Tick "Google Gmail, YouTube & Display" when you build a campaign, or on its "Where it runs" step. The campaign screen then has a section "Google: Gmail, YouTube, Discover and Display".
A. What kind of campaign:
- Demand Gen: the only way to advertise in Gmail. Also YouTube (feed, before videos, Shorts) and Discover. Best for reaching new people with pictures and video. You choose the channels.
- Display: banner-style ads across millions of websites and apps. Best for showing your ads again to people who visited your site.
- Performance Max: one campaign on every Google channel (Search, YouTube, Gmail, Discover, Display and Maps), and Google decides where. Best once Google receives your sales.
Classic YouTube video campaigns cannot be created by any tool: Google only allows that inside Google Ads itself. YouTube runs here through Demand Gen and Performance Max, which use the same YouTube placements.
B. The words: press Write the Google text. Headlines (30 characters), long headlines (90), descriptions (90; Performance Max needs one of 60 or fewer), your business name (25) and a call to action. Every line is checked against Google's limits and the ad rules; change anything, one line each.
C. Pictures, logo and videos: tick up to 5 pictures from the campaign or add them from your media library, then press Make Google's picture shapes. ADs cuts each one to landscape 1.91:1, square, portrait 4:5 and vertical 9:16, for free on your server. Choose your logo: any shape is placed on a square canvas, never cropped (add a wide 4:1 logo if you have one). Paste up to 5 YouTube video links; they must be public or unlisted.
D. Budget, bidding and who sees it: daily budget (Demand Gen needs at least 5 US dollars a day), bidding (maximise conversions or a target cost per sale on every type; maximise conversion value on Demand Gen and Performance Max; maximise clicks on Demand Gen and Display; your own cost per click on Display), countries, cities, regions and postcodes, languages, your audiences (Only them or Keep out), optimised targeting, whether Google may send people to other pages of your site, and start and end dates.
E. Create in Google Ads (paused). Google checks the whole campaign first; if any part is wrong, nothing is created and you see which part and Google's words. With the Google Ads script, it is created on the script's next run. Once created, "Your campaign in Google Ads now" lets you switch it on, pause it, change the budget and change the bidding.
Changing the bidding of a live Gmail, YouTube or Display campaign: in "Your campaign in Google Ads now", under "Bidding now", choose the new bidding, fill in its target or cost per click, and press Change bidding. ADs asks first, then sends only the bidding.
- Allowed on the campaign as it is: a different target cost per sale or target return, a new cost per click, and on Display and Performance Max any switch between the choices Google offers them.
- Not allowed by Google on a Gmail and YouTube (Demand Gen) campaign that already exists: moving between bidding for sales (conversions or conversion value) and bidding for clicks. ADs says so and changes nothing. Instead, "Make a copy with this bidding and pause the old one" makes a new campaign with the same words, pictures, audiences, countries and budget and the new bidding, switched off, and pauses the old one only once the copy exists. If Google refuses the copy, the old one is left exactly as it was. Switch the copy on when you are ready.
- Manual CPC on Display is always made as a copy, because its bid sits on each ad group.
- A campaign on a shared (portfolio) bid strategy is changed in Google Ads, so the other campaigns on it are not changed by surprise.
With the direct connection the change happens at once. With the Google Ads script it happens on the script's next run (within the hour, or press Run on the script in Google Ads); the panel shows "Waiting for your Google Ads script: bidding to ..." until then, and Google's own words if it says no.