Understand and create
ad creatives

About ad creatives

When you run ads on Maps, your ad will appear with assets and promotional text that show what your business has to offer. The set of assets and promotional text within an ad is called an ad creative. We recommend aligning your ad creatives with specific keyword themes or categories to help provide more relevant ads to customers.

To access your ad creatives, select Creative Library in the left navigation menu, then click the Ad Creatives tab to see all of your ad creatives and their details at a glance.

How to create an
ad creative

  1. Click Creative Library in the left navigation bar.

  2. Click the Ad Creatives tab.

  3. Click the Create button.

  4. Enter the brand that you want to promote with this ad creative. If you have only one brand in this organization, that brand will be pre-populated.

  5. Name your ad creative. A suggested name will be displayed, but you can change it to help you identify the ad creative and organize it within Apple Ads. Customers won’t see this name on your ad in Maps.

  6. Add assets. There are two types of assets: images and logos. Images are photos of your business and your offerings, while a logo is your business logo that you added to your Brand Profile in Apple Business. You can either select up to three images or use your logo — you can’t use both images and a logo in one ad creative.

    • Begin by selecting the type of asset that you will use in this ad creative.
    • If you want to use images in your ad creative, you can upload new ones or select existing ones from your Creative Library or from Apple Business. When you select three images, you’ll unlock all available search results ad formats, which include 3-image, 1-image, or text only formats. After you select the images, you can hover on one to see editing options. This can help you quickly reorder, crop, or remove an image from the ad creative.
    • If you want to use your logo, select Brand Logo as your asset type and the logo from your Apple Business Brand Profile will display. Note that when you update your logo in Apple Business, it will update everywhere that it’s being used — including your ad creatives.

  7. Enter promotional text (optional). This text will appear in your ad and you can use it to tell your customers about your offerings, sales, and more. Select the language that your promotional text is written in. Promotional text will appear in this language if a customer’s device is set to a language that you haven’t added.

    • Add more languages.* You can also include promotional text in other languages. If a customer’s device is set to a language that you’ve added, the promotional text will appear in that language.

  8. You can use the ad preview to see a representation of your ad. Note that some ad elements may differ from the live ad, and ad previews only display one of your locations as an example.

  9. Click Save.

You can access all of your ad creatives in your Creative Library. There, you can use them in ads, edit their content, check their statuses, and more. Learn about managing your ad creatives.

Ad guidelines

Your ad content must comply with Apple Business photo guidelines as well as Apple Advertising Policies. We recommend reviewing all of the policies, but here are some relevant ones to get you started:

  • Your ad can’t include content that’s considered offensive, violent, sexually explicit, related to controlled or intoxicating substances, or otherwise inappropriate.
  • Your ad can’t promote weapons or ammunition, home services (like plumbing, electrical, locksmith, HVAC, pest control, roofing, or general contracting services), bail bond services, cryptocurrency ATMs, or political candidates, parties, and issues.
  • Offers available in your ad content must be clear to users and can't misrepresent the true nature of the offer. Ad content can’t deceptively misrepresent offerings or promote items as free if charges or fees apply.
  • Assets can’t be low quality, distorted, blurry, or illegible.