What Is Demand Gen? How Google's Demand Gen Campaigns Work

Demand Gen is a Google Ads campaign type that shows image, video and carousel ads on YouTube (including Shorts), Discover, Gmail and the Google Display Network, to reach people who are not yet searching for your product but are likely to be interested. Unlike Search campaigns, which wait for someone to type a query, Demand Gen works from audience signals such as customer lists, website visitors and lookalike segments, then uses Smart Bidding to find the people most likely to click or buy.

Put simply, Search captures demand that already exists, while Demand Gen creates new demand while people are scrolling a feed, watching a video or opening their email. This article explains where Demand Gen ads appear, how it differs from Performance Max and Display, how to choose audiences, which ad formats you can use, how to set bidding, how to measure results and which businesses it suits, based mainly on the Google Ads Help pages.

Where Demand Gen came from

Demand Gen replaced the old Discovery campaigns, and Google has since folded other campaign types into it. The Google Ads Help page on the Video action campaign upgrade states that Google would automatically upgrade the final remaining Video action campaigns to Demand Gen by April 2026. Another Help page says Google Display campaigns now have "a new home" as the Google Display Network inside Demand Gen, with a migration tool rolling out in phases from June 2026, and that creating new Display campaigns will later move entirely into Demand Gen (no date given).

In practice, Demand Gen has become the home for almost all image and video advertising in Google Ads that does not sit in Search or Performance Max. Anyone who previously ran Discovery, Video action or Display campaigns should learn Demand Gen properly, because it is Google's main path from here on.

Where Demand Gen ads show

According to the "About Demand Gen campaigns" page in Google Ads Help, Demand Gen ads serve on these surfaces:

• YouTube, split into YouTube Shorts, YouTube in-feed, YouTube Home feed, YouTube watch next and YouTube Search
• Discover, the article and content feed in the Google app on mobile
• Gmail, shown in Gmail users' inboxes
• Google Display Network, Google's partner websites and apps
• Google video partners, plus Google Maps, which the Display migration page lists as being in beta

What sets it apart from other automated campaigns is channel controls. You can choose which channels Demand Gen runs on, for example YouTube Shorts only, or with Display switched off. The default is all channels, which gives the system the widest room to find conversions, but if you have creative built specifically for vertical video, or you want to see YouTube spend separately, restricting channels helps.

Also note that content suitability for Demand Gen is controlled mainly at account level. Google states that inventory type, content type and label settings are not available at campaign level, and topic and placement exclusions are generally not available at campaign or ad group level either. Keyword exclusions can be set at account level.

How Demand Gen differs from Performance Max and Display

The most common confusion is between Demand Gen and Performance Max (PMax). Both use Google's AI for bidding and audience finding, but they work differently. PMax is a single campaign that runs across all of Google's channels, including the Search results page and Shopping, and gives you little control over where the money goes. Demand Gen does not show ads on the Google Search results page; it focuses on feed and video surfaces and gives you more control over audiences, creative and channels.

This table summarises the main differences:

As for the older Display campaign type, Google is now moving Display into Demand Gen. Reach on the Google Display Network stays the same, but the migration page lists Display features that are dropped or limited in Demand Gen, including Manual CPC, paying for viewable impressions, Pay for Conversions, and Brand Lift and Search Lift for GDN. Migrated campaigns get a "#2" suffix, cannot be reverted to Display, and their ads need to be re-approved. If you still rely on Manual CPC for Display, plan a bidding change ahead of time.

How to choose audiences and lookalikes

Demand Gen lets you choose several kinds of audience at ad group level: your own data (customer lists, website visitors, YouTube channel viewers), Google audiences such as affinity and in-market segments, custom segments built from search terms or URLs, and lookalike segments, which Demand Gen has and other campaign types do not.

How lookalike segments work

A lookalike segment starts from a seed list, meaning people you already have, such as past purchasers, website visitors or YouTube channel viewers. Google then finds people with similar characteristics in your target location. You pick one of three reach levels: narrow, balanced or broad. In the original model, the three levels meant aiming to include about 2.5%, 5% and 10% of users in the target location respectively. Narrow is closest to the seed but small; broad is largest but less similar.

The important caveat is that lookalike behaviour is changing. The latest Google Ads Help page says lookalike segments will default to suggestion mode, acting as a hint to the system rather than a hard limit, unless the ad group is opted out to keep the original targeting-constraint behaviour. The same page says the old 100-user minimum seed list requirement no longer applies, while another Google page still describes the older rule. This area is not settled, so check which mode your ad groups are in before you rely on it.

On timing, Google says a new lookalike segment takes about 72 hours to populate, so create the campaign and segment two to three days before launch.

Sensitive categories

For businesses in categories Google treats as sensitive, Help states that campaigns must use predefined Google audiences such as affinity or in-market segments, and generally serve mainly on YouTube. Most sensitive categories can also serve on Discover, except gambling, alcohol and political content.

Which ad formats Demand Gen supports

Demand Gen supports several kinds of creative in one campaign, as listed in Google Ads Help:

• Image ads in landscape 1.91:1, square 1:1 and portrait 4:5, with a 1:1 logo
• Video ads in horizontal, square and vertical orientations; vertical is needed if you want ads to perform well on Shorts
• Carousel ads with 2-10 image cards that people can swipe
• Product feeds linked from Google Merchant Center, showing products under a cover image or video
• Text: headlines, descriptions, business name, final URL and a call-to-action button

Help states that sitelink extensions are available for Demand Gen campaigns. In practice, Demand Gen does best when it has several creative types in several aspect ratios, because each channel wants a different shape. Gmail and Discover work well with still images, while Shorts needs vertical video. If you only supply landscape images, the campaign will be limited on channels that do not suit that shape.

