The Different Types of Google Ad Campaigns
There are 7 types of Google Ad Campaigns:
As of September 2022, all Smart campaigns have been automatically upgraded to Performance Max. These campaigns help you reach more shoppers across all Google Ads channels.
As of July 2022 you can no longer create a Local Ads campaign, and all current Local Campaigns will be automatically upgraded to Performance Max Campaigns.
Ad of June 30, 2022, you will no longer be able to create or edit expanded text ads. They will continue to display on the Google Ad network. You will still be able to pause, resume or remove them if needed.
When creating your first Google Ad campaign, switch to expert mode for full control.
Google requests you set a campaign goal, but we recommend you create one without a goal’s guidance.
The format you choose depends on your strategy. How much your brand will need to invest time-wise and budget-wise will vary with each.
Ad formats available are Text, Image, App Promotion, Video, Shopping, and Call-only ads.
We break down the specs of the most popular Ad formats within each of the 7 different Google campaign types.
Here are the Google Ad specs for each campaign type:
Search Campaigns
Here’s what Google Search Ads look like:
Google Ad Specs for Responsive Search Ads
Responsive Search Ads cycle through up to 15 headlines and four descriptions to serve tailored ads in response to individual queries.
Character lengths:- Headline: up to 15 headlines, 30 character limit
- Description: up to 4 descriptions, 90 character limit
- Path field: 15 characters
- Final URL: up to 2048 characters
Performance Max Campaign
Google Ad Specs for Performance Max Ads
- Image x 15
- Logo x 5
- Video x 5
- Headline x 5
- Long Headline x 5
- Short Description x 1
- Long Description x 4
- Call-to-action
- Business Name
- Display Path
- Landscape
- Aspect ratio: (1.91:1)
- Pixels: 1200 x 628 (minimum of 600 x 314)
- 1-20 images
- Square
- Aspect Ratio: 1:1
- Pixels: 1200 x 1200 (minimum of 300 x 300)
- 1-20 images
- Portrait (Optional)
- Aspect Ratio: 4:5
- Pixels: 960 x 1200 (minimum of 480 x 600)
- 1-20 images
- Logos
- Square
- Aspect ratio: (1:1)
- Pixels: 1200 x 1200 (minimum of 128 x 128)
- 1-5 images
- Landscape (Optional)
- Aspect ratio: (4:1)
- Pixels: 1200 x 300 (minimum of 512 x 128)
- 1-5 images
- Square
- Videos
- Videos must be longer than 10 seconds and uploaded to YouTube. You will need to copy+paste the YouTube link to upload to your Google Performance max campaign.
- If you don’t upload any videos, Google can automatically create videos using the assets you provide.
- Video Specs:
- Landscape (16:9): 10 seconds minimum, 1-5 videos.
- Square (1:1): 10 seconds minimum, 1-5 videos.
- Vertical (9:16): 10 seconds minimum, 1-5 videos.
- Headlines
- Minimum of 3 headlines required, Maximum of 15
- Maximum length: 30 characters
- Long Headlines
- Minimum of 1 long headline required, Maximum of 5
- Maximum length: 90 characters
- Descriptions
- Minimum of one short description required
- Add one short description and up to four other descriptions
- Maximum length:
- Short Description: 60 characters
- Long Description: 90 characters
- Call-to-Action
- Chose from the selection available or leave as automated which allows Google to automatically choose the most relevant CTA.
- Business Name
- Depending on the layout of the ad, your business name may appear in the text of your ad.
- Maximum Length: 25 characters
Note: Choose images and logos that meet the recommended sizes or that can be cropped to these sizes. The maximum filesize for any image is 5120 KB.
Tip 1: Utilize the available assets space. The more assets, the better. More assets mean more combinations that can serve. The more combinations the better the chance of finding combinations with high performance.
Tip 2: Start your campaigns at least 3-4 weeks before any time-sensitive event such as a sale or a webinar. This will allow you to refresh your assets frequently and move from more generic content to conversion-focused assets. This practice allows you to do time-based promotions without compromising performance.
Display Campaigns
Google Display Campaigns have some of the lowest CPCs. They also have a large reach because the Google Display Network reaches 90% of netizens worldwide.
Google Display ads are banner ads come in many shapes and sizes, they are either text-based, image or video.
One of the reasons is that people ignore banner ads is a phenomenon known as ‘banner blindness’’. You must try to combat this issue while curating your display ad.
A Google display campaign allows you to run Responsive display ads, Uploaded display ads, and Engagement ads.
Here, we will go over Responsive display ads because they are the default ad type for the Google Display Network.
Google Ad Specs for Responsive Display Ads
Responsive display ads adapt size, appearance and format to available placements, maximizing performance.
Upload headlines, logos, images and descriptions for Google to create numerous ad variations. Google then optimizes for high-performance across the Display Network.
Google recommends starting with at least five images, five short headlines and five descriptions. Advertisers see 10% more conversions at a similar CPA when using multiple variations, than with a single set of assets.
- Short headline: Between 1 – 5 consisting of 30 characters max
- Long headline: 90 characters max (long headlines can be shown without the description)
- Description: 1 – 5 descriptions of 90 characters each
- Business Name: 25 characters max
- URLs: use https:// always
- Square:
- Aspect ratio: 1:1
- Pixels: 600 x 600 px (minimum of 300 x 300 px)
- Landscape:
- Aspect ratio: 1.91:1
- Pixels: 1200 x 628 px (minimum of 600 x 314 px)
- File type and size: JPG, PNG or non-animated GIFs, 5120KB max
- Min and max requirements: minimum of two high-quality images, at least one each of the square and landscape format and up to 15 total
Logo (optional but recommended):
You can upload up to 5 different logos. We recommend you include one because if you don’t, Google will upload a neutral icon in its place!
- Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 4:1 aspect ratio (it’s recommended you upload your logo using both)
- File type and size: JPG, PNG, non-animated GIFs, 5120KB max
Notes: Text that covers more than 20% of the image is not allowed (including for logos)
- Landscape:
- Aspect ratio: 16:9
- Length: Any, 30 seconds is preferred
- Quantity: 1-5, 2 is recommended
- Square:
- Aspect ratio: 1:1
- Length: Any, 30 seconds is preferred
- Quantity: 1-5, 2 is recommended
- Vertical:
- Aspect ratio: 2:3
- Length: Any, 30 seconds is preferred
- Quantity: 1-5, 2 is recommended
Notes: Text that covers more than 20% of the image is not allowed (including for logos)
Google App Campaigns
Google App Campaigns allow you to run ads that appear across the Google network. This includes Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, Gmail, Google Display Network, and Discover on Google Search. Ads are also displayed on Google search partner sites and other publishers who host app ads.
With app campaigns, you don’t need to use keywords or placements to determine where you want your ads to appear. Google Ads identifies the highest-potential placements based on your App Store listing.
Choose App promotion when picking a goal in the campaign set up to make things easier.
There are three campaign subtypes:
- App Installs: encourage people to download your app
- App Engagement: engage users who already have your app installed and send them to a targeted landing page.
- App pre-registration (Android Only): pre-registration ads are not available to all advertisers yet. They allow you to run pre-release promotional ads to build awareness around your upcoming app before it premieres on Google Play. If you run this type of ad, people who click on it can pre-register for your app or game on the Play store.
Google Ad Specs for App Ads
Here are the specs for each asset within a Google App ad:
Text- Headline character limit: 30 characters max
- Description: 90 characters max
- Length: 10 seconds minimum
- Orientation and ratio:
- landscape = 16:9
- Portrait = 2:3
- Square = 1:1
- Resolution: (Google doesn’t specify this but we recommend)
- landscape = 1920 x 1080 px
- Portrait = 1080 x 1620 px
- Square = 1080 x 1080
-
- File type and size: JPG or PNG with a 1024KB max for landscape
- Recommended pixels:
- 320 x 50 px
- 320 x 480 px
- 300 x 250 px
- Recommended orientation:
- For native ads, landscape and portrait images are the most valuable format.
- For interstitial ads, portrait images are the most valuable format.
-
- File type and size: .ZIP with a max of 5MB.
- File limit: no more than 512 files within the .ZIP, 20 files per Ad group.
- Recommended HTML5 sizes:
- Landscape interstitial = 480×320
- Portrait interstitial (variable size) = 320×480
- Fixed size = 300×250
- Fixed size = 320×50
- ZIP File formats: .ZIP files can contain HTML, CSS, JS, GIF, PNG, JPG, JPEG, SVG(.ZIP files cannot contain other .ZIP files)
Google Video Campaigns
Google Shopping Campaigns
Shopping campaigns promote your online store and products, as well as boost website traffic.
