Google has folded its image-assets rules for Search ads into a single rulebook, and the most consequential line is not about pixels. It sets a minimum account age of 60 days before an advertiser can attach an image to a text ad. A brand launching a new account today cannot show a product photo next to its search ad until late September, no matter what the daily budget looks like.
The 60-day clock is one of five conditions Google now requires together. The account also needs a clean record of policy compliance, at least one active campaign, and active text ads that generated Search spend above zero in the past 30 days. The fifth condition locks out entire verticals. Sexual content and gambling remain excluded from image assets regardless of account age or spend history.
Stack those conditions and the practical requirement is roughly two months of live, compliant Search advertising before image assets unlock. That timeline lands hardest on agencies. A client moving to a fresh account structure, or a brand standing up a new account for a product launch, loses access to visual creative for the entire onboarding window, even if the parent brand has run flawless campaigns elsewhere for years.
The rulebook also tightens what counts as acceptable creative once an account clears the gate. Google lists eight categories of defect that trigger hard rejection, and blurry or unrecognizable images sit alongside distorted photos, poor cropping, and excessive blank space. Only PNG and JPG files are accepted. None of that is new in spirit. Google has applied similar clarity standards to YouTube and Discover Feed creative before. What changes here is that the standard now sits in one document advertisers can be held to consistently across a Search campaign.
The one place the policy loosens involves AI-disclosure labels. Search ads have carried a text-overlay ban on image assets for years, meant to keep the imagery focused on the product itself, not on promotional graphics. Regulations in the EU, India, and New York now require visible on-image text disclosing AI involvement in the creative. Google has written an explicit exemption into the policy so that disclosure text no longer counts as a violation of its own overlay ban. That is a narrow, compliance-driven carve-out, not a general softening of the no-text rule.
Agencies onboarding clients onto new accounts have a workaround worth building into the standard launch plan rather than discovering it after a client asks why image assets will not save. Treat the 60-day window as a warm-up period, not dead time. Stand up the account with compliant text ads first, keep Search spend active every day of that first month, and hold the compliance record clean before any campaign that depends on image creative goes live. A launch timeline that assumes image assets are available from day one will lose two months to a gate that was entirely predictable.
Luis Rijo reported the policy change for PPC Land on July 22, 2026.
