Responsive Search Ad limits are not a style preference. A headline may be 30 characters. A description may be 90. Spaces count. Punctuation counts. A headline that looks fine in a document and imports as an error, or gets cut in a way you did not plan, is a failed draft.

People who ask a general writing model for "30-character headlines" report the same miss often enough that it is a known habit of the tool: it does not count the way the ads editor counts, and it will hand you 34 characters while insisting it followed the rule. You cannot upload that confidence. You can upload a counted line.

Count the string the editor will count

Do the check on the exact string, after you have removed trailing spaces and after you have decided whether a digit, a hyphen, or a trademark symbol stays. "Free 2-day shipping" is not the same length as "Free two-day shipping." Translated lines almost always run long. A German or French headline that was a comfortable 28 characters in English is often over the limit before anyone reads it aloud.

Check descriptions the same way. Teams obsess over the headline and then paste a 110-character sentence into the description field because it fit in the brief. Both fields fail the import. Both fields need a number next to them in the draft, not a visual guess.

Keep a small set of counted replacements for the lines you use most: the shipping fact, the review fact, the category noun, the price band. When a product name is too long to sit inside 30 characters with an offer, the product name wins and the offer moves to the description or a callout. Cutting the product name so the discount fits is how you buy the wrong click.

Why pinning makes a long line worse

An unpinned headline can lose the auction combination if another line is stronger. A pinned headline over the limit simply does not serve. Pinning is a separate decision, covered when you write the ads themselves. Length is not optional in either case. Validate first, then decide if a line needs a pin. Most catalog ads do not.

Do not "fix" length by inventing a shorter claim

The temptation, once a true line is 36 characters, is to swap in something shorter and vaguer, or to let a model shorten it into a claim you do not make. Shortening has to preserve the fact. "Ships in 2 business days" can become "Ships in 2 days" if that is still accurate. It cannot become "Fastest shipping" because that fit.

If the only true headline is too long, use a shorter true one from the same page: the material, the size range, the collection name. The fact-check against the live store still applies after you cut characters.

How Kopa locks the count

In Kopa, Smart Campaigns checks each headline against 30 characters and each description against 90 before the draft is offered for approval. A line that fails is rewritten from the same store facts, not padded and not imported long.

What good looks like

  • Every headline in the upload is 30 characters or fewer, spaces included.
  • Every description is 90 characters or fewer.
  • Translated lines are counted again in the language that will serve.
  • Product names are not truncated into a different product just to fit a discount.
  • The draft shows the count. Nobody is estimating from the width of the box.