How to Share Google Web Designer Banners with Clients for Review

Google Web Designer is free, it exports clean HTML5 for Display & Video 360, Google Ads and Campaign Manager, and a lot of studios build every banner in it. The part it was never really built for is the last step: showing fifteen sizes to a client, getting their comments on the right frame, and knowing who approved what.

This guide covers the three ways to share GWD banners, what each one actually gives your client, and the workflow that works for a full campaign.

Option 1: GWD's "Get shareable link"

Recent versions of Google Web Designer have a shareable preview built in. Open the Preview menu, choose Get shareable link, and GWD generates a URL and a QR code for the ad you have open. You have to be signed in to a Google account, and the first time it asks for permission to create mobile previews.

It is good for a quick look, and it is genuinely the fastest way to check an ad on your own phone. For client review it has real limits, all of them from Google's own documentation:

• One ad per link. The link shows the document you generated it from. A campaign of fifteen sizes is fifteen links, fifteen messages, and fifteen tabs on the client's side.
• Only some ad environments. It works for documents set to Display & Video 360, Google Ads or AdMob. AMPHTML ads and expandables that expand to a custom size are not supported, responsive ads need one size picked, and dynamic ads show placeholders instead of real feed data.
• The link does not follow your changes. A preview that was already generated does not reflect later edits. Every round of feedback means new links, and the client has to know which ones are current.
• Nowhere to comment or approve. The client sees the ad and nothing else. Feedback comes back by email, as a screenshot with a red circle, or as "the second scene, the text at the top", and you match it to the right size by hand.

If you are sending one 300×250 to a colleague, this is all you need. For a client campaign, it turns into link management.

Option 2: publish to Google Drive, or send the zips

GWD can publish straight to Google Drive, and you can always publish locally and attach the zips. Both get the files to the client. Neither shows the banners: a zipped HTML5 ad does not play from a Drive folder or from an email attachment. The client downloads, unzips, double-clicks index.html, and either gets a blank page or a banner at the wrong size. Then you get the email that says "it doesn't open".

This option makes sense for the hand-off to the media agency or the trafficker, after approval. It is the wrong tool for the review.

Option 3: one preview link for the whole campaign

This is what banner preview tools are for, and it fits the way GWD already exports:

1. Publish each size locally as a zip. In GWD, use Publish → Publish locally and keep the zip option on. You get one zip per size, which is exactly what ad servers want too.
2. Drop all the zips into one campaign. In BannerPeek, drag the whole set in at once. Each zip is unpacked, the size is detected, and the banner is served from a CDN, running as it will in the ad slot.
3. Group them the way the media plan does. Concept A and concept B, desktop and mobile, French and Dutch. Groups become sections on the client's page.
4. Send one link. The client opens it in any browser, with no Google account and no download, and sees every size side by side at real size.
5. Collect comments on the banner itself. The client clicks the spot they are talking about. On an animated GWD ad, the comment is also pinned to the second of the timeline, so "the tagline comes in too late" arrives with the exact moment attached.
6. Get an approval with a name and a time. One click per banner. When the campaign goes live, you know who signed off.
7. Upload the next round as a new version. Same link, newest file on screen, the old comments still there for reference.

GWD ads built for Display & Video 360 or Campaign Manager load Google's Enabler script and use Google's exit events instead of a plain clickTag. That is fine for preview: the banner loads and animates exactly as it does in the ad slot.

Tips for GWD campaigns that go to review

• Name the files with the size. GWD names the published folder after the document. Brand_Concept-A_300x250 sorts and groups itself; Untitled-3 does not.
• Export every size, not just the master. Clients judge the 320×50, not the 300×250 you designed first. Text that fits the rectangle often does not fit the mobile leaderboard, and that is exactly the feedback you want before the media goes live.
• Watch the file weight. GWD inlines its runtime into index.html, so a simple banner can still be 90 KB before the images. Check it against the limit in the brief (150 KB is still the most common line, even though Google Ads itself accepts up to 600 KB; see our HTML5 banner specs) before you send it for review, not after the client approves.
• One concept per group. If you are presenting two creative routes, put them in separate groups so the client compares route against route, not size against size.
• Keep corrections on the same link. Making a new campaign called "…-corrected" for every round splits the comments across pages. Upload the fix as a new version of the same banner instead.

Which option to use

You want to	Use
Check an ad on your own phone	GWD's Get shareable link
Hand the final files to a trafficker or media agency	Publish locally, send the zips
Show a campaign to a client and get comments and approval	A preview link for the whole campaign

Related reading

• How to share banner ads with clients for review: every method, for HTML5, static, GIF and video.
• ClickTag explained: how exits work in HTML5 banners, including Enabler-based ones.
• HTML5 banner specs 2026: weight limits and requirements per platform.
• Banner ad sizes 2026: the sizes worth exporting, drawn at actual size.