Use text guidelines with Performance Max and Search campaigns (beta)

Text guidelines is an experimental beta. As such, there may be some limitations to its capabilities.

Text guidelines is a campaign-level feature that allows you to refine your brand’s message for assets made exclusively with text customization. These guidelines help you not only to meet business and brand requirements, but also to control the output of assets created with Google AI automatically when text customization is “ON”.

This article explains how to turn on and use text guidelines for Performance Max campaigns and Search campaigns with AI Max enabled.

On this page

• Understand term exclusions and messaging restrictions
• Add text guidelines for Performance Max campaigns
• Add text guidelines for Search campaigns

Before you begin

You must have text customization set to “ON” to use text guidelines.

• Learn how to turn on text customization for Search campaigns.
• Learn how to turn on text customization for Performance max campaigns.

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Understand term exclusions and messaging restrictions

Text guidelines has 2 options to refine your Google-optimized text assets: term exclusions and messaging restrictions.

Term exclusions

You can use this feature to add exact words or phrases that you want excluded from all generated text assets. Term exclusions are not case sensitive, and you can add up to 25 term exclusions per campaign to refine your ad.

Examples

You can exclude single words or phrases from your text assets:

• Cheap
• Unlimited
• Low cost
• Cheapest in Paris
• A better choice than Competitor

Messaging restrictions

This feature lets you specify what concepts, associations or styles to avoid in your text assets. You can define the tone of voice to adhere to. You can add up to 40 restrictions per campaign to refine your ads.

Effective messaging restrictions

Ineffective messaging restrictions

“Don’t imply our products are discounted.” This restriction is clear and defined, which will ensure terms like discount, cheap, bargain and phrases associated with “discounted” don’t appear in your asset. “My brand name should be spelled as “CompanyName or Companyname” This is a clear, direct guideline to ensure your brand name is spelled accurately and stylized how your company expects. “Never mention any city names in my ads.” This is a clear restriction that prevents all city names from populating. “Our brand tone clear, straightforward ” Descriptions of your brand’s tone will help to generate a copy that works for you. Be direct and descriptive. “If promoting a discount, always include "T&C apply”” This is a clear direction. If there is an asset that includes promotions or discounts, unless it includes the “T&C apply” the asset will not serve.

“My ads should bring joy” Joy is a vague description that is subjective. Provide a more direct phrasing of how you want the text to be written. “When targeting audiences in the US ages 30-45, say …” Currently, messaging restrictions does not support this. Create a different ad group or a campaign to create specific messaging for target audiences. “My ads should deliver 1000% ROI” While our system is designed to drive ROI for each advertiser, we cannot promise specific ROI from text guidelines “Avoid implying our products are cheap. Never include mentions of any brands, other than “CompanyName”. My brand name should be spelled as “CompanyName or Companyname. Never mention any city names in my ads.” Break up the requirements into separate guidelines.

Note: Adding guidelines that are inefficient or are nonsensical may cause removal of a large number of good text customization assets, and lead to drop in campaign performance.

Add text guidelines for Performance Max campaigns

You can use text guidelines on new and existing campaigns.

New campaigns

1. Go to Campaigns in the Campaigns menu and select New Campaign.
2. Select Performance Max as your campaign type.
3. Go to Brand guidelines in the “Asset group” step and select More options.
   • If your campaign doesn’t have brand guidelines enabled already, you have 2 options. You can either access text guidelines via the asset optimization step, outlined below, or you can upgrade your brand guidelines experience to the campaign level. Follow the steps listed in the Upgrade existing campaigns with brand guidelines to gain access, or contact your Google representative for additional guidance.
4. Scroll down to the “Text guidelines” panel. Enter any term exclusions and messaging restrictions you would like to apply to your campaign.

Text guidelines can also be found in Asset optimization inside the “Asset group” step.

1. Go to Campaigns in the Campaigns menu and select New Campaign.
2. Select Performance Max as your campaign type.
3. Go to “Asset group” and select Asset optimization. In the “Text” field, check the Customization box. Below, select Add text guidelines.

Existing campaigns

1. Go to Settings in the Campaigns menu .
2. Locate “Campaign settings” in the panel and select Brand guidelines. “Text guidelines” is located under “Brand identity”.

   • If your campaign does not have brand guidelines enabled already, please follow the steps listed in the Upgrade existing campaigns with brand guidelines to gain access. You may contact your Google representative for additional guidance.

Note: To check that text guidelines are being correctly applied to your assets, you can review your Google-optimized text assets by following the instructions outlined in About asset reporting in Performance Max.

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Add text guidelines for Search campaigns

To use text guidelines in Search campaigns, you must be opted in to the Text customization feature in AI Max. You can enable text guidelines for new and existing AI Max campaigns.

New campaigns

1. Go to the Create button and select Campaign.
2. Create a new Search campaign.
3. When you reach the “AI Max” page, toggle to opt-in to AI Max settings.
4. Below the opt-in toggle, find the “Asset optimization” panel. The “Text customization” setting will be enabled by default. Below that, select Add text guidelines.
5. Enter any term exclusions and messaging restrictions you would like to apply to your campaign.

Existing campaigns

1. Go to Settings in the Campaigns menu .
2. Select AI Max in the section menu.
3. Toggle to opt-in to AI Max settings.
4. Below the opt-in toggle, find the “Asset optimization” panel. The “Text customization” setting will be enabled by default. Below that, select Add text guidelines.
5. Enter any term exclusions and messaging restrictions you would like to apply to your campaign.

Note: To check that text guidelines are being correctly applied to your assets, review your Google-optimized text assets. Follow the instructions outlined in About text customization for search campaigns.

Related links

• About text customization in Search campaigns
• About text customization in Performance max campaigns
• Create a Performance Max campaign
• Set up AI Max in Google Ads
• About Brand Guidelines