Demand Gen Campaigns: Visual Ads Across Google Surfaces

Google Demand Gen campaigns represent a significant evolution in how advertisers reach audiences during their discovery moments across Google's most engaging properties. Launched in October 2023 as the successor to Discovery campaigns, Demand Gen extends reach to include YouTube Shorts and in-stream placements while maintaining presence on Gmail and Google Discover. This expanded footprint, combined with enhanced creative options and AI-powered audience targeting, makes Demand Gen a powerful tool for mid-funnel marketing and brand-building at scale.

The campaign type is designed for advertisers who want to combine the visual storytelling capabilities of social media advertising with Google's unparalleled reach and intent signals. With over 3 billion users across its placement surfaces, Demand Gen fills a crucial gap in the Google Ads ecosystem—capturing attention during content consumption moments rather than active search intent. This guide covers everything you need to know to launch and optimize successful Demand Gen campaigns, from creative requirements to advanced audience strategies.

What Is Google Demand Gen?

Demand Gen is a campaign type within Google Ads specifically designed to drive awareness, consideration, and conversions through visually rich ads served across Google's entertainment and discovery surfaces. Unlike Search campaigns that capture existing intent, Demand Gen creates demand by reaching users while they're browsing content, checking email, or watching videos. The campaign type uses machine learning to optimize ad delivery across placements and audiences, maximizing the impact of your visual creative.

The "demand generation" name reflects its primary purpose: introducing your brand, products, or services to users who may not yet know they need them. This positions Demand Gen as a mid-to-upper funnel campaign type, though conversion-focused bidding strategies allow it to drive direct response results as well. The campaign type bridges the gap between pure brand awareness (like Display campaigns) and high-intent capture (like Search campaigns), making it particularly valuable for products with longer consideration cycles or when expanding into new markets.

Demand Gen campaigns build on the foundation of the former Discovery campaigns while adding substantial new capabilities. The most significant addition is YouTube placement expansion, including the rapidly growing Shorts format and traditional in-stream ads. Enhanced creative options include video ads alongside images, carousel formats, and improved ad preview tools. Audience targeting gained lookalike segments (similar to Meta's Lookalike Audiences), giving advertisers powerful tools to find new customers resembling their best existing ones.

Demand Gen Placements and Reach

Demand Gen campaigns serve ads across three primary Google properties, each offering unique advantages for reaching audiences during different content consumption moments. Understanding these placements helps you create appropriate creative and set realistic expectations for campaign performance.

YouTube placements

YouTube represents the largest and most engaging placement within Demand Gen, reaching over 2 billion logged-in users monthly. Your ads can appear in the YouTube Home feed (where users browse content recommendations), Watch Next feed (shown during and after video playback), YouTube Shorts (vertical short-form video feed), and as in-stream ads during video content. Each placement offers different creative requirements and user contexts.

The YouTube Home feed and Watch Next placements function similarly to Discover—users see visual ad cards while browsing. These are ideal for image and carousel ads that can compete for attention against organic video thumbnails. YouTube Shorts placements require vertical video creative and appear between organic Shorts content, making them highly engaging for mobile users. In-stream placements play video ads before, during, or after YouTube videos, offering the most immersive ad experience but requiring users to watch before continuing to their content.

Gmail placements

Gmail Demand Gen ads appear in the Promotions and Social tabs of users' inboxes. These ads initially display as collapsed teasers showing your headline, description, and logo. When users click, the ad expands to reveal your full creative—whether a single image, carousel, or embedded video. The expanded ad can include multiple calls-to-action and detailed product information.

Gmail placements often deliver lower costs-per-click than other Demand Gen surfaces because the environment is less competitive. However, the two-click nature (expand, then click through) means users who reach your landing page are typically more qualified. This makes Gmail particularly effective for lead generation and B2B campaigns where decision-making involves more consideration.

Discover placements

Google Discover is a personalized content feed available on the Google app and Google.com mobile homepage. The feed shows users articles, videos, and other content based on their interests and search history. Demand Gen ads appear natively within this feed, formatted to match surrounding organic content. Discover reaches hundreds of millions of users who are actively seeking new information and inspiration.

Discover placements excel for lifestyle and interest-based products where visual appeal drives engagement. Users browsing Discover are in an exploration mindset, making them receptive to discovering new brands and products. The highly personalized nature of the feed means your ads reach users with demonstrated interest in related topics.

Creative Requirements and Specifications

Demand Gen campaigns support multiple creative formats, and providing variety maximizes your reach across all available placements. The platform requires at least one landscape image and one square image, but supplying additional assets in all ratios significantly improves performance by enabling full placement coverage.