They also get prime real estate on Google’s SERPs, because they often place at the top of the page.
Performance Max campaigns have become more popular than standard shopping campaigns since 2023, although these campaigns can still be used.
There are two main types of Shopping ads for advertisers: Product Shopping Ads and Local Inventory Ads.
To set up a Shopping campaign in Google you will need to create an account with Google Merchant Center and link it with your Google Ad account. It’s a requirement to send your product information to the Merchant Center for Google to create your ads.
Shopping ads are visual as opposed to text-based like Google Search Ads. They include photo/video assets, with minimal text outlining pricing and product information.
They give users an overview of your product and store before they click and generate high-intent visitors.
Google Ad Specs for Shopping Ads
Here we will go over the specs for Product Listing Ads. Find more on Product Data specs for the Merchant Center here.
Character lengths:
- Product title: 150 characters max, 70 characters to avoid truncation on mobile devices
- URLs: must include the “http://” or “https://”
Images:
- File type and size: PNG, JPEG, non-animated GIF, BMP or TIFF and no larger than 16MB
- Non-apparel images: 100 x 100 px
- Apparel images: 250 x 250 px
- URL: http or https and replace symbols with URL encoded characters
Tip 1: Optimize your keywords in your product titles and descriptions! The algorithms Google uses for Shopping Ads is similar to SEO.
Tip 2: Avoid capitalization in your product titles as it can come across a bit spammy.
Google Discovery Campaigns
Want to reach up to 3 billion people a month with one ad campaign and drive conversions at scale? A single Google Discovery ad campaign lets you do so by allowing you to capitalise on customer intent using the bid goal and budget you set.
Reach new customers (and reconnect with old ones) with Google Discovery campaign’s audience targeting. Use visually attractive templates to combine images and text that tell your story.
Placements include: YouTube Home, Watch Next feeds, Gmail Promotions, Social tabs, and the Google Discover feed.
The Google Discover feed is a personalized, curated feed that shows when a user enters keywords into Google. Results are based on their individual Web and App Activity.
Rank on a Google users’ interest-based feed, making Discover Campaigns particularly powerful for conversions. It generates relevant content specific to user intent based on past Google activity.
Google Ad Specs for Discovery Ads
- Headline: Minimum of 1 and maximum of 5 consisting of 40 characters each (5 are recommended including at least one with 15 characters max)
- Description: 1 – 5 with 90 characters max (1 is recommended)
- Business name: 25 characters max
- Call to Action: 1 only which you can select from a drop-down list (will be automated by default if not selected)
- URLs: 2048 characters max. Final URL required to lead people who click on your ad to a default landing page
- Landscape images
- Ratio: 1:91.1
- Pixels: 1200 x 628 (600 x 314px minimum)
- Recommended Number: 3 (1 minimum)
- File Size: 5MB
- Square images
- Ratio: 1:1
- Pixels: 1200 x 1200 (300 x 300px minimum)
- Recommended Number: 3 (1 minimum)
- File Size: 5MB
- Portrait images
- Ratio: 4:5
- Pixels: 960 x 1200 (480 x 600px minimum)
- Recommended Number: 1 (No minimum required)
- Note: Portrait images won’t appear on YouTube
- Square Logo
- Ratio: 1:1
- Pixels: 1200 x 1200 (128 x 128px minimum)
- Recommended Number: 1 (1 minimum)
- File Size: 5MB
- Note: Transparent background is recommended.
Videos:
- Landscape
- Ratio: 1.91:1
- Length: 10-60 seconds
- Recommended Number: 3
- Vertical
- Ratio: 9:16 or 4:5
- Length: 10-60 seconds
- Recommended Number: 3
- Square
- Ratio: 1:1
- Length: 10-60 seconds
- Recommended Number: 3
Why Choose Google Ads?
As the most frequented search engine in the world, it would be daft not to take advantage of Google Ads. It allows you to advertise to a vast audience on the Google Search and Google Display Network.
Google Ads’ power lies in its ability to narrow down intent based on internet searches.
It’s critical to understand your customers’ needs, what they are thinking, and what their next move is. Google Ads reveals oodles about consumer behaviour with their unparalleled keyword research features.
There are 3 parties involved in Google Ads, the customer (Google user), the advertiser (you!) and Google. The main way Google ads reach customers is via Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Google Ads are super versatile, appearing on mobile, desktop and even TV. Advertisers target audiences with text, images, and videos through a variety of campaign formats.
