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Demand Gen campaigns combine audience targeting features and visually engaging formats to help you better personalise your ads within Google's feeds to inspire customer action. This article outlines the requirements that your Demand Gen ad assets (headline, description or image) must meet in order for your Demand Gen campaigns to serve.
Users visit the YouTube Home and Watch Next feeds, Discover and the Gmail Promotions and Social tabs to browse and explore new content that aligns with their interests. To ensure that we provide a high-quality consumer ad experience on Google’s personalised feeds, Demand Gen ads must comply with all Google Ads and personalisation policies. In addition, we will review each Demand Gen ad asset for compliance with the ads requirements listed below, which will take priority in the event that there is conflict with the Google Ads and personalisation policies. Demand Gen ads requirements are more restrictive than the ads requirements for other platforms and surfaces, meaning disapproved Demand Gen ad assets may continue to run on Google’s other properties.
Frequent and widespread violations of these guidelines may lead to a suspension from serving ads on Discovery and Demand Gen surfaces. We will regularly review new ads that you upload and if the number of ad violations reduces, you may be eligible to serve again.
Demand Gen ads requirements
Prohibited categories
Regulated goods
Assets that depict or reference regulated goods or substances, including (but not limited to) recreational drugs and tobacco.
- Assets that depict alcohol are able to serve in Demand Gen campaigns
Assets that depict or reference images of weapons or criminality, including (but not limited to) guns, firearms, ammunition, explosives, the sale of fireworks, knives, prison, criminals or arrests.
Example:
- Assets that depict or reference the above prohibited categories in a scene from a fictional work of entertainment (video game, TV-show, film and others).
- Assets that depict or reference the above prohibited categories but not in a violent or criminal context, including (but not limited to) kitchen and utility knives, historical artefacts or halloween costumes
Assets that depict cash sweepstakes or cash giveaways, including (but not limited to):
Cash rewards without legitimate user action
Paid surveys and questionnaires
- Cash sweepstakes or cash giveaways
Improper content
Assets that depict or reference racy or adult content including (but not limited to):
- Sexually suggestive content
- Unnecessarily focus on body parts
- Sexual merchandise and entertainment
Assets that depict invasive medical procedures
Example:
Assets that depict content that could cause discomfort, including (but not limited to) bodily fluids and waste
Negative events
Assets that depict negative life events including (but not limited to):
- Divorce, breakups or family separation, home foreclosures, financial difficulties, accidents and personal injuries (non-exhaustive examples include sport, professional/work, medical and general accidents and injuries), or damage to objects or properties (non-exhaustive examples include vandalism or destroyed personal property)
Assets that depict or reference natural or man-made crises.
Assets that depict or reference behavioural addiction recovery including, rehabilitation facilities and products that aid in addiction recovery.
Assets that depict death or death-related content including but not limited to:
- A dead person or animal
- A funeral home, mortuary, cemetery, mausoleum
Assets that depict trauma or pain including (but not limited to) a person grieving or crying.
Assets that depict content that is presented in a way that is likely to trigger a negative reaction.
Assets that depict discrimination or encouragement of discrimination, against people based on their personal attributes.
Assets that promote actions that violate other platforms’ Terms and Conditions.
Examples:
- Assets that reference services including (but not limited to) funeral home, mortuary, cemetery, mausoleum, memorial services companies, family and divorce services (lawyer/law offices/counselling), insurance or event support services as long as they are neutrally and positively framed
- Assets that depict or reference the negative events listed above in a scene from a fictional work of entertainment (video game, TV-show, movie, etc.)
Dating-related prohibitions: users’ personal attributes
Assets that depict or reference dating services or matchmakers by asserting or implying user’s personal attributes, including (but not limited to) race, ethnic origin, nationality, religion, age or sexual orientation.
Implied interactivity
Assets that feature visual elements that depict nonexistent functionality (such as a 'play' button that cannot be clicked).
Assets that tease the user into clicking the advertisement with sensational language, misleading claims or intentionally withholding necessary information.
Example:
Assets that promote an advertorial and tease the user into clicking the advertisement, making it unclear who the advertiser is.
Assets referring to personal identifiable information including (but not limited to) insurance cards, driving licences, cheques and credit cards with no context or business offer.
Assets that illustrate that someone is trying to contact or has matched with the user while advertising a dating site.
Example:
Unclear image
Blurred Images that are blurry or unclear.
Examples:
Images that are visually oddly skewed or shaped, morphed, upside-down, distastefully out of focus, colour-inverted, excessively filtered, distorted or contain watermarks.
Example:
Images that are critically cropped or contain even minimally cropped text overlay.
Example:
