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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, 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 personalized feeds, 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. 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 properties.
*Ads on Discover are currently unavailable for consumers in Australia, France, and Germany.
Discovery ads requirements
Prohibited categories
Regulated goods
Assets that depict or reference regulated goods or substances, including (but not limited to) recreational drugs, tobacco, and alcohol.
Example:
Assets that depict or reference images of weapons or criminality, including (but not limited to) guns, firearms, ammunition, explosives, the sale of fireworks, knives, prison, criminals, or arrests.
Example:
- Assets that depict or reference the above prohibited categories in a scene from a fictional work of entertainment (video game, TV-show, movie, etc.).
- Assets that depict or reference the above prohibited categories but not in a violent or criminal context, including (but not limited to) kitchen and utility knives, historical artifacts, or halloween costumes
Assets that depict or reference gambling-related content, including (but not limited to):
- Gambling
- Lotteries
- Contests
- Cash sweepstakes or cash giveaways
Example:
Improper content
Assets that depict or reference:
- Sexually suggestive content
- Unnecessarily exposed body parts
- Bodily fluids
Assets that depict invasive medical procedures
Example:
Negative events
Assets that depict negative life events including (but not limited to):
- Divorce, breakups or family separation, home foreclosures, financial difficulties, accidents and personal injuries (non exhaustive examples include sport, professional/work, medical and general accidents and injuries), or damage to objects or properties (non exhaustive examples include vandalism or destroyed personal property)
Assets that depict or reference natural or man-made crises.
Assets that depict or reference addiction recovery including, rehabilitation facilities and products that aid in addiction recovery.
Assets that depict death or death-related content including but not limited to:
- A dead person or animal
- A funeral home, mortuary, cemetery, mausoleum
Assets that depict trauma or pain including (but not limited to) a person grieving or crying.
Examples:
- Assets that reference services for a funeral home, mortuary, cemetery, mausoleum, and memorial services companies so long as they don’t depict any of the negative events listed above
- Assets that reference family and divorce services (attorney/law offices/counseling) so long as they don’t depict any of the negative events listed above
- Assets that reference insurance or event support services so long as they don’t depict any of the negative events listed above
- Assets that depict or reference the negative events listed above in a scene from a fictional work of entertainment (video game, TV-show, movie, etc.)
Dating-related prohibitions: users’ personal attributes
Assets that depict or reference dating services or matchmakers by asserting or implying user’s personal attributes, including (but not limited to) race, ethnic origin, nationality, religion, age or sexual orientation.
Implied interactivity
Assets that feature visual elements that depict nonexistent functionality (such as a “play” button that cannot be clicked).
Assets that tease the user into clicking the advertisement with sensational language, misleading claims or intentionally withholding necessary information.
Example:
Assets that illustrate that someone is trying to contact or has matched with the user while advertising a dating site.
Example:
Selfie image
Selfie images are not allowed except for images related to relevant products and services, including (but not limited to) selfie sticks and photography.
Example:
Unclear image
Blurry Images that are blurry, unclear, unrecognizable.
Examples:
Images that are visually skewed or warped in a way that makes the subject of the asset difficult to understand.
Examples:
Images that are cropped in a way that makes the subject of the asset difficult to distinguish.
Example:
