Definition
What is a Demand Gen campaign?
Demand Gen is a Google Ads campaign type that serves image and video ads on YouTube (Shorts included), Discover and Gmail. It targets people who are not yet actively looking for your product or service: it creates demand upstream of search, using audiences such as lookalike segments built from your best customers. It replaced Discovery campaigns.
Where Demand Gen serves
Demand Gen ads appear on YouTube (videos and Shorts), in Google's Discover feed and in Gmail's tabs. These are places where people watch or read without having typed a search.
The Display network is added to them. Google is closing the creation of standalone Display campaigns in January 2027 and folding their inventory into Demand Gen. The network is not disappearing: it becomes a placement you can still target on its own.
Creating demand rather than capturing it
A Search campaign answers a search that already exists. Demand Gen reaches people before that search, with audiences: lookalike segments of your best customers, custom segments, remarketing lists. The creatives (images and videos) therefore do the work a keyword does in search, which is why they are tested against each other.
Its effect shows up more slowly. Part of the sales can arrive later, through a search for your brand or a direct visit. A budget kept apart from search prevents Demand Gen from taking money from the campaigns that already sell.
Bid targets in Demand Gen
Demand Gen accepts cost-per-acquisition, return-on-ad-spend and cost-per-click targets. Since August 17, 2026, a budget-limited campaign optimizes toward the target entered instead of beating it. Demand Gen is the only campaign type where the cost-per-click target is also affected by this change.
A target that is too loose therefore becomes the result you get. It is calculated from your margin, not from an old report.
Fictional example: a furniture maker launches a collection nobody is searching for by name yet. A Demand Gen campaign shows the collection's video on YouTube and in Discover to lookalike segments of its customers. In the following weeks, searches for the collection's name rise. The Search campaign records most of the sales. Judging Demand Gen on its direct conversions alone would have underestimated its role.
We choose formats according to your business goal and your budget, rather than the novelty of the moment. Demand Gen is useful when demand does not yet exist in sufficient volume to fill search: a launch, a new product line, a market where the brand is little known.
We give it a budget kept apart from search to protect the campaigns that sell. We test creatives against each other. The Display campaigns in the accounts we manage are migrated by our team, before Google does it for us.
Not to be confused with
- Performance Max
- Performance Max serves everywhere (search and Shopping included) and decides the budget split on its own. Demand Gen is limited to visual placements (YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Display) and leaves more control over audiences and creatives.
- Remarketing
- Remarketing targets people who already know your business. Demand Gen can use it, but its main role is to reach people who do not know you yet.
Related concepts
- Google Ads
- Performance Max
- Remarketing
- Optimizing toward the bid target
- CPC
- Brand demand
- Social media advertising
Further reading
- Google Ads: managing target CPA and ROAS with a limited budget
- Online clothing stores: allocating your marketing budget by season
- Social media advertising: choosing a platform and budget
- Event advertising: selling show tickets with Meta and Google Ads
Related services
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Demand Gen and Performance Max?
Demand Gen serves visual ads on YouTube, Discover, Gmail and Display to people who are not searching yet. Performance Max also covers search and Shopping, and decides the split on its own. Demand Gen leaves more control over audiences and creatives.
What happens to my Display campaigns?
Google is closing the creation of standalone Display campaigns in January 2027 and folding their inventory into Demand Gen. The Display network remains a placement you can target on its own. It is better to migrate your campaigns yourself, before Google does it for you.
