YouTube Ads: Turn Off Google's Videos and Show Your Own

Performance Max and Demand Gen are two campaign types in Google Ads that show ads on YouTube among other places. If a campaign has no video of its own Google can make one for you from the images and text you have uploaded. The video is then shown in your name without anyone at your company having to see it.

According to Google's help page on auto-generated video ads Google picks the template and the music itself and makes videos in every format. They are meant for advertisers who have no video. For everyone else they become a video whose content someone else has decided.

My recommendation is that you turn off the automatically created videos in all campaigns and show your own videos instead. In my assessment a simple video you have made yourselves says more about you than a video Google has put together from still images.

Why Google's videos should be turned off

There are four reasons that apply to most advertisers.

• Nobody at your company has approved them. They are created automatically and can be shown without you having seen them.
• They look like everyone else's. Google builds them from templates and your still images. My assessment is that viewers rarely understand what makes you different.
• They can show the wrong thing. Google writes in its help on videos in Performance Max that the product in an automatic video may differ from the one on the landing page.
• They share budget with your own ads. In Demand Gen the video becomes an ad of its own in the ad group next to the ads you have made.

There are also video enhancements. Here Google starts from your own video and makes new formats and shorter versions of it according to Google's help page on video enhancements. It is your video but it is Google doing the editing. The simplest option is to turn off the enhancements too and make the versions yourselves.

How to turn them off in Performance Max

Performance Max has no setting that turns off the automatically created videos. According to Google's help page on creative automation in Performance Max they are created when an asset group has no active video of its own and they stop being used once you upload one. An asset group is the collection of images, text and videos that Google builds the ads from.

1. Open the campaign and go through the asset groups one at a time.
2. Look at the videos in each group. Google's own are marked as automatically created in the source column.
3. Add at least one video of your own to every group that lacks one. Ideally one horizontal and one vertical and preferably a square one too.
4. Open Campaign settings and select Asset optimisation. Select Video and untick Enhancement. This turns off video enhancements in that campaign.
5. Go through the groups again after a few days and check that Google's videos are no longer being used.

Videos for Google Ads are hosted on YouTube. You can upload them directly in Google Ads or use videos from your channel. They can be unlisted, which means only visible to people who have the link. Private videos cannot be used.

How to turn them off in Demand Gen

In Demand Gen the videos are controlled per ad. For image ads the Videos checkbox is ticked from the start according to Google's help page on Demand Gen. Google also announced that image-only ad groups created before 27 August 2025 would get such videos after 31 October 2025 unless the advertiser opted out.

1. Open the campaign and go to Ads.
2. Open your own image ad. The video Google has made sits as a separate ad in the same list.
3. Untick Videos under Asset optimisation and save the ad.
4. Pause or remove the video ad Google has already made. It does not disappear on its own when you turn off the setting.
5. Open your own video ads and untick the options for vertical and square versions and for shorter versions.

If you have many ads it is quicker in Google Ads Editor. There you can select several ads at once and turn off the videos under asset optimisation.

The same goes for the text Google writes for you. The post on when Google's AI writes your ads has a routine for reviewing what Google creates in your name.

What makes your own video work as an ad

Google sums up its advice on video ads in four parts called ABCD. They are set out in Google's guidance on video ads on YouTube.

• Attention is about catching the viewer straight away and holding their interest.
• Branding is about showing and saying the name early and more than once.
• Connection is about making the viewer think or feel something.
• Direction is about telling the viewer what to do next.

According to Google the same parts apply to YouTube Shorts but in a different order with connection first. This is how I turn the advice into a list to go through when a video is to become an ad.

1. Show the most important thing in the first shot. Skippable ads can be skipped after five seconds according to Google's overview of video formats.
2. Say the name and show the logo early. Anyone who skips after five seconds should still have seen who the ad is from.
3. Make the video at least ten seconds long. That is the requirement for videos in Performance Max.
4. Make a horizontal version in 16:9 and a vertical one in 9:16. The vertical one suits YouTube Shorts. Make a square one in 1:1 as well if you can.
5. Use both sound and subtitles. The voice carries the message for viewers with the sound on and the subtitles for those with it off.
6. Stick to one message per video. Rather make three short videos with one message each.
7. End with the same offer as the landing page. The person who clicks should recognise it.

The video does not have to be expensive. My assessment is that a short video filmed on a phone at your premises is often enough. It shows real people in a real place and no template can do that.

Videos also work well for reminding people who have already visited you. How such audiences are built around where the visitor is in the buying journey is covered in the post on remarketing for long buying decisions.

Next steps for you

Go through these questions with whoever runs your account. It is also one of the points when we audit a Google Ads account.

1. Which asset groups in Performance Max lack a video of their own?
2. Which ads in Demand Gen have Videos switched on?
3. Are video enhancements turned off in every campaign?
4. Which videos do you already have that could become ten seconds or longer in horizontal and vertical format?

We can go through your campaigns and turn off what Google creates on its own. Then we build the ads on YouTube and in Demand Gen on your own videos and follow up which videos lead to enquiries and sales. More on how we work with Google Ads is on our services page.

How many of the videos in your account did you make yourselves?