The short answer
- Demand Gen is Google's campaign type for visual ads that create demand, serving on YouTube (including Shorts, in-stream and in-feed), Discover, Gmail and the Google Display Network.
- Formats are image, video and carousel (2 to 10 cards), plus product feeds from Merchant Center.
- Bidding options are Maximize clicks, Maximize conversions (with an optional target CPA) and Maximize conversion value (with an optional target ROAS).
- Google recommends a daily budget of at least 10 times your target CPA, and waiting for 50 conversions before making changes.
- Unlike Performance Max, Demand Gen does not serve on Search, and it gives you channel controls and audience choices that work closer to Meta's ad sets.
Demand Gen has absorbed Video Action Campaigns, which Google finished auto-upgrading to Demand Gen by April 2026, and Google now describes Demand Gen as the new home for Display campaigns. If you run video for conversions on Google, you are running Demand Gen now. Below: placements, formats, bidding, lookalikes, how it compares with Performance Max and Meta, and a setup walkthrough.
What Demand Gen campaigns are
Demand Gen is built for people who are not yet searching for you. Search ads catch intent; Demand Gen puts your product in front of people scrolling YouTube, Discover or Gmail, and tries to turn that into a click, a lead or a sale.
When you create one, you pick a goal: Sales, Leads, Website traffic, App promotion, YouTube reach or Local store visits. The goal shapes which bid strategies and conversion actions are offered.
Google pitches it at advertisers coming from social platforms, which is a fair frame. The structure (campaign, ad groups with their own audiences and channels, ads with images or video) looks much more like a Meta campaign than a Search campaign.
Where Demand Gen ads show
| Channel | Placements |
|---|---|
| YouTube | Home feed, Watch next, YouTube Search, Shorts, in-stream |
| Discover | The Discover feed |
| Gmail | Gmail feed placements |
| Google Display Network | Partner websites and apps |
Google's overview also lists Maps among the surfaces Demand Gen reaches. Treat it as a bonus, not something to plan around.
Channel controls let you limit an ad group to specific channels. For example, a vertical video ad group can run on YouTube Shorts only. The default is all channels, and Google's automation usually wants it that way. Restrict channels when creative only works in one place, or when reporting shows one channel taking spend without conversions.
Ad formats and creative specs
Image ads
- Landscape 1.91:1: minimum 600x314, recommended 1200x628
- Square 1:1: minimum 300x300, recommended 1200x1200
- Portrait 4:5: minimum 480x600, recommended 960x1200
- Vertical 9:16: minimum 600x1067, recommended 1080x1920
- Logo 1:1: minimum 144x144, recommended 1200x1200
Video ads
Landscape 16:9, square 1:1, portrait 4:5 and vertical 9:16, in HD. Minimum length is 5 seconds, and videos under 10 seconds cannot serve in YouTube in-stream. Ship at least one vertical cut; without it you leave Shorts to automatically adapted creative.
Carousel ads
Two to 10 image cards in one ad. Good for showing a product range or a step-by-step sequence.
Product feeds
Link a Merchant Center account and Demand Gen can show products from your feed alongside your images and video. Alcohol advertisers cannot use product feeds. A clean feed matters here for the same reasons it does in Google Shopping ads.
Bidding and budget
| Strategy | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Maximize clicks | You have no conversion tracking yet, or the goal is traffic |
| Maximize conversions | You track leads or purchases and want volume |
| Maximize conversions + target CPA | You know the cost per lead or sale you can afford |
| Maximize conversion value | Ecommerce with revenue tracked per order |
| Maximize conversion value + target ROAS | You have a ROAS floor to protect |
Google's budget guidance for target CPA bidding: set a daily budget of at least 10 times your target CPA. A $40 target CPA means at least $400 a day. If that is out of reach, use Maximize conversions without a target until the campaign has data, or bid toward a cheaper upper-funnel conversion.
You can set a daily budget or a total campaign budget. Google asks you to allow 24 hours for ad review and to wait for 50 conversions before making changes. Constant edits during learning are the most common way Demand Gen campaigns stall. The CPA calculator helps set a realistic target before you launch.
Lookalike segments and audiences
Demand Gen supports lookalike segments built from a seed list such as customer data or recent converters. The reach options are narrow, balanced and broad, originally matching 2.5%, 5% and 10% of users in the target location. Google has dropped the old 100-user minimum seed list size.
The bigger change is in progress. From March 2026, Google is turning lookalikes into a suggestion rather than a hard targeting constraint, phased through 2026. Your seed list becomes a signal, and the system can reach people outside the lookalike threshold if it predicts they will convert. Advertisers who want the old constraint behavior can opt out through a form Google provides, with UI controls promised later in the year.
What this means in practice: high-quality seeds matter more than the reach slider. Use recent purchasers or qualified leads, not every site visitor. Other audience options are your data (site visitors, app users, YouTube users, customer lists), custom segments built from keywords, URLs and apps, in-market and affinity segments, and optimized targeting.
Demand Gen vs Performance Max vs Meta
| Demand Gen | Performance Max | Meta Ads | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search inventory | No | Yes, plus Shopping | No |
| Main surfaces | YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Display | All Google channels | Facebook, Instagram |
| Channel control | Per ad group | Limited | Placement settings |
| Audience control | Per ad group, lookalikes | Audience signals only | Custom and lookalike audiences |
| Creative | You build each ad | Assets combined automatically | You build each ad |
| Best for | Creating demand, video, testing creative | Capturing demand across Google | Creating demand on social |
Performance Max is the "show it everywhere" campaign. It covers Search and Shopping, which is why it often reports better numbers: some of its conversions come from people already searching for you. Demand Gen gives you more control and cleaner reporting on upper-funnel spend. Many accounts run both: PMax for the catalog and branded demand, Demand Gen for new audiences and video testing. The Performance Max vs Search comparison covers how PMax overlaps with your keywords.
Against Meta, Demand Gen is the closest Google equivalent. If your Meta creative already works, start Demand Gen with the same vertical videos and images, adapted to Google's specs, and compare cost per conversion after a full learning period.
How to set up a Demand Gen campaign
- Confirm conversion tracking. Without it you are limited to Maximize clicks.
- Create the campaign, name it, and link a product feed if you sell products.
- Choose the goal: Sales, Leads, Website traffic, App promotion, YouTube reach or Local store visits.
- Set campaign targeting: locations, languages, devices.
- Set bidding and budget. Remember the 10x target CPA guidance.
- Build ad groups. One audience idea per ad group (for example, a purchaser lookalike vs a custom segment), with channels left open unless you have a reason.
- Create ads: at least one video in vertical and landscape, plus images in all four ratios.
- Leave it alone through review and learning. Judge it on conversions and cost per conversion, not CTR.
Managing Demand Gen with Sprites
Sprites' Google Ads agent audits the whole account, so Demand Gen spend is reviewed alongside Search and Performance Max: where budget goes, which campaigns convert, and where spend is wasted. It proposes budget changes, pauses and audience changes as editable approval cards, and nothing is applied until you approve. If you run the same creative on Meta, the Meta Ads agent analyzes that side and builds custom and lookalike audiences there. Plans start with a 7-day trial for $1; see pricing.
Next step: pull your best-performing Meta or YouTube vertical video, cut a 9:16 and a 16:9 version over 10 seconds, and launch one Demand Gen ad group on a purchaser lookalike.