Google Discovery Ads

• Use high-impact images to stop consumers mid-scroll
• Reuse imagery from existing media campaigns (like social and video) to make the most of Google’s feeds.

Why: Reusing already high-performing imagery helps you save time building your campaigns while driving a seamless brand and product story across Google and YouTube’s most immersive surfaces.

• High-quality images inspire people to take action with your brand.

Why: High-quality and high-resolution images help build brand trust and tell a more engaging story about your products or services — all while helping inspire customer action.

Tip

Use the “website scan” feature in the asset media picker when creating your ads. This will find and upload images directly from sources like your website or social media.

• Use all the available Discovery ad layouts with a variety of image aspect ratios to maximize your ad’s reach and impact.

Why: Discovery ads appear across YouTube, Discover, and Gmail, automatically appearing in the image options and sizes that lead to the best performance across each property.

Tip

Use multiple layouts and provide at least three headlines, descriptions and images (in portrait, square, and landscape formats) to make the most of the creative canvas and the variety of ad placements available across Google’s feeds.

To ensure that your ads have the highest quality images and are approved, be sure to review the Discovery ad format requirements.

• Unlock more of the right audience
• Focus on audiences that are more likely to convert based on performance you’ve seen in your other campaigns.

Why: Successful Discovery campaigns often start with repurposing high-intent audiences—like custom intent or remarketing—that perform well on Search, Video and Display campaigns.

• Keep audience expansion enabled to expand your campaign’s reach.

Why: Audience expansion can help you find more people who are similar to your current audience and can help lift overall performance.

• Choose the right budget and give your campaigns time to optimize
• Choose an average daily budget at least 10 times the value of your target cost-per-action (CPA) bid and wait for at least 40 conversions before making changes to your campaign.

Why: Discovery campaigns perform better with more data. Gathering enough data requires 2-3 weeks for Google’s machine learning to make ideal optimizations for your campaign.

• Measure performance
• Review audience-level reports.

Why: Audience-level reports help you better understand who your best customers are. You can then adjust your bids and ad creative to find more of the right customers.

• Monitor your asset-level reports.

Why: Understanding which creative assets perform best can help you optimize your campaigns and inform your other marketing campaigns.

• Ensure sitewide tagging is enabled.

Why: You can then measure conversions to understand which actions people take on your website after they interact with your ad.

2. Collect your best assets

If you need help choosing the right visuals, review the Discovery Creative Guidelines

Discovery ads format requirements

Google provides translated versions of our Help Center as a convenience, though they are not meant to change the content of our policies. The English version is the official language we use to enforce our policies. To view this article in a different language, use the language dropdown at the bottom of the page.

Discovery campaigns combine audience targeting features and visually engaging formats to help you better personalize your ads within Google’s feeds to inspire customer action. This article outlines the requirements your Discovery ad assets (headline, description, or image) must meet in order for your Discovery campaigns to serve.

Users visit the YouTube Home and Watch Next feeds, Google 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 owned and operated surfaces, Discovery ads must comply with all Google Ads and personalization policies. In addition, we will review each Discovery ad asset for compliance with the Discovery ads requirements listed below, which will take priority in the event there is conflict with the Google Ads and personalization policies. The Discovery ads requirements are more restrictive than the ads requirements for other platforms and surfaces, meaning disapproved Discovery ad assets may continue to run on Google’s other owned and operated properties.

3. Create your campaign

Once you’re ready, then create your campaign.

Create and manage Discovery campaigns

• Expansive reach: Reach up to 3 billion customers across the YouTube Home and Watch Next feeds, Discover, and the Gmail Promotions and Social tabs using a single campaign.
• Rich and relevant creative: Inspire consumers as you showcase your brand or products in visually engaging images, rendered natively across Google properties.
• Drive action with the right audience: Combine this incredible reach and powerful creative canvas with Google’s understanding of intent to anticipate what your customers want and drive results.