Free Google Ad Preview Tool

Mock up a responsive search ad the way it appears under the Sponsored label, on desktop and mobile, with live character counts against the limits Google actually documents. Because one fixed rendering would be a guess, this mock-up shows four assemblies Google could serve from the same assets — including the smallest one it says it may show.

Google Ads Character Limits, Confirmed Against Google’s Own Docs

Three of these four numbers are stated twice by Google, in two independent places, and the fourth is stated in a unit almost every other preview tool gets wrong.

Google Ads Help and Google Ads API documentation, accessed August 2026. The support article words it as The headline fields for responsive search ads support up to 30 characters. and The description fields support up to 90 characters each, and the path fields support up to 15 each.

The counts have floors as well as ceilings, and Google states both: You'll need to enter a minimum of 3 headlines, but you can enter up to 15. You'll need to enter a minimum of 2 descriptions, but you can enter up to 4. The tool above will still draw a mock-up below those floors, because seeing the ad is the point, but it tells you Google will refuse to save it.

Double-width languages halve your headline

Every character in a double width language like Korean, Japanese, or Chinese counts as 2 characters.

So a 30-character headline holds 30 Latin characters or 15 Japanese ones, and the counter has to know the difference. Worked example: 送料無料キャンペーン中です is 13 characters typed and 26 counted, leaving 4 of the 30 rather than 17.

Being honest about the edge: Google names the languages, not the characters. It publishes no list of code points it treats as double width, so this tool uses the Wide and Fullwidth ranges of Unicode Standard Annex #11 (East Asian Width). That deliberately excludes half-width katakana, which UAX #11 classes as narrow — and which is separately a policy violation, flagged as one below. Near the boundary, the Google Ads editor is the authoritative counter, not this page.

How Many Headlines Google Actually Shows

This is the part almost every ad preview gets wrong, and it is not a subtle point. You write up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions. Google does not show them. It picks:

Next, in any given ad, a minimum of one headline and one description will be selected to show in different combinations and orders.

A minimum of one headline and one description. Not three and two — one and one. And the ceiling is not in the prose at all; it is in the API. The served-position enum, ServedAssetFieldType, contains HEADLINE_1, HEADLINE_2, HEADLINE_3, DESCRIPTION_1 and DESCRIPTION_2 — and no HEADLINE_4. There is no position for a fourth headline to be served in (Google Ads API reference, accessed August 2026).

Between that floor and that ceiling, the order is not yours either: Keep in mind that headlines and descriptions may appear in any order.

Which means a preview showing Headline 1, Headline 2, Headline 3 and both descriptions in the order you typed them is showing you one arrangement out of many, and labelling a guess as your ad. That is why this page draws four named assemblies instead, and says plainly that the real one is chosen per auction and per device.

What pinning actually guarantees

Pinning is the only control you have over position, and it guarantees less than people assume. Google draws the line at position 3:

• Headlines or descriptions pinned to Headline position 1, Headline position 2, or Description position 1 will always show.
• Content pinned to Headline position 3 and Description position 2 are not guaranteed to show in every ad.

Pin something to Headline 1 in the tool above and it leads every one of the four assemblies, including the one-headline minimum. Pin something to Headline 3 and watch it vanish from the two smaller ones — which is the documented behaviour made visible, not a quirk of this mock-up.

Google also advises against leaning on it. Its Ad Strength guidance is explicit: Pin only 1 or 2 essential headlines, and leave the rest unpinned to rotate freely. (Google Ads Help, accessed August 2026). Pinning trades combination testing for control, and heavy pinning costs you Ad Strength.

Your display path may not show at all

Paths are not guaranteed to show. That is Google’s own sentence, in the article that documents the field. The field is optional, and each path can have up to 15 characters.

The path is not part of your URL. It is display text bolted onto the domain: Google Ads uses the domain from your final URL combined with your path text, if any is entered, to create the display URL. Google’s worked example renders as example.com/mens_shoes/outdoor (Google Ads Help, accessed August 2026).

This is exactly why the Minimum assembly above drops the path. A preview that always draws your display path is asserting something Google explicitly does not promise.

One behaviour this tool deliberately does not claim: what Google does with a Path 2 when Path 1 is empty. Google documents the paths as appended in order and says nothing about that case, so the mock-up shows the domain alone and words it as a statement about the mock-up. Anyone telling you Google rejects it is going beyond the documentation.

What This Preview Cannot Tell You

The most useful thing an ad preview can do is be clear about its own limits, so here are this one’s.

• It cannot tell you where your text will be truncated. Google publishes no rendered width and no truncation threshold for search ads, on either device. Every “truncates at N pixels” figure you have seen in an ad preview tool was measured by that tool against its own mock-up, or invented. This page ships no such constant. The one width judgement it makes is a measurement of the box it drew itself, and it says so on the label.
• The 600px and 320px columns are common widths, not Google’s. They are there so you can see a long headline behave differently in a narrow column than a wide one. They are not a claim about what Google renders.
• It cannot tell you which assembly you will get. That is decided in the auction, per query, per device, per user. Four assemblies is four honest possibilities, not a prediction.
• Nothing here is fetched from Google. No account is connected, no ad is looked up, and Google is not affiliated with this tool. Everything is computed in your browser from what you typed.

Even Google’s own Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool — which does have your account data — hedges: Note that the tool may not reflect all campaign activity. (Google Ads Help, accessed August 2026). If the tool with the data will not promise a rendering, no external mock-up should.

Characters Google Will Not Accept

Under “Invalid or unsupported characters” in the Google Ads editorial policy, Google gives exactly two examples: emoji and single-byte katakana (the half-width katakana block). Separately, under symbols used for something other than their intended purpose, it disallows Punctuation or symbols repeated consecutively, like "flowers!!" (Google Ads Help, accessed August 2026).

The tool above flags those three, and only those three. It does not flag a single exclamation mark, because the ban on exclamation marks in headlines that circulates widely traces back to a support article that no longer resolves. Only the consecutive-repetition rule is currently verifiable, so only consecutive repetition gets flagged. A tool that invents a rule costs you a headline that would have been fine.

What Google Says Drives Ad Strength

Ad Strength is the rating Google shows beside a responsive search ad, ranging across Incomplete, Poor, Average, Good and Excellent. The attributable drivers worth knowing:

• Keyword containment. A keyword must be contained entirely within a single headline to improve Ad Strength. It can't be split across two headlines.
• Asset quantity and distinctness. More unique headlines and descriptions give the system more combinations to test; near-duplicates give it fewer.
• Restraint with pinning. Pin only 1 or 2 essential headlines, and leave the rest unpinned to rotate freely.

And the correction worth making, because a lot of advice implies otherwise: Ad Strength is not Quality Score and is not a ranking factor. Google says so directly — It isn't used to calculate Ad Rank, Quality Score, or auction wins. (Google Ads Help, accessed August 2026). Treat it as feedback on asset diversity, not as a number to optimise for its own sake.

Previewing an Organic Result Instead?

This page is about the paid unit — the responsive search ad that carries the Sponsored label, with headlines, descriptions and a display path. If what you want to check is the organic result underneath it, that is a different set of fields and a different set of limits. Use the SERP Preview Tool for title tags and meta descriptions.

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