Which bidding to use

Demand Gen relies mainly on automated bidding. Based on Google Ads Help, the options fall into three groups:

• Click-focused: Maximize clicks (the system sets bids to get as many clicks as possible) and Target CPC (you set the average cost per click you want). These suit awareness goals or building remarketing lists.
• Conversion volume: Maximize conversions, with an optional Target CPA added later.
• Conversion value: Maximize conversion value, with an optional Target ROAS added later.

Google recommends that newcomers, or anyone without a clear CPA or ROAS goal, start with Maximize conversions and move to Target CPA or Target ROAS once the campaign has about 50 conversions. For Target ROAS, the Help page sets eligibility at 50 conversions in the past 35 days in the campaign (10 of them in the past seven days), or 100 conversions in the past 35 days across all Demand Gen campaigns in the account, and conversions must have a value greater than 0.

On budget, Google's Help recommends that when you use Target CPA, the daily budget should be at least 10 times the Target CPA. An illustrative calculation: if your target cost per lead is 300 baht, this guidance points to a daily budget of about 3,000 baht or more. Well below that, the system collects data slowly and learns poorly.

How to measure Demand Gen

Measuring Demand Gen is different from measuring Search, because many people see the ad and then search or buy later rather than clicking straight away. If you only count last-click conversions, Demand Gen will usually look worse than it really is. Google Ads Help lists these measurement tools for Demand Gen:

• Ad-level and keyword-level reporting, with insights and recommendations
• Data-driven attribution, which spreads conversion credit across touchpoints instead of giving it all to the last click
• Lift measurement: Brand Lift (access required), Search Lift and Conversion Lift, which compare people who saw the ads with people who did not
• Creative A/B experiments, which test different creative sets on split groups
• Product-level reporting for campaigns using a Merchant Center feed

In practice, look at three layers together. First, in-platform metrics such as cost per conversion and conversion rate. Second, changes in brand searches and direct traffic while the campaign runs. Third, lift experiments where budget and volume allow. Do not judge Demand Gen on its first week, while Smart Bidding is still learning.

Which businesses Demand Gen suits

Demand Gen suits businesses like these:

• Products people need to see before they want them, such as fashion, home goods, food, travel, or new products whose names people do not yet know well enough to search for
• Businesses that already have customer data, because customer lists make good lookalike seeds
• Brands that can produce video and images regularly; Demand Gen is driven by creative, and creative left unchanged for a long time loses performance
• Online stores with a product feed, which can show products from Merchant Center inside video or image ads

Businesses that may not be ready include those with budgets too small for the system to learn, those whose customers only search at the moment of urgent need (an emergency repair service, for example), where Search fits better, and those without complete conversion tracking, because Smart Bidding needs accurate conversion data.

Common mistakes

• Reusing the same landscape images as Display, which misses Shorts and vertical feeds
• Setting Target CPA on day one with no data, instead of starting with Maximize conversions and adding a target later
• Running a budget far below the recommendation, so the system cannot collect enough conversions to learn
• Judging on last click alone, which leads to switching off campaigns that are actually feeding demand into Search
• Editing the campaign too often; changing targets, budgets or audiences every few days forces the system to relearn

What this means for the Thai market

For advertisers in Thailand, the first issue is Thai-language creative. Vertical video spoken in Thai with Thai subtitles fits the way people watch Shorts and feeds better than foreign creative used as-is. The second is measurement. Many Thai businesses close sales through LINE or marketplaces such as Shopee and Lazada. If the real conversion happens off your website, Google Ads cannot see it, so set up intermediate conversions such as clicks on the add-LINE button or form submissions, and where possible import offline conversions, so Smart Bidding has data it can use.

The third is that customer data used as a seed list must have been collected with consent under Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA). Before uploading customer lists to Google Ads, check that your privacy policy and consent forms cover using the data for advertising.

Frequently Asked Questions about Demand Gen

What is Demand Gen, and how is it different from Discovery?

Demand Gen is the campaign type that replaced Discovery campaigns, expanding from Discover and Gmail to YouTube (including Shorts) and the Google Display Network, and adding features such as lookalike segments, video ads and channel controls.

Do Demand Gen ads show on Google Search results?

No, Demand Gen does not show ads on the Google Search results page, although it can show on YouTube search results. For ads on the Search results page you need a Search or Performance Max campaign.

How much budget does Demand Gen need?

Google recommends that when you use Target CPA, the daily budget should be at least 10 times the Target CPA so the system has enough conversions to learn. If your budget is far below that, start with a more frequent goal such as clicks or a micro-conversion.

Can I run Demand Gen alongside Performance Max?

Yes, many accounts use Demand Gen to build interest on YouTube and feeds alongside PMax or Search campaigns that capture conversions. The key is to measure with data-driven attribution so you can see what role each campaign plays.

Summary

Demand Gen is Google Ads' tool for creating demand where people spend time watching content rather than searching. Its strengths are lookalike segments, multiple creative formats and the ability to choose channels. What it needs in return is good enough creative, a budget large enough for the system to learn, and measurement that looks beyond the last click. If you want to plan Demand Gen alongside your other campaigns, the Relevant Audience Google Ads service team can help set up the structure, from YouTube advertising and Google Display advertising to remarketing for people who have already seen your ads.