Responsive Search Ads were designed to give advertisers flexibility — yet many accounts still limit performance by pinning headlines and descriptions.
Pinning might feel like a way to stay in control of messaging, but in most cases it reduces ad strength, restricts optimisation, and leads to weaker results over time.
If your ads are heavily pinned, you’re likely preventing Google Ads from doing the very thing Responsive Search Ads were built to do.
What Does Pinning Actually Do?
Pinning forces a specific headline or description to always show in a particular position (for example, Headline 1 or Description 2).
This means:
- Certain combinations can never appear
- The system has fewer variations to test
- Learning is slowed significantly
In effect, you turn a flexible ad format into something much closer to an old-style expanded text ad — but without the same level of predictability.
Why Pinning Reduces Ad Strength
Ad strength is heavily influenced by variation and coverage.
When assets are pinned:
- Fewer headline and description combinations are available
- Asset diversity is limited
- The ad is less adaptable across auctions
As a result, ad strength often drops to Average or Poor, signalling that the system has limited scope to optimise.
While ad strength itself isn’t a bidding signal, it’s a strong indicator of whether your ads are giving the algorithm enough to work with.
Pinned Ads Restrict Optimisation and Learning
Responsive Search Ads rely on testing combinations to understand:
- Which messages resonate with which users
- How intent, device, location, and timing affect performance
- Which assets drive engagement and conversions
Pinning removes many of these possibilities.
Over time, this leads to:
- Slower performance improvements
- Fewer “best-performing” combinations
- Missed opportunities in competitive auctions
The more restrictions you place on the ad, the less data the system can gather.
Why Pinned Ads Often Perform Worse
In practice, heavily pinned ads often suffer from:
- Lower click-through rates
- Reduced impression share in competitive searches
- Weaker Quality Score signals
This is especially true in accounts using Smart Bidding, where ad flexibility plays a key role in maximising performance across varied auctions.
Pinned ads don’t adapt well — and adaptability is increasingly critical in modern search.
When Pinning Might Still Make Sense
There are limited scenarios where pinning can be justified:
- Legal or compliance requirements
- Mandatory disclaimers
- Regulated industries with strict messaging rules
Even then, pinning should be:
- Used sparingly
- Applied only where absolutely necessary
- Combined with as much flexibility as possible elsewhere
For example, pinning a single disclaimer-style description while leaving headlines fully unpinned. If you’re not too sure, then your Google Ads agency should be able to offer guidance.
How to Remove Pinning in Google Ads
Removing pinning is straightforward and often one of the quickest optimisation wins available.
Step 1: Review Existing Responsive Search Ads
- Open your ad group and select an RSA
- Look for the pin icon next to headlines or descriptions
- Identify which assets are locked to specific positions
Step 2: Unpin Non-Essential Assets
- Click the pinned asset
- Remove the pinning position
- Allow the headline or description to rotate freely
Start with:
- USPs
- CTAs
- Benefit-led messaging
These assets perform better when allowed to appear in multiple positions.
Step 3: Add More Asset Variety
To maximise the benefit of unpinning:
- Aim for 10–15 unique headlines
- Include a mix of benefits, features, CTAs, and qualifiers
- Avoid repeating the same phrasing
More variety = stronger optimisation signals.
Step 4: Monitor Ad Strength and Performance
After removing pinning, you’ll typically see:
- Improved ad strength
- Increased asset coverage
- Stronger engagement over time
Allow at least 2–4 weeks for meaningful learning before making further changes.
A Before-and-After Example: The Impact of Removing Pinning
To illustrate the real-world impact of removing pinning, let’s look at a typical scenario we see when auditing Google Ads accounts.
Before: Heavily Pinned Responsive Search Ads
In this account, most Responsive Search Ads were built with:
- 2–3 headlines pinned to specific positions
- A fixed CTA pinned to Headline 3
- Descriptions locked into a strict order
What this caused:
- Ad strength stuck at Average
- Very limited headline combinations eligible to show
- Strong reliance on brand-led messaging, even for non-brand searches
Performance indicators:
- Click-through rate plateaued
- Conversion volume was flat despite increased budget
- Non-brand campaigns struggled to scale efficiently
On the surface, performance looked stable — but growth had stalled.
After: Unpinned Assets and Increased Variation
The ads were rebuilt with:
- All headlines unpinned except one compliance-related line
- 12 unique headlines covering benefits, CTAs, and qualifiers
- 4 unpinned descriptions with distinct messaging angles
What changed:
- Ad strength improved to Excellent
- More combinations became eligible across auctions
- Messaging adapted better to different search intents
Performance outcome over the following 30 days:
- Click-through rate increased
- Conversion volume rose without additional budget
- Cost per acquisition improved as stronger combinations emerged
The key takeaway wasn’t just improved efficiency — it was renewed momentum. Once the system had room to test and learn, performance began moving again.
Why This Happens So Often
Pinned ads tend to “lock in” early performance. Once that ceiling is reached, there’s little room for improvement.
Removing pinning reintroduces experimentation, allowing:
- New message combinations to surface
- Ads to adapt dynamically to auction signals
- Smart Bidding to work with richer engagement data
In most cases, the performance uplift comes not from new messaging — but from letting existing messaging work harder.
A Small Change With a Big Performance Impact
Unpinning headlines and descriptions is one of the simplest ways to unlock better performance from Responsive Search Ads.
By removing unnecessary restrictions, you:
- Give the system more freedom to optimise
- Improve ad strength naturally
- Allow better-performing combinations to surface
In most cases, less control leads to better results.