Expanded Text Ad (ETA)

What Is an Expanded Text Ad?

Knowledge of ETAs is today primarily relevant for campaign migration: if you still have legacy ETA campaigns running, you should migrate them to Responsive Search Ads to benefit from Google’s automatic ad optimization. The shift from rigid text ads to AI-driven ad formats reflects Google’s general trend toward automation across the entire Ads ecosystem.

Expanded Text Ad (ETA) was a former Google Ads format that offered three headline fields (30 characters each) and two description fields (80 characters each) — compared to older standard text ads with two headlines. ETAs were introduced in 2016 and provided more room for messaging. However, the ETA format was completely replaced in 2022 by Responsive Search Ads (RSA), which automatically combine multiple headlines and descriptions.

Technically, ETAs were the transitional stage between standard text ads and Responsive Search Ads. They required manual management of all text variants, while RSAs use AI to automatically test and serve the best combination of headlines and descriptions. Google automatically converted ETAs to RSAs and recommends advertisers create only RSAs going forward — new ETA campaigns can no longer be created.

In practice, this means all new Google Ads campaigns should be created with Responsive Search Ads, as ETAs are no longer available. Existing ETA campaigns were automatically converted. RSAs offer more flexibility and scalability, as Google automatically tests which text combinations deliver the best performance. The transition to RSAs increases automation but also requires trusting Google’s AI-based approaches.