About image assets for Search campaigns

Image assets allow advertisers to upload rich, relevant visuals to complement their existing text ads. Image assets can help drive performance for advertisers, with compelling visuals of products or services that enhance the message of their text ads.

Benefits

Image assets help you:

• Drive measurable performance. You can experience a 6% increase in click-through rate on average when image assets show with your Search ads. (Source: Google internal data, Global, 2 April, 2023 – 29 April, 2023).
• Convey information visually that is difficult to convey with text only.
• Extend Search ads to new platforms to reach more customers as image assets can serve on YouTube Search via the Search Partner Network (AFS).

How it works

When your image asset appears on the Google Search results page, potential customers are shown:

• Your headlines
• Your descriptions
• Your URL
• Your image

Requirements

To use image assets, make sure you meet the following requirements:

• Account has been open for more than 60 days.
• Account has a good history of policy compliance.
• Account has active campaigns.
• Account has active text ads and has been accruing spend on Search campaigns for at least the last 28 days.
• Account is in an eligible vertical or sub-vertical. Sensitive verticals or sub-verticals (for example, sexual content and gambling) aren't eligible for image assets.

Note: Headlines or descriptions pinned to Headline position 1, Headline position 2, or Description position 1 will always show.

Guidelines

To best represent your products and services, you can upload up to 20 diverse, high-quality images that are relevant to your keywords. Image assets must follow a strict set of creative guidelines without exceptions. Make sure you review the guidelines below before creating your image asset to avoid disapprovals. Images must also meet Image assets format requirements.

Note: While you can upload up to 20 images, this is a total limit across your entire campaign. Learn more About your Google Ads account limits.

Images go through quality and policy checks before being eligible to serve. You can read more About the ad review process.

Tip: Description position 2 may be truncated if an image asset is shown. If you have legally required text that should appear in every ad, then you must pin it to either Headline position 1, Headline position 2, or Description position 1.

Image specifications

Aspect ratio:

Aspect ratio	Required
Square (1x1)	Yes
Landscape (1.91x1)	Optional but recommended

Image resolution:

Aspect ratio	Minimum pixels	Recommended pixels
Square (1x1)	300x300	1200x1200
Landscape (1.91x1)	600x314	1200x628

File formats: PNG, JPG

Maximum file size: 5120 KB

Recommended image safe area: Put your important content in the center, 80% of the image.

Image format combinations

Image assets can appear in the following formats and combinations in desktop and mobile.

Mobile	3 square images side-by-side One square image
Desktop	One square image One landscape image 5 square images side-by-side 2 landscape images and one square image side-by-side One landscape image and 3 square images side-by-side

Note: You can't control which format will serve as the determination is auction-dependent. The best thing you can do is ensure that you’ve uploaded sufficient image assets and are opted in to dynamic image assets. You’re recommended to have 4 unique images at the ad group or campaign level with at least one square (1x1) and one landscape (1.91x1) image to maximize serving eligibility.

Note: By creating image assets, you're confirming that you own all legal rights to the image and have permission to share the image with Google to use on your behalf for advertising or other commercial purposes.

Learn more about Google Ads specs: ad formats, sizes, and best practices.

Best practices to create effective image assets

Utilize both image assets and dynamic image assets

Both advertiser-uploaded image assets and dynamic image assets adhere to strict quality and relevance checks to ensure a great experience. When dynamic image assets are enabled, the image assets that you provide and dynamic image assets will both be eligible to serve.

Create the right image asset based on your account structure

When you create image assets at the ad group level or campaign level, keep your account structure in mind because

• Ad Group level provides for the strictest relevance, assuming you have a well structured account.
• Campaign level provides for faster implementation in cases where images will be relevant to all ads within the campaign.

Add 4+ unique images to the Ad Group or Campaign

Form a good balance between the amount of effort it takes to create the image assets and its performance by adding at least 4 unique and relevant images at either the Ad Group level or Campaign level.

Implement images with both kinds of aspect ratio

Use both square (1x1) and landscape (1.91x1) images. Prioritize the square images since that ratio is required. You can use landscape images to enable more serving through experiments.

Note: You can crop images using the image picker during implementation.

Add relevant images

Make sure to add images relevant to the queries they'll be eligible to show for, the text ads they'll show with, and the landing page that the final URL directs to. Images need to be relevant just as headlines and descriptions do.

Make your image assets useful

The images you add can convey unique selling points, can visually convey information, or can inspire customers to take action.

Focus on quality

When you focus your content in the center to 80% of the image, it helps the user to keep a track of what your image is about. Simple backgrounds emphasize the essence of your content as well. Learn more about Image assets format requirements.

Experiment to learn what's best suited for your content

You can find inspiration by experimenting with the way your image asset looks. Make use of a wide variety of creative styles including product imagery, lifestyle imagery, and creative visualizations of abstract concepts.

Cost

When someone clicks on your image asset, you’re charged on a Cost-per-click (CPC) basis, similar to search text ads. The images in your image asset are clickable and are charged the same CPC as a click to a text headline.

Instructions to create new image assets

Create new image assets

Google Ads Tutorials: How to set up Image Extensions

For subtitles in your language, turn on YouTube captions. Select the settings icon at the bottom of the video player, then select "Subtitles/CC" and choose your language.

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Note: Option to create image assets automatically appears only when you meet all the requirements.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Assets drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Assets.
4. Click the plus button , and select Image.
5. Select a campaign or ad group you want to add your image assets to.
6. Click Done.
7. In the “Add image” menu, click the plus button , then select an image source from the top of the dialog box:
   • “Suggested”, “Asset library","Upload","Website or social”, or “Free stock images".
8. Follow the prompts to include your new images.
9. If any of your images don’t have an aspect ratio of 1:1 or 1.9:1, you’ll need to crop them before you can include them in your image assets. Click the image you’d like to crop, make your changes, and then click Continue. Repeat this step for each image.
10. Select up to 20 images for your image assets, then click Save.
11. You can refer to a preview of your final image asset on the right side of your screen. If you want to make changes, click the pencil icon .
    • Note: Your ad might not always include all your text. Shortening may also occur in some formats.
12. When you’re ready to run your ad, click Save.

Delete an image asset

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Assets drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Assets.
4. You will now see a table with all your assets.
5. Find the image asset you’d like to delete.
6. Check the box to the left of the asset you’d like to delete.
7. Click on Remove from the table toolbar.
8. Click Confirm to delete your image asset.

If you’re looking for a more automated way to manage your image assets, dynamic image assets use machine learning to automatically select relevant images from your ad’s landing page and append them to your ad. After opting in, images from your landing pages are added to the ad groups in your account. Learn more About dynamic image assets.

Related links

• Image assets format requirements
• About dynamic image assets
• Image Assets Technical FAQ
• Google Ads Tutorials: How to set up Image Extensions