Image assets in Google Ads: Everything you need to know

If you think that Search campaigns in Google Ads are still a text-only ad format, you are missing out!

Image assets for search campaigns are a relatively new Google Ads feature that can help boost your click-through rate (CTR) and stand out from your competitors.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this article:

• What are image assets for search campaigns?
• Eligibility requirements for image assets
• How to use image assets for search campaigns
• How to avoid image asset disapprovals

What are image assets for search campaigns?

Image assets for search campaigns allow you to make your responsive search ads more appealing and eye-catching.

You can upload up to 20 square or landscape images (square is required, landscape is optional), which may appear alongside your headlines and descriptions.

If someone clicks on your image asset, they’ll be directed to the same landing page as if they had clicked on your headline.

Eligibility requirements for image assets

Although you can set up a new Google Ads account, create a campaign and launch it in a matter of minutes, you can’t use image assets from day one.

In order to use image assets for search campaigns:

• Your account must be active for at least 60 days.
• You must have been spending on search ads for at least 28 days.
• Your account must be in good policy compliance.
• You can’t operate in certain sensitive interest categories.

How to use image assets for search campaigns

As long as you meet the eligibility criteria, you should definitely start using image assets for all your search campaigns.

You can add image assets at the campaign or ad group level, up to 20 images per campaign. Google recommends having at least four images per campaign.

You can either upload image assets yourself, or use dynamic image assets; this gives Google permission to pick and choose images from your landing pages.

And, if you have search partners enabled in your search campaign settings, your image assets will be eligible to appear in YouTube search results.

How to avoid image asset disapprovals

Because these images appear on Google’s precious SERP, image assets are subject to strict editorial guidelines.

For example, your images could get disapproved if you:

• Add text on the image
• Have too much whitespace
• Upload a collage of images
• Use a blurry image
• Provide a heavily edited image
• Choose prohibited content

If you haven’t tested image assets for search campaigns, and you’re eligible to do so, give them a try!

Advertisers that use image assets see a 6% uplift in CTR, according to Google.

This article is part of our ongoing weekly Search Engine Land series, Everything you need to know about Google Ads in less than 3 minutes. Every Wednesday, Jyll highlights a different Google Ads feature, and what you need to know to get the best results from it – all in a quick 3-minute read.