How to Add Images to Google Ads: Image Assets, Specs, and the Eligibility Gate

To add images to Google Ads, open the campaign or ad group in your Google Ads account, go to Assets, choose to add an image asset, then upload files and crop them to a square 1:1 and an optional landscape 1.91:1. Google recommends 1200 x 1200 and 1200 x 628 pixels, accepts PNG and JPG up to 5120 KB, and allows up to 20 images per campaign. If the image option does not appear at all, your account has not met Google's eligibility conditions, which is a separate problem covered below.

That second sentence is where most of the confusion lives. Search on this topic and you will find a dozen guides that walk you through a menu you cannot see, because they never mention that image assets are gated. So this covers both halves: the clicks, and the reason the clicks may not be available to you yet.

How to add image assets to Google Ads, step by step

1. Sign in to Google Ads and select the campaign or ad group you want the images to run on. Images can be added at either level, and ad group level gives you tighter relevance if your ad groups are genuinely different themes.
2. Open the Assets section from the left navigation, then choose Assets rather than Asset groups.
3. Add an asset and pick Image from the asset types offered.
4. Upload files from your computer, pull them from your website, or select from images Google has already scanned from your landing pages.
5. Crop each image to the square 1:1 ratio, which is required, and to landscape 1.91:1 if you want that placement too. Check the crop rather than accepting the automatic one, since a centered auto-crop frequently cuts the subject.
6. Save. Images go into review and typically clear within a day, sooner in most accounts.

Nothing about the upload itself is difficult. The decisions that matter are which images you choose and whether they comply, and both are covered further down.

Before you start: the four eligibility requirements

Google restricts image assets on Search campaigns to accounts that clear all of the following. Miss any one and the option is hidden, with no message explaining why.

Accounts in sensitive verticals are excluded outright regardless of history.

Why the image option is missing from your Google Ads account

If you have followed the steps above and there is no Image option, the account almost certainly failed one of those four conditions. This is the single most common reason people conclude the feature was removed or is rolling out slowly. It was not removed. It is simply not shown to ineligible accounts.

Work through it in this order. Check the account creation date first, since 60 days is a hard floor and there is no way around it. Then check the last 30 days of Search spend, because agencies inheriting a dormant account run into this constantly: the account is years old and perfectly compliant, but nothing has spent on Search recently, so the gate is shut. Then check your policy manager for open disapprovals. If all four look fine and the option is still absent, it is worth a support conversation, but in the large majority of cases one of the four is the answer.

Google Ads image specs for image assets

These figures come from Google Ads Help and were verified in August 2026.

Formats are PNG and JPG, with a 5120 KB ceiling per file. Upload at the recommended sizes rather than the minimums: Google will accept a 300 x 300 square and it looks visibly soft on any current phone. If you only remember two numbers for Google Ads generally, make them 1200 x 1200 and 1200 x 628, because between them they serve most of what Google runs. The fixed banner dimensions such as 300 x 250 and 728 x 90 belong to uploaded display ads and are a different format entirely, listed in our rundown of Google display ad sizes.

Can Google Ads images have text on them?

Not on Search campaign image assets. Google's rule is explicit: absolutely no digitally added text, logos, or graphic overlays. This is the second big trap, and it catches experienced advertisers more often than beginners, because experienced advertisers have a folder full of banners that already work and reasonably assume they can reuse them.

They cannot, at least not here. A headline burned into the image, a logo lockup in the corner, a price badge, a "50% off" flash: all of that is fine on the Display Network and inside Performance Max asset groups, and all of it will be rejected as a Search image asset. Google wants photography on this placement, not advertising. The image is there to show what you sell, and the selling is the job of the headline and description next to it, which the Google ad copy generator handles.

The practical consequence is that you need two versions of every creative idea rather than one file used twice: a clean photographic version for Search image assets and a composed, text-bearing version for display and Performance Max. That is more production, not less, and it is the same pattern as any other channel where one idea has to be reshaped for every surface it runs on instead of pasted across all of them unchanged.

Dynamic image assets: letting Google pull images from your landing page

There is a second way images end up in your Search ads. Dynamic image assets are an account level setting that lets Google curate images directly from your ad's landing page and append them to your ads. You opt in at the account level, Google's system picks the image it judges most relevant to the query, and you keep full control to remove any dynamic image that serves.

The eligibility bar is similar: good policy compliance history, an eligible vertical, and an account open more than 60 days. Opting in also means confirming you own the legal rights to every image on those pages and are granting Google permission to modify them and create derivative works. That is not a formality if your site uses stock photography under a restrictive license, so it is worth a look at your image sources before you switch it on.

Dynamic image assets are a reasonable safety net for accounts with hundreds of ad groups where manually curating images is unrealistic. They are a poor substitute for chosen images on a small, high-value account, because Google is picking from whatever happens to be on the page, including team photos, icons, and hero images that were never composed to work at ad size.

Which images should you actually upload?

Google accepts up to 20 images per campaign and recommends at least 4 unique images at the ad group or campaign level. Uniqueness carries the weight in that sentence. Four crops of the same photograph fill the slots and give the system nothing to choose between, which defeats the purpose of a format where Google is testing combinations for you.

A set that earns its place covers four different ideas. For a product: the item on a clean background, the item in use by the person who buys it, the outcome or result, and something that gives a sense of scale or context. For a service business: the crew working, the finished job, the equipment or vehicle, and the premises. Shoot or generate each one in both ratios rather than letting an auto-crop turn a wide composition into a square close-up of somebody's midsection.

Keep file sizes modest too. A well-compressed 1200 x 1200 JPG rarely needs more than a few hundred KB, and lighter files matter on mobile placements where your ad has a fraction of a second to register.

Why image assets get disapproved

Beyond the overlay rule, the common rejections are predictable. Images that are blurry, poorly cropped, or heavily filtered get flagged on quality. Collages and images that are mostly white space get flagged for the same reason. Images that do not clearly relate to the landing page get flagged on relevance, which is worth remembering if you are tempted to use an attention-grabbing photo that has nothing to do with the product. And any image you do not hold the rights to is a problem regardless of whether Google catches it, since you confirm ownership when you upload.

If a file is disapproved and you cannot see why, the fastest diagnostic is to ask whether anything has been added to the photograph after it was taken. Text, a badge, a logo, a border, a color block behind a price: any of those, and you have your answer.

Making the images without a photoshoot

The reason many advertisers never turn image assets on is not the gate or the policy. It is that they do not have four good photographs, and commissioning a shoot for a Search extension is hard to justify. That is the gap Adscreator's Google Ads image generator fills: paste a product URL and it produces the square and landscape crops Google asks for, as clean product scenes without overlays for Search image assets, plus the composed, text-bearing versions for responsive display ads and Performance Max asset groups in the same pass. Flat monthly pricing, no per-image credits, and you download the files and upload them in Google Ads yourself.