Campaign

Retargeting with placeholders

Find out how to use placeholders in dynamic ads and retargeting campaigns, automatically integrate product information from your feed, and make optimal use of fallback texts.

What are placeholders?

Placeholders allow ad copy to be automatically populated with information from your product feed.

Instead of creating a separate ad for each product, you define dynamic fields once, which are automatically replaced each time the ad is delivered.

This allows thousands of products or offers to be individually promoted with just a few ads.

Requirement: A correctly configured product feed.

Where can placeholders be used?

Placeholders can be used in the following fields:

  • Headline (max. 35 characters)

  • Description (max. 80 characters)

  • Display URL

  • Final click URL

How does replacement work?

The system behaves differently depending on the length of the finished ad copy.

Scenario 1

The finished text does not exceed the maximum character limit.

➡️ All placeholders are automatically replaced.

Scenario 2

The finished text is too long.

There are two options:

Standard

All placeholders are replaced by their defined fallback texts.

Forced replacement

If you add

[...]

at the end of the text, the text is instead automatically shortened and finished with an ellipsis ().

This preserves as much dynamic information as possible.

Fallback texts

Every placeholder requires a fallback value.

This is used if:

  • no feed value is available

  • the finished text is too long

  • no replacement is possible

Syntax

{placeholder:Fallback}

Example

{product_name:Holiday}

Fit placeholders

Fit placeholders are specifically designed for short areas like headlines.

In contrast to normal placeholders, the fit placeholder replaces the entire text.

If the value is too long, words at the end are automatically removed until the maximum character limit is met.

Syntax

{product_namefit:Fallback}

Only one fit placeholder can be used per ad copy.

Available placeholders

Which placeholders are available depends on the fields in your product feed.

Product information

Placeholder

Description

product_name

Product name

category

Category

price

Price

price_truncated

Price without decimal places

price_from

Price from

sale_price

Sale price

shipping_cost

Shipping costs

Travel

Placeholder

Description

departure_city

Departure city

arrival_city

Arrival city

checkin_date

Check-in

checkout_date

Check-out

adults

Adults

children

Children

rooms

Rooms

Custom fields

Your own feed fields can also be used:

  • param1

  • param2

  • param3

  • param4

  • param5

Examples

Standard placeholder

Book {product_name:holiday} now

Feed:

Mallorca

Result:

Book Mallorca now

Fallback:

Book holiday now

Force placeholder replacement

Book {product_name:holiday} now [...]

If the product name is very long, it will be shortened automatically.

Example:

Luxury Hotel Mallorca Playa Deluxe ...

Fit placeholders

{product_namefit:Book holiday now}

With short product names:

Mallorca

With long product names:

Luxury Hotel Mallorca Playa ...

If even the first word is too long or there is no feed value, the fallback is used automatically.

Best Practices

  • Always use fallback texts in such a way that a complete sentence is created even without product data.

  • Preferably use fit placeholders in headlines.

  • Only use placeholders for information that is actually maintained in the product feed.

  • Keep product names as concise as possible so they can be used without shortening.

  • Test ads with different product lengths before campaigns go live.

Conclusion

With placeholders, dynamic ads and retargeting ads can be efficiently personalised. In combination with a product feed, individual ads are automatically created that adapt to product data and user interests – without having to create separate ads for each offer.