In short: Demand Gen is Google's answer to the Instagram and TikTok feed: visual, on YouTube, Discover and Gmail, with real audiences and a choice of channels. It sits halfway between Display's control and PMax's automation. It works for consideration, visual remarketing and catalogue; not for capturing demand with intent — that is still Search.
Demand Gen is the campaign Google has been building to compete with the Instagram and TikTok feeds: visual, in the places where people look rather than search, with rich audiences and optimised for conversions. It inherited the Discovery campaigns (2023) and absorbed Video action campaigns (2025). This lesson places it: what it is, where it buys, what separates it from its cousins and what it is really for.
Where does Demand Gen come from?
- Discovery (2019-2023): visual cards on Discover, the YouTube home feed and Gmail. Demand Gen replaced it, adding video and more audiences.
- Video action campaigns (VAC): video optimised for conversions on YouTube. Since 2025 no new ones are created; they migrate to Demand Gen.
- Today: a single campaign that combines image and video, with audience and placement controls PMax does not give you.
Where do Demand Gen ads show?
| Inventory | Format |
|---|---|
| YouTube in-stream | Skippable video before/during |
| YouTube in-feed | Thumbnail in the home feed and recommendations |
| YouTube Shorts | Vertical video between Shorts |
| Discover | Card in the mobile feed (the Google app) |
| Gmail | Card in Promotions and Social |
| Google video partners | Video outside YouTube (optional; can be excluded) |
You can choose the channels (all or some): that is a key difference from PMax.
How is Demand Gen different from PMax and Display?
| Display | Demand Gen | PMax | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inventory | Display Network (websites, apps) | YouTube, Discover, Gmail | Everything, Search and Shopping included |
| Audiences | Real targeting | Real targeting + lookalikes + optional expansion | Signals only |
| Creatives | Responsive banners | High-quality images and video, carousels | Every type |
| Reporting | Complete | Complete by audience, creative and channel | Partial |
| Placement control | Per campaign | By channel; exclusions | Account list only |
| Role | Cheap reach and remarketing | Consideration and action with creative | Fully automated performance |
In one sentence: Demand Gen is the midpoint between the control of Display and the automation of PMax, with Google's most "discovery-flavoured" inventory.
What is Demand Gen for?
- Consideration: products or services people don't search for until they see them (new arrivals, design, fashion, travel, training).
- Visual remarketing and cross-selling to people who already know you.
- Lookalike segments built from your buyers (Demand Gen keeps them where Display lost them): prospecting with a criterion.
- Catalogue with a product feed in visual formats (lesson 6).
And the classic mistake: using it as cold acquisition for a service people search for on Google with intent ("emergency plumber"). Search wins there every time, and Demand Gen buys curiosity clicks at a high CPA. Demand Gen creates demand or recovers it; it does not capture it.
What do you need to launch Demand Gen?
- Quality creatives: without them, there is no campaign (lesson 3).
- Measurement with values and, better still, customer lists as the seed for lookalikes.
- A budget that isn't Search's: it is judged by a different yardstick (lesson 5).
- Patience with the learning: audiences and creatives take 2-3 weeks to settle.
💡 Ninja trick: Demand Gen has two silent enemies Search does not: fatigue (the same creative burns out in weeks) and the blind split between audiences (one profitable audience and one ruinous one sharing the same budget). The Suite's Demand Gen Optimizer watches both every night — fatigue by creative and audience, comparison between them, pauses via checkbox — and that is the subject of lesson 4.
What you should remember
- Demand Gen = visual, on YouTube/Discover/Gmail, with real audiences and a choice of channels; heir to Discovery and VAC.
- The midpoint between Display (control) and PMax (automation).
- It works for consideration, visual remarketing, lookalikes and catalogue; not for cold acquisition where there is intent.
- Come in with creatives, measurement with values and a budget of its own.