Demand Gen is a campaign type in Google Ads that serves image, video and carousel advertising across YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Google Maps and the Google Display Network. It never appears on Google search results. The format exists because Google lacked a product that behaved like paid social: a feed environment where an ad interrupts browsing rather than answering a query, bought against audience segments instead of keywords. Since 2023 it has absorbed three older campaign types and become the destination Google pushes advertisers toward whenever it retires a visual format.

Where the ads run

The surface list has expanded steadily. Google's documentation, as of August 2026, lists YouTube Shorts, in-feed, Home feed, watch next and YouTube Search, plus Discover, Gmail and the Google Display Network, with Google video partners also available. Maps arrived at Google Marketing Live on May 20, 2026, opening promoted-pin inventory to a format that had bought only feeds and video.

Google puts the combined reach at more than 3 billion monthly active users, with more than 50 billion daily views on Shorts alone. Both figures are self-reported. One nuance trips up reporting: YouTube Search is a Demand Gen placement, but it is YouTube's search box, not Google's.

Sensitive verticals face structural limits. According to Google's Help Center, ads in those categories are generally confined to YouTube inventory and barred from Gmail and the Display Network. A June 3, 2026 clarification confirmed that Demand Gen and Discovery campaigns use advertiser-curated audiences by default, which can silently restrict serving for regulated advertisers who never changed that default.

How a campaign is assembled

In the Google Ads API, a Demand Gen campaign carries an AdvertisingChannelType of DEMAND_GEN with no subtype set. The hierarchy runs campaign, ad group, ad group ad. Ad groups take no type, and location and language criteria can be set at ad group level.

Three ad types exist: DemandGenMultiAssetAdInfo, DemandGenCarouselAdInfo and DemandGenVideoResponsiveAdInfo. The multi-asset ad supports classic_display_images, uploaded images serving independently rather than as components of a responsive unit. The carousel ad uses a specialised asset, AdDemandGenCarouselCardAsset, holding two to ten cards. Legacy video ads built in the interface are unsupported through the API.

Creative requirements are ratio-driven: landscape at 1.91:1, square at 1:1, portrait at 4:5, logos at 1:1, with video in landscape, portrait, square and vertical orientations. Vertical 9:16 image ads for Shorts arrived in late February 2025. The ad specs set a 5120KB image ceiling and a 720p video floor.

Channel selection is the format's defining control. It sits on the ad group as DemandGenAdGroupSettings, holding channel_controls and a selected_channels object of booleans: gmail, discover, display, youtube_in_feed, youtube_in_stream and youtube_shorts. Announced on January 30, 2025 for a March rollout, the controls reached the API in version 19.1 on April 16, 2025. Display & Video 360 gained an equivalent on March 17, 2025.

Bidding, budgets and billing

Supported strategies are maximize clicks, target CPA, maximize conversions and target ROAS. Target CPC appeared without announcement, surfacing in accounts around June 2025, selectable only when clicks is the objective, and gained API support on October 15, 2025.

Value-based bidding carries volume gates. Google's thresholds require at least 50 conversions with value in the past 35 days, including 10 in the past seven, or 100 across all Demand Gen campaigns over 35 days. Conversions valued at zero or below do not count.

Demand Gen campaigns cannot use a shared budget. A campaign total budget is set through total_amount_micros with periodset to CUSTOM. Since April 1, 2026 the API has enforced a minimum daily budget of 5 US dollars or local equivalent, announced by Mattia Tommasone of the Google Ads API team on February 27, 2026 as an unversioned change hitting every API version at once. Google cited the cold start phase during which its models learn.

Google's guidance on budget size conflicts with itself. The API documentation, last updated August 3, 2026, recommends at least 15 times the expected target CPA. The Help Center page recommends at least 10 times. Both are current and unreconciled. Billing is mixed, charging on a CPM or CPC basis depending on surface and format, which complicates single-metric modelling.

Audiences and the Lookalike retreat

Lookalike segments were the headline targeting feature at launch, built from purchase, site visit or YouTube viewing lists. In February 2026 Google converted them from hard targeting constraints into audience suggestions, effective March 2026, with an opt-out form taking about a week to apply. Performance still reports in the Lookalike row, so the data looks continuous while the targeting behaviour underneath has changed.

From Discovery ads to a catch-all

Google introduced Discovery ads at Google Marketing Live in May 2019, serving the Discover feed, the YouTube home feed and Gmail's social and promotions tabs. Global availability followed in 2020.

Demand Gen was announced at Google Marketing Live in May 2023 and detailed in a blog post on June 14, 2023 alongside Video View campaigns. Beta access opened that August, general availability arrived in October 2023, and automatic upgrades of remaining Discovery campaigns ran from January 2024 to March 2024. Campaign identifiers and historical data carried across.

The second absorption was larger. Google announced in September 2024 that YouTube Video Action campaigns would fold into Demand Gen, with line items arriving in Display & Video 360 that October, and the transition completed in April 2025. The third is under way: on May 26, 2026 Google confirmed that standalone Display Ads campaigns are being retired and the Display Network folded into Demand Gen, with a migration tool from June 2026 and full transition expected during 2027.

Why it matters

Demand Gen is now the only route to several inventory pools. Advertisers wanting Shorts, Discover or Gmail placements have no alternative campaign type, and once the Display migration completes the Google Display Network sits inside it too. Open web display impressions accounted for 11 percent of Google's display advertising in January 2025, down from over 40 percent in January 2019.

Agency smec reported feed usage among ecommerce merchants rising from 16 percent in 2024 to 26 percent in 2025 and 35 percent in 2026. A programme run by measurement firm Fospha with Google from October 29 to December 16, 2025, covering 25 retail ecommerce brands across 28 market deployments, found brands allocating 10 to 20 percent of Google budget to Demand Gen recorded double the return on ad spend of those allocating under 5 percent. Google co-ran the programme, and Fospha noted the result was only legible because full-funnel measurement was in place.

Limitations and disputes

Brand safety controls sit at account level. According to Google's documentation, core suitability settings covering inventory type, content types and labels are unavailable at campaign level, and topic and placement exclusions are not generally available at campaign or ad group level. A January 2026 investigation found Google Ads buying X inventory through partner extensions at average CPMs of 0.39 dollars, exposure reaching Demand Gen alongside Performance Max and Display.

The sharper argument concerns overlap. Google set out a formal separation on February 13, 2025, casting Performance Max as end-to-end automated conversion optimisation and Demand Gen as controlled visual placement. Eighteen months of releases narrowed the gap from both directions, as Merchant Center feeds pulled catalogue data into Demand Gen units and shoppable connected television appeared in both. Smec argued Demand Gen has drifted into territory Performance Max was built for. Matt Rubinstein, paid search manager at 829 Studios, argued the inverse: search, Shopping and Demand Gen together leave little advantage for Performance Max. Published data does not settle it.

Google's performance claims are self-reported throughout. The 20 percent conversion uplift from combining video and image assets rests on internal data from January and February 2024; the 33 percent increase from product feeds on internal data from May to June 2025. A 58 percent higher return on ad spend against Video Action campaigns was cited during the migration push, a period in which Adweek reported Google offering buyers ad credits worth thousands of dollars, including one offer of 20,000 dollars.

Demand Gen and adjacent terms

Demand generation in its older sense is a B2B marketing discipline covering content, events and nurture programmes that build awareness ahead of purchase. Google's campaign name borrows the phrase; the two are unrelated.

Performance Max runs across every Google surface including Search and Shopping, optimises end to end, and offers audience signals rather than hard targeting. Demand Gen excludes Search and retains channel selection.

Discovery campaigns are the predecessor format. None remain creatable; the name survives in older documentation and legacy API references.

Recent developments

Display & Video 360 completed full API support for Demand Gen line items, ad groups and ads on June 10, 2026. Merchant Center custom labels became usable in Demand Gen from June 28, 2026.

Bidding behaviour changes on August 17, 2026. Google confirmed that Demand Gen line items in Display & Video 360 running Target CPA, Target ROAS or Target CPC will deliver more closely to stated targets, ending the pattern in which budget-limited campaigns overperformed and then swung when budgets moved. The same date covers Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Travel and Display in the main interface.

A further change surfaced on August 15, 2026. According to PPC News Feed, reporting documentation spotted by Arpan Banerjee, view-through conversion optimisation will apply only to video, image view-through conversions will stay in reporting but stop being biddable, the setting will default on for new campaigns, and video assets on Display will move from CPC to CPM billing. Google had published no standalone announcement as of today.

Timeline

  • May 2019: Google announces Discovery ads at Google Marketing Live, covering Discover, the YouTube home feed and Gmail
  • 2020: Discovery campaigns reach global availability after extended beta
  • May 2023: Demand Gen announced at Google Marketing Live 2023
  • June 14, 2023: Google publishes its blog post detailing Demand Gen and Video View campaigns
  • August 2023: Demand Gen beta opens; enrolled accounts have Discovery campaigns upgraded automatically
  • October 2023: General availability; Demand Gen experiments introduced
  • January 2024 to March 2024: Remaining Discovery campaigns automatically upgraded
  • September 2024: Google announces Video Action campaign migration and Demand Gen line items for Display & Video 360
  • October 2024: Demand Gen arrives in Display & Video 360
  • January 30, 2025: Channel controls announced for March 2025 rollout
  • February 13, 2025: Google publishes formal separation of Performance Max and Demand Gen roles
  • Late February 2025: 9:16 vertical image ads introduced for Shorts
  • March 17, 2025: Display & Video 360 moves inventory source controls to ad group level
  • April 2025: Video Action campaign migration completes; accelerated checkout launches for US advertisers
  • April 16, 2025: Google Ads API v19.1 adds ad group level channel controls
  • June 2025: Target CPC bidding appears without announcement; follow-on views optimisation launches
  • October 15, 2025: Google Ads API v22 adds formal Target CPC support
  • November 17, 2025: Brand suitability controls, asset uplift experiments, video and image enhancements announced
  • February 17, 2026: Lookalike segments converted from hard targeting to suggestions, effective March 2026
  • February 27, 2026: Five dollar minimum daily budget announced for April 1, 2026 enforcement
  • May 20, 2026: Google Marketing Live 2026 adds Maps inventory, automotive feeds, AI-assisted setup and checkout links in nine markets
  • May 26, 2026: Google confirms standalone Display Ads campaigns are moving into Demand Gen
  • June 3, 2026: Google clarifies sensitive category serving implications
  • June 10, 2026: Display & Video 360 API completes Demand Gen resource support
  • August 17, 2026: Target-based bidding delivery change takes effect

Summary

Who: Google operates Demand Gen as a campaign type within Google Ads and as a line item type within Display & Video 360. Buyers are performance and social advertisers, agencies and retail merchants with Merchant Center feeds. Google product teams set the roadmap, with Google Ads Liaison communications and API team posts, such as Mattia Tommasone's budget floor announcement, carrying most technical changes to the market.

What: A campaign type serving image, video and carousel creative across Google's feed, video and mapping surfaces, bought against audience segments, optimised by Google AI, and controlled by advertisers through channel selection, creative choice and bidding targets. It uses the DEMAND_GEN advertising channel type and three ad formats: multi-asset, carousel and video responsive.

When: Announced at Google Marketing Live in May 2023 and detailed on June 14, 2023, generally available from October 2023, with Discovery campaigns migrated by March 2024, Video Action campaigns by April 2025, and standalone Display campaigns in migration from June 2026 toward completion in 2027.

Where: YouTube including Shorts, in-feed, in-stream, Home feed, watch next and YouTube Search; Discover; Gmail; Google Maps since May 2026; the Google Display Network; and Google video partners. Managed through Google Ads, Display & Video 360, Google Ads Editor, Google Ads scripts and the Google Ads API.

Why: Google needed a paid-social equivalent inside its own stack, capable of monetising feed surfaces where no search query exists to trigger an auction. For advertisers, the format is now the only way to reach several Google inventory pools, which makes its controls, its reporting limits and its overlap with Performance Max operationally consequential rather than optional.