Creative Formats & Assets

Call Ads vs Expanded Text Ads: Two Retired Formats, Different Clocks

In short: Both are Search ad types you can no longer create, though they were closed years apart and for different reasons. Expanded Text Ads lost new creation and editing in mid-2022, with Responsive Search Ads absorbing the entire job of general click-to-page Search advertising. Call Ads lost new creation in February 2026, with the phone-call job moving to a call asset attached to an RSA rather than staying a standalone ad type. Neither is something you would build today, but you may still see both running in an older account. If you're deciding what to build now, this pairing is pure history - the live options are RSA for clicks and RSA with a call asset for calls.

By the AdFlint research team · Fact-checked against current Google and Meta platform behavior · Last reviewed July 2026

Call Ads

Google Search ads whose primary action is a phone call rather than a website visit, showing a tap-to-call button on mobile devices.

The ad serves mainly on phones and bills for the click that starts a call, with call durations reported and countable as conversions. It fits businesses that close by phone - services, clinics, urgent needs - where someone answers live. The mistake is running them without call tracking and ad scheduling around business hours, which pays for calls into voicemail and makes performance impossible to judge.

Full definition

Expanded Text Ads

Google's legacy fixed-copy search ad with three headlines and two descriptions, retired in favor of responsive search ads and no longer creatable.

For years this was the standard search unit, with headlines and descriptions you wrote and controlled exactly. Google stopped new creation and editing in mid-2022 and has since wound the format down, migrating advertisers to responsive search ads. If an old playbook references it, translate the copy into RSA assets instead. The recurring frustration is expecting the same line-by-line control, which RSAs deliberately do not offer.

Full definition

Side by side.

The differences that actually change what happens in your account.

 Call AdsExpanded Text Ads
Can you build one todayNo - creation was removed in February 2026; any still serving stop in February 2027.No - creation and editing closed in mid-2022; existing ones may still serve with no forced removal date.
When it closed to new creationFebruary 2026.Mid-2022.
Primary action while liveTap to call, dialing straight from the ad.Click through to a landing page.
What replaced itA call asset attached to a Responsive Search Ad, not a dedicated call ad type.Responsive Search Ads, as the general-purpose Search text format.
Core fieldsBusiness name, descriptions, phone number.Three headlines, two descriptions, in fixed order.
How long existing ones keep servingUntil February 2027, then they stop entirely.No announced end date, but volume fades as accounts migrate to RSA on their own timeline.
Failure modeAssuming you can still create or duplicate one for a new campaign.Trying to edit or clone one today when it is no longer possible.

What actually separates them.

01

Both formats are closed to new creation, but on different clocks - ETA since mid-2022 with no forced end date for existing ads, Call Ads since February 2026 with a hard stop for existing ads in February 2027.

02

ETA's replacement absorbed the whole job into one new ad type, RSA; Call Ads' replacement splits the job into an asset, the call option, attached to an ad type that already existed before Call Ads were retired.

03

A live Call Ad needs no landing page at all; a live ETA was built entirely around sending a click somewhere, so the two never solved the same problem even back when both were creatable.

04

Call Ads have an announced hard sunset date after which they stop serving completely; ETA has no such deadline and simply fades out as accounts move to RSA on their own schedule.

05

In an account audit, a live Call Ad is a countdown to February 2027, while a live ETA is an open-ended legacy artifact that can keep serving indefinitely without ever being forced off.

Which one should you use?

Use Call Ads when

  • You're auditing an account with Call Ads still serving and mapping out the move to RSA with call assets before February 2027.
  • You're explaining to a client why they can no longer duplicate their old phone-focused ad for a new campaign.
  • You're identifying which campaigns need a call asset added to an RSA before Call Ads stop serving entirely.
  • You're comparing call volume before and after moving a legacy Call Ads campaign to RSA with a call asset.

Use Expanded Text Ads when

  • You're auditing an older account and see ETAs still serving, and need to explain why they can't be edited.
  • You're translating retired ETA copy into current RSA headline and description assets.
  • You want to explain to a client why an old text ad can't just be tweaked anymore.
  • You're documenting when a Search ad group's creative last changed, using the mid-2022 ETA cutoff as a reference point.

Common questions.

Are Call Ads and Expanded Text Ads retired for the same reason?

No - they were closed years apart for different reasons. ETA was retired in mid-2022 because Responsive Search Ads took over general Search advertising with algorithmic assembly. Call Ads lost new creation in February 2026 because Google folded the phone-call job into a call asset attached to an RSA instead of keeping it a separate ad type.

Can I still build either of these today?

No, neither is creatable anymore. For phone-focused advertising, build an RSA and attach a call asset; for general click-to-page advertising, build an RSA with headlines and descriptions the same way you would once have written ETA copy.

Will my old Call Ads and ETAs disappear at the same time?

No, they're on different timelines. Call Ads have an announced hard stop in February 2027, after which they stop receiving impressions entirely. ETAs have no such deadline and can keep serving indefinitely, though Google has been winding the format down since 2022 with no path back to editing them.

Or stop choosing between them.

AdFlint picks the setting, writes the ads, and keeps optimizing inside the Google and Meta accounts you already own.

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