google’s own suggestion: pin 2 or 3 variants per position, not one
where this stops applying
the page gives no performance figures for pinning. the percentages it quotes are about responsive search ads in general, so this post makes no claim about how much a pin costs you in clicks or conversions. if a pin is required for legal or brand reasons, that’s a business decision, and google’s page doesn’t argue otherwise.
start scaling — if your search ads carry more pins than reasons, a short account review will show which ones are worth keeping. let’s connect.
Sources: Google Ads Help, “About responsive search ads” (support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7684791). Figures are published product documentation, not verified results from Amr’s own client accounts.