Demand Gen Campaigns 2027: Your Display Ads Are Moving

Your Display campaigns are being migrated into Demand Gen, and Google has told you exactly what you will lose. It has not told you when.

The migration page lists three phases. Only the first one has a date. June 2026 was the phased rollout of the migration tool. The other two, when new Display campaigns can only be created inside Demand Gen, and when remaining campaigns are migrated automatically with no action from you, are both labeled “Coming later” with nothing attached (Google Ads Help 17051545). Google’s own announcement says the transition is “expected to complete by 2027” (blog.google, May 26, 2026).

So the practical position is this: an automatic migration is coming, you cannot plan around a date, and the things it breaks are things you have to remove before it happens rather than after. We read 18 pages ranking for Demand Gen queries. Several cover the announcement. None turns Google’s list of unsupported features into something you can actually audit an account against.

Quick Discussion

Demand Gen campaigns are Google’s visual ad type for YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Maps and the Display Network. Meanwhile, every Display campaign is moving into them. However, Google has dated only the June 2026 migration tool. So audit blockers, budgets and tracking now, then migrate on your own schedule.

• Timeline: the migration tool rolled out from June 2026, while the creation lock and automatic migration are still “Coming later”. Google expects to finish by 2027.
• Blockers: eleven settings stop a migration. In addition, Manual CPC, viewable CPM, pay for conversions and observation audiences do not survive it.
• Budget: the $5 daily floor is only the lowest budget Google accepts. Google’s delivery guidance, however, runs from 10 to 20 times your target CPA.
• Controls: you can pick channels per ad group and exclude placements, but you cannot cap frequency.
• Results: in our 22-account benchmark, ecommerce Demand Gen returned a 2.04x median ROAS from just 3 accounts. So judge it on its own terms rather than against Search.

What three Demand Gen settings surprise advertisers?

Three other things are worth knowing before you spend anything here. Two are settings you do not get. However, the third is a setting Google’s documentation says you do not get, and you do:

• You cannot cap frequency. Google’s answer to whether you can control impression frequency is one word: “No.”
• Google’s documentation on placement exclusions is wrong. Its FAQ says they are not generally available at campaign or ad group level. They are, they work, and we use them. More on that below.
• Lookalike segments stopped being a targeting constraint. The reach tier you pick is now a suggestion, so getting the old behavior back means submitting a form.

This page is written by Ishant Sharma, who runs Google Ads for ecommerce, local service and SaaS accounts at Hustle Marketers. We source every claim to a Help article ID so you can check it, and where a widely repeated figure does not survive checking, we say so.

Last verified: October 28, 2026.

Updated for 2027. We re-checked Google’s migration page and its announcement on October 28, 2026. The June 2026 tool rollout is still the only dated phase, and the transition is still “expected to complete by 2027”. New in this update: the official timeline in one table, the eleven settings that block a migration, a step-by-step setup walkthrough and a matrix of who should use Demand Gen.

What changed in this revision. We re-checked every Demand Gen fact against Google Ads Help on October 28, 2026. This revision also adds Google’s conflicting budget rules, our ecommerce ROAS benchmark, a funnel plan and a measurement section. In addition, it corrects what we said about product feeds, channel controls, audience settings and placement reporting.

What is a Demand Gen campaign?

Demand Gen is Google’s campaign type for visual, feed-style advertising across Google’s own surfaces plus the Display Network. You supply images, videos, headlines and descriptions, pick audiences, and Google assembles and places the ads.

It is the successor to Discovery campaigns, which no longer exist. It is now also the destination for Display campaigns and for Video action campaigns, both of which are being folded into it. That makes Demand Gen less a campaign type you choose and more the place everything visual is ending up.

Where do Demand Gen ads show?

Two things worth correcting here, because several of the 18 pages we read get them wrong.

The Display Network is a channel control, not a fixed part of the package. Google’s channel controls page lists it as “(Optional) Include the Google Display Network”, and states that “Demand Gen Channel controls are set at the ad group level” (Google Ads Help 15973205). Pick All Google channels and the Display Network is an optional add-on. Pick Let me choose instead, and it is one channel you tick or leave out per ad group.

Google’s migration pitch is that advertisers “adding GDN in Demand Gen campaigns see a 9.5% increase in ROI” (blog.google, May 26, 2026). Treat that as vendor data about its own product, and note the word “adding”, which tells you it is a control rather than something already switched on everywhere.

Can Demand Gen ads appear on Google Search?

Demand Gen does not run on Google Search. YouTube Search is a Demand Gen placement; however, Google Search is not. If someone is telling you it replaces Search or captures search intent, it does neither. Instead, it is demand creation, which is the clue in the name.

One restriction most pages omit: ads in sensitive categories are generally restricted to YouTube inventory and are not eligible on Gmail or the Display Network. If you work in a regulated vertical, your effective inventory is a fraction of what the channel list suggests.

Google’s About page (checked October 28, 2026) adds one exception. Most sensitive categories may also serve on Discover when they skip personalized and predefined Google audiences, except gambling, alcohol and political content. Alcohol advertisers, however, cannot use product feeds at all. Our alcohol marketing agency guide lists the other formats and audiences that stop alcohol campaigns from serving.

What happened to Discovery campaigns?

They became Demand Gen. Google replaced Discovery during 2023 and 2024, and you cannot create one. Google’s upgrade page (checked October 28, 2026) says the last Discovery campaigns moved over automatically, with their history, from January to March 2024. If a guide is walking you through creating a Discovery campaign, nobody has revised it in over two years, which tells you what else on it may be stale.

The same applies to Video action campaigns. Google removed creation in April 2025 and then upgraded the final campaigns by April 2026. Its Video action page still shows those dates (checked October 28, 2026). So any page listing VAC as a live choice is out of date.

What happens to your Display campaigns?

In short, Google moves them into Demand Gen. The only question is whether you do it deliberately or it happens to you. Even so, Google’s May 26, 2026 announcement says Display advertisers can still serve ads only on the Display Network. They now do it from inside a Demand Gen campaign.

Which Display features do not carry over?

Google publishes the list. Nobody has turned it into an audit, so here it is as one, with what to do about each.

When will HTML5 and third-party ads work in Demand Gen?

Google lists HTML5 and third-party ads as coming soon, and unlike the migration phases these do carry a date: late 2026. The page still said so on October 28, 2026. So if your Display creative is HTML5, you have no home for it today, but you may not need to rebuild it permanently. Weigh an interim static replacement against a full rebuild accordingly, and treat “planned” as a plan rather than a commitment.

Why does losing the observation setting matter?

The observation row is the one to read twice. After all, observation is how most competent accounts apply audiences: you attach them to see how they perform without narrowing delivery. So losing it means every audience decision in Demand Gen is a targeting decision, which is a different way of running a campaign, not a smaller version of the same one.

What survives the migration?

More than people expect, and this part is genuinely well handled.

• Performance history going back 42 days transfers, which Google says cuts relearning to roughly one to two days rather than starting from nothing.
• Your audiences carry over, with the exception of combined audiences.
• Google keeps the original campaign. It moves to Removed status and stays in the account for reporting for up to five years.
• The migrated campaign is renamed with a “#2” suffix, so you will see “Your campaign name #2” sitting beside the original.

That naming detail matters more than it looks. For example, if you report to clients on campaign names, every Display line in every saved report and dashboard is about to change. Fix your reporting before you migrate, not after someone asks why a campaign disappeared.

Should you migrate now or wait for the automatic migration?

Migrate deliberately, and here is the reasoning rather than an assertion.

The case for doing it yourself: you choose the timing, you remove the unsupported features in a controlled way, you fix reporting first, and you are present when it happens. Because the automatic phase has no published date, waiting means it lands on a day you did not pick.

The case for waiting: if a Display campaign is performing and depends on something on the lost list, every week you keep it is a week of performance you would otherwise give up. That is a real argument, and it has an expiry date you cannot see.

What we do: audit first, migrate the campaigns that lose nothing, and hold the ones that depend on Manual CPC, pay for conversions or observation until we have rebuilt them properly.

Two practical notes. Migrate at a low traffic hour, because budget behavior on migration day is not clean. And expect the migrated ads to go through policy review again as new ads, so build in a serving gap rather than being surprised by one.

When will Display campaigns move to Demand Gen in 2027?

Google has dated only one step. Its migration page lists the tool rollout as June 2026 and labels the other two phases “Coming later”, and its May 26, 2026 announcement says the transition is “expected to complete by 2027” (Google Ads Help 17051545). We re-checked both on October 28, 2026, and still neither had added a date.

How do you run the migration tool yourself?

From the Campaigns page, in four steps. This is the route Google gives on its migration page:

1. Open Campaigns and filter the table by Campaign type: Display.
2. Select the campaigns you want to move.
3. Open the Edit dropdown and choose “Upgrade to Demand Gen”.
4. Track progress under Tools, then All bulk actions.

In addition, three rules on the same page decide which campaigns to select. A migration is one way: Google states that migrated campaigns “can’t be reverted back to Google Display Ads campaigns”. Google does not migrate removed campaigns at all. Paused and enabled campaigns may be, depending on how recently they spent, so a paused Display campaign arrives as a paused Demand Gen campaign.

Because there is no undo, migrate one low-risk campaign first, check the result and your reports, then move the rest. The account-wide checks that should come before any migration are in our Google Ads optimization checklist.

What does Google recommend before and after you migrate?

Google recommends keeping a migrated campaign on the Display Network only at first, so its settings carry across cleanly. In addition, its migration page (checked October 28, 2026) asks you to change bids slowly and keep conversion windows long while the campaign settles.

• Channels: migrated campaigns arrive with the Display Network switched on, and you cannot untick it during the move. So add YouTube, Gmail or Discover afterwards, once delivery looks stable.
• Batches: you can move many campaigns at once. However, Google advises against more than 100 in one batch.
• Recent edits: wait at least 4 hours after you edit a Display campaign before you migrate it.
• Lift studies: avoid migrating mid-study, because Google does not add the new campaign to a running study for you.
• Bids: start with similar bid levels and a conversion attribution window longer than 28 days. After that, keep changes within 15% and wait a week between them.
• Structure: combine similar audience themes, and consider merging ad groups with fewer than about 30 conversions in 30 days.
• New audiences: you can add Lookalike segments to a migrated campaign only through a new ad group.

Because of that last point, plan any Lookalike test as a fresh ad group from the start. Otherwise the migrated ad groups keep the Display audiences they arrived with.

What happens to your budget on migration day?

It starts again for the rest of that day. Google’s rule is that spend the Display campaign already made that day is not counted by the new Demand Gen campaign, and it warns that delivery can run under or over during the first 24 hours. Google’s own example, for instance, is a $50 daily budget that has spent $10: the Demand Gen campaign starts with a fresh $50.

The pattern is simple: the later in the day you migrate, the more the day can overspend. Migrating early, before the Display campaign has spent much of its budget, keeps the overlap close to zero.

Which settings block a Display campaign from migrating?

Eleven settings stop the migration tool, and Google lists a fix for each. They are different from the lost features covered above: a lost feature disappears in the move, while a blocker stops the move until you change it. Google says it does not migrate campaigns that hit these errors until you fix the setting or the feature gains support.

Two audience settings lose hard targeting: household income and parental status. Google’s feature list (checked October 28, 2026) says Demand Gen supports them only as soft targets or hints. So if a campaign depends on either one, decide now whether the audience still works without it.

Which blockers should you clear first?

In practice, check rows 8 and 10 first. Shared budgets are common when several Display campaigns split one pot, and campaign-level content exclusions are often where a brand-safety list lives. Then move that list to the account level, as the brand safety section above describes, and the rest of the migration gets simpler. If you need to rethink spend levels while you rebuild budgets, our Google Ads cost guide