Introduction:
With Ad Reform’s proprietary “Search Engine Results Page” Screenshot Generator (SERP for short), you can quickly and easily get your search ad screenshots in just a couple of minutes without having to rely on Google’s internal preview tool, or adjusting ad spend. This guide will show exactly what you need from Google and how to use this feature within your Ad Reform account.
If you already know how to capture a preview image of your search ad in Google Ads Manager, you can skip to How To Use the "Search Engine Results Page” Screenshot Generator in this guide.
What you need:
An Ad Reform Subscription that includes the “SERP” feature
An image file of your search ad creative that is about 1264 pixels in width
How to capture an image of your search ad in Google Ads Manager
Log into your main Google Ads (GAM) account > search for the customer account that you want to capture a search ad screenshot for.
Click “Campaigns” in the left navigation panel > click on a the desired campaign name in the table. This will bring you to the “Ad Group” page.
💡 You can easily identify a search campaign by looking under the “Campaign type” column in the table.
Once on the ad group page, click “Ads & extensions” in the left navigation panel. This will update the table with all of the ads in the campaign you selected.
Find a search ad by looking under the “Ad type” column > click on the gray text below the blue link on the ad you need a screenshot for. This will open up the “Edit Responsive Search Ad” view.
Click the desktop icon to see a preview of the desktop version of your search ad
💡 We suggest using a browser like Mozilla Firefox that will allow you to right click > hover over and select the ad > click “Take Screenshot” to capture an image of the ad preview. Also take note of any keywords that you want to use for your SERP screenshot.
How To Use the “Search Engine Results Page” Screenshot Generator
Now that you have successfully captured an image of your search ad at 1264 pixels in width, follow these next steps to use the SERP tool in your Ad Reform Account:
Open or create a new campaign in Ad Reform.
Open up the SERP tool in your Ad Reform Account by clicking the "+ New" button in the upper-right corner of the screen > click "+ Google SERP screenshot."
Type or paste in the keyword you want to use in the “Keywords / Search query” field at the top of the form fill > click “Browse” to the right of “Ad image*” > choose your ad preview image that you downloaded in the previous steps > click the “Create” button at the bottom of the form fill.
The tool will now generate search ad and screenshot within your campaign, and will look like this:
💡 Please note that the scrambled text will appear as normal text in your screenshot, and is used only in this example to obscure any sensitive information.
🥳 Congratulations! You’ve just generated your first SERP screenshot!
You can now download your SERP screenshot just like you would any other screenshot generated in Ad Reform. If you have any questions about this process, please click the Intercom chat icon in the lower-right corner of the app to chat with a live Ad Reform Support team member at any time!
Cheers, and happy screenshotting!