Product listing Ads and the product descriptions. How much of a factor is this in visibility?

[iAnalyst.com]

I've scoured the web trying to find some proof of whether the product listing text uploaded to GMC is in fact a factor in showing up or whether its just the title that matters. Basically, does anyone know if the product descriptions play a large factor in showing up or is it just the landing page text and the title? I also wonder just how much text is worth putting there, it seems there is a 500 character limit.

[Everett]

Hello Erick,

According to this article on S.E.W. it is best practice to optimize the product description in your PLA feed, but they do not provide any "proof" of the efficacy of this practice. This CPC Strategy post says the same thing, and this YouMoz post has a comments section with several experienced marketers corroborating the best practice:

"However after looking at the descriptions in the feed, the max CPC pricing and the keywords that triggered the ads I started to understand that PLAs require as much SEO attention as a regular organic page does to work well."

"We tend to make sure all product titles and descriptions are keyword optimised in the first place but you are right, this is very often overlooked."

Unfortunately I do not have, nor can I find, any "proof" that Google uses the product description play a large factor in the ranking of product listing ads. I will leave this open as a discussion in hopes that someone else can update if it is ever proved. Until then, I recommend writing product description text that uses your top keywords - typically the product name/model - while focusing on how it is going to entice the shopper to click on your result.