Through this guide, you will find the different types of advertising campaigns offered by Google as well as the corresponding ad formats. Find out what to consider when creating these ads, from recommended image sizes to character limits in titles and descriptions to best practices.
1. Ad formats for a Search Network campaign
The Google Search Network groups together all the websites and applications on which it is possible to create advertisements linked to the keywords during a search carried out by an Internet user. These ads may appear on Google Search (search engine, Google Play, Shopping tab, Google Images or Google Maps) or on partner sites of the Google Search Network.
Text ads
When performing a Google search, text ads appear above and below organic results. These structured ads include:
- a title,which corresponds to the first line of the ad. You can enter up to three titles of up to 30 characters each.
- a URL, composed of the address of your website as well as the text entered as a path (15 characters maximum).
- a description, which gives specific information about your product or service. You can write 2 descriptions of 90 characters maximum each.
Note that there are ad extensions that allow you to add additional information to your ad such as a postal address, a phone number or even additional links.
Dynamic Search Network Ads
Similar to text ads, dynamic ads allow you to target users more precisely, by showing a particular landing page of your website based on the keywords searched. Concretely, this type of ad makes it possible to quickly orient the user towards the product corresponding to what he is looking for on your site.
Headlines and landing pages are generated from your site content and all you need to do is add a description. This is why the use of dynamic ads is rather recommended when you have a provided website.
Call only announcements
These advertisements consist of a telephone number to contact and a call-to-action which allows the call to be made directly. You can also add the name of your company, an url and up to two description lines (35 characters maximum for each).
Shopping Ads
Shopping ads are used to display products for sale as well as direct links to merchant sites. These can appear in the Shopping tab of Google search, next to results on a SERP, on partner sites of the Search Network, or even on the Display Network. Ads about the sale of products are the subject of a separate campaign type, detailed further down in the article.
Gallery Ads
It is also possible to add to Search ads containing product photos (up to 8 photos), three titles and a short description. These ads appear at the top of search results.
2. Ad formats for a Display Network campaign
The Display Network enables visual ads to be displayed on the various partner websites (numbering 2 million), YouTube, Gmail or even when using mobile applications. Most often, these advertisements take the form of banners, inserts, small windows or a native form.
Responsive display ads
This format facilitates the creation of advertisements by automating the adjustment of advertisements by Google according to the advertising space available. When creating a responsive display ad, Google offers different formats depending on the distribution medium used (mobile or desktop):
To create a responsive display ad, all you need to do is enter:
- up to 15 images and 5 logosin different formats. For landscape format images (1.91: 1 ratio), choose dimensions greater than 600 x 314 pixels and a file size less than 5120 KB. For square format images (1: 1 ratio), prefer dimensions greater than 300 x 300 pixels and a file size less than 5120 KB.
- a video(optional), from YouTube or via an import. If you choose this second option, Google recommends videos of less than 30 seconds, which respect the formats 16: 9, 1: 1, 4: 3 or 9:16.
- a short title(between 1 and 5 titles, up to 30 characters each).
- a long title(up to 90 characters).
- a description(between 1 and 5 descriptions, up to 90 characters each).
- the name of your business.
- the final URL.
You can also add optional options such as URL tracking, call-to-action text, or a price prefix.
Imported picture ads
If you prefer to maintain full control over your ads, opt for the imported image ad format. This type of ad allows you to create your own visuals, by combining images, texts and logos. Imported image ads must be created outside of Google Ads, then you need to import them as an image (ZIP, GIF, JPG or PNG file), AMP HTML or HTML5.
There are several accepted ad formats, and the maximum size is 150KB for each. These formats are:
- Square and rectangle:200 x 200, 240 x 400, 250 x 250, 250 x 360, 300 x 250, 336 x 280, 580 x 400
- Skyscraper:120 x 600, 160 x 600, 300 x 600, 300 x 1050
- Leaderboard:468 x 60, 728 x 90, 930 x 180, 970 x 90, 970 x 250, 980 x 120
- Mobiles:300 x 50, 320 x 50, 320 x 100
- GIF: 30 seconds maximum with an animation speed lower than 5 frames per second.
Gmail Ads
Gmail ads are displayed via the “promotions” and “social networks” tabs in the service users’ mailboxes. When clicking on a Gmail ad, it can redirect directly to the linked website or take the form of an email containing text, images and CTAs.
There are two ways to create a Gmail ad:
- creating an ad,adding text, images or video. Via this method, Google takes care of optimizing your advertising.
- import of an ad,via the contribution of a single image ad or an HTLM ad.
Lightbox Ads
Lightbox ads are an interactive format, which reacts to the actions of Internet users (click or mouse over the ad). These advertisements can expand to fill the entire screen, display a video, or even allow a series of images to scroll. These advertisements automatically adapt to the formats offered by the Display Network.
To offer a Lightbox ad , you will need to create cards (up to 10 cards maximum) containing images, videos or a gallery of products.
3. Ad formats for a Shopping campaign
Shopping campaigns allow merchant sites to promote their products sold online or in physical stores, via various advertising networks (“shopping” tab, Google search, partner sites of the Google Search Network and Display Network).
These campaigns work hand in hand with Google Merchant Center , the tool that allows you to import a product catalog and make it visible to Internet users likely to make an act of purchase. Note that it is also possible to create free product sheets .
Shopping ads for a product
These ads are created from data available in Google Merchant Center. These formats include a photo, the price of the product, and the name of the company or store that sells it. These announcements can be improved by adding mentions of special offers or product reviews.