Image specifications

Video specifications

Video ads in Demand Gen campaigns must be uploaded to YouTube and linked to your Google Ads account. Horizontal (16:9), square (1:1), and vertical (9:16) videos are supported. For YouTube Shorts placements, vertical video under 60 seconds is required. For in-stream placements, videos can be any length, though 15-60 seconds typically performs best. Include multiple video lengths and orientations to maximize placement eligibility.

• Horizontal video: 16:9 aspect ratio, ideal for in-stream and desktop placements
• Square video: 1:1 aspect ratio, works well across most feed placements
• Vertical video: 9:16 aspect ratio, required for YouTube Shorts placement
• Recommended length: 15-60 seconds for most objectives
• File requirements: Must be public or unlisted YouTube video

Text and headline requirements

Demand Gen ads require multiple text assets that the platform combines with your images and videos. Providing the maximum number of variations enables better optimization through testing. Followingcreative best practices for headline and description writing significantly impacts performance.

• Headlines: 1-5 headlines, up to 40 characters each
• Long headline: 1 required, up to 90 characters (shown in some placements)
• Descriptions: 1-5 descriptions, up to 90 characters each
• Business name: Up to 25 characters
• Call-to-action: Choose from preset options or use automated
• Final URL: Landing page destination for all ads

Audience Targeting Options

Demand Gen provides comprehensive audience targeting capabilities that combine Google's intent signals with powerful prospecting tools. Effective audience strategy often layers multiple targeting types to balance reach with relevance. The platform supports both first-party data activation and Google's audience segments.

First-party data audiences

Your own customer data forms the foundation of many successful Demand Gen strategies. Customer Match allows you to upload email lists, phone numbers, or mailing addresses to reach existing customers and create lookalike segments. Website visitor audiences (built from Google Ads tags or imported from Google Analytics) enable retargeting and seed audience creation. App user audiences extend these capabilities to mobile app engagement data.

Google audience segments

Google provides several pre-built audience categories based on user behavior and demographics. Custom Segments let you define audiences based on search terms people have used or apps they've installed. In-Market Audiences reach users actively researching products or services in specific categories. Affinity Audiences target users based on their interests and habits. Life Events capture users going through significant changes like moving, graduating, or getting married. Detailed Demographics allow targeting by education, homeownership, parenting status, and more.

Lookalike Segments

Lookalike segments represent one of Demand Gen's most powerful audience features, enabling you to find new users who share characteristics with your best existing customers. Similar to Meta's Lookalike Audiences, Google's version analyzes your seed audience to identify patterns and find similar users across Google's properties. This capability was added specifically for Demand Gen and isn't available in other Google Ads campaign types.

Creating effective lookalike segments starts with quality seed audiences. Customer Match lists of purchasers, high-value customers, or engaged subscribers typically produce better lookalikes than broad website visitor audiences. The seed audience should include at least 1,000 users, though larger seeds (10,000+) generally produce more accurate lookalikes. Focus on seeding with users who represent your ideal customer rather than just any customer.

Lookalike reach levels

When creating lookalike segments, you choose from three reach levels that balance similarity to your seed audience against total addressable reach. Each level includes progressively more users but with decreasing similarity to your original audience.

• Narrow (2.5%): Highest similarity to seed audience, smallest reach. Best for direct response campaigns where conversion quality matters most.
• Balanced (5%): Medium similarity and reach. Good default choice for most campaigns balancing scale with targeting precision.
• Broad (10%): Lower similarity but maximum reach. Ideal for awareness campaigns and when narrow segments exhaust too quickly.

Many advertisers run separate ad groups targeting each lookalike level, allowing them to compare performance and allocate budget to the most efficient segments. Narrow lookalikes often convert at higher rates but may limit scale, while broad lookalikes provide reach but typically at higher cost-per-acquisition. Testing reveals the right balance for your specific business and objectives.

Bidding and Budget Strategies

Demand Gen campaigns support several bidding strategies that optimize toward different objectives. The right choice depends on your campaign goals, conversion volume, and how much data Google has to optimize effectively. Starting with the appropriate strategy and transitioning as you gather data produces the best long-term results.

Available bidding strategies

• Maximize Conversions: Spends your budget to get the most conversions possible. Ideal for new campaigns gathering data or when volume matters more than efficiency.
• Maximize Conversion Value: Optimizes for total conversion value rather than conversion count. Requires passing value data with conversions.
• Target CPA: Aims to achieve conversions at your specified cost-per-acquisition. Requires 50+ conversions in the past 30 days for optimal performance.
• Target ROAS: Targets a specific return on ad spend. Requires conversion value tracking and sufficient conversion volume.
• Maximize Clicks: Drives maximum traffic to your site. Use only for awareness or when conversions are difficult to track.

Budget recommendations

Demand Gen campaigns benefit from sufficient daily budget to enable learning and optimization. Google recommends setting daily budgets at least 10-15x your expected CPA to ensure the algorithm can gather enough data to optimize effectively. For new campaigns, starting with Maximize Conversions and a healthy budget allows the system to learn which placements, audiences, and creative combinations drive results.

Once your campaign accumulates 50+ conversions over 30 days, transitioning to Target CPA or Target ROAS typically improves efficiency. Set initial targets based on your Maximize Conversions performance data—starting with a target 10-20% higher than your observed CPA provides room for the algorithm to optimize without over-constraining delivery. Gradually tighten targets as performance stabilizes.

Performance Measurement

Measuring Demand Gen campaign performance requires understanding both direct response metrics and the campaign type's role in your broader marketing funnel. As a mid-funnel campaign type, Demand Gen often contributes to conversions that are attributed to other channels, making view-through conversions and assisted conversions important metrics to track.

Key metrics to track

Attribution considerations

Demand Gen's discovery-focused nature means many influenced conversions occur through subsequent touchpoints. A user might see your Demand Gen ad on YouTube, later search for your brand, and convert through a Search campaign. Default last-click attribution would credit only Search, missing Demand Gen's contribution. Using data-driven attribution or reviewing assisted conversions in Google Ads provides a more complete picture of Demand Gen's value.

The Conversions > Attribution > Conversion paths report shows how Demand Gen campaigns interact with other channels in your conversion funnel. This helps you understand whether Demand Gen primarily drives direct conversions or serves as a crucial awareness touchpoint that enables other channels to close. Adjusting your evaluation based on this funnel role prevents premature optimization decisions.

Demand Gen vs Discovery vs Performance Max

Understanding how Demand Gen compares to other Google campaign types helps you build an effective overall strategy. Each campaign type serves different purposes and offers different levels of control versus automation. As covered in our Performance Max guide, these campaign types can complement each other within a comprehensive Google Ads strategy.

Campaign type comparison

When to use each campaign type

Use Demand Gen when you want precise control over visual creative and audience targeting while focusing on discovery surfaces. The campaign type excels for mid-funnel objectives where you need to introduce products to new audiences through compelling visual storytelling. Demand Gen is ideal when you have strong creative assets and want to leverage YouTube's reach without running separate video campaigns.

Use Performance Max when you want Google's AI to optimize across all inventory, including Search, Display, and Shopping alongside visual placements. Performance Max works best for advertisers comfortable with less control in exchange for simplified management and potentially broader optimization. The campaign type is particularly effective when Search and Shopping are important conversion channels for your business.

Many advertisers successfully run both campaign types simultaneously. Demand Gen handles mid-funnel awareness and consideration with controlled creative, while Performance Max captures full-funnel conversions across all inventory. Ensure audience exclusions prevent excessive overlap and cannibalization between campaigns.

Optimization Best Practices

Optimizing Demand Gen campaigns involves continuous testing and refinement across creative, audience, and bidding dimensions. The platform provides substantial data to guide optimization decisions when you know what to look for and how to interpret the signals.

Creative optimization

• Provide asset variety: Upload multiple images in all three aspect ratios plus video in multiple orientations
• Test visual concepts: Try lifestyle imagery vs product-focused vs user-generated content styles
• Refresh regularly: Update creative every 4-6 weeks to prevent fatigue and maintain engagement
• Use asset reporting: Review asset performance ratings to identify top performers and remove poor performers
• Maintain brand consistency: Ensure all creative assets align with your brand guidelines while testing variations

Audience optimization

• Layer audiences strategically: Combine audience types for more precise targeting
• Test lookalike levels: Compare Narrow, Balanced, and Broad segments in separate ad groups
• Exclude existing customers: Use Customer Match exclusions when prospecting for new customers
• Monitor audience signals: Review audience insights to understand who's converting
• Expand gradually: Start with core audiences and expand as you identify what works

Performance optimization checklist

• Allow learning time: Give campaigns 2-4 weeks before major changes
• Avoid over-optimization: Make one significant change at a time to measure impact
• Review placement performance: Identify which surfaces drive best results for your business
• Adjust bidding targets gradually: Move targets in 10-15% increments
• Monitor frequency: Watch for audience fatigue indicated by declining engagement rates

Demand Gen campaigns represent a significant opportunity to reach Google's massive audience with visually compelling advertising. By understanding the platform's capabilities, following creative best practices, and implementing strategic audience targeting with lookalike segments, you can build campaigns that drive meaningful business results across the entire customer journey. Benly's AI-powered platform helps you analyze Demand Gen performance, identify optimization opportunities, and scale what works across your visual advertising efforts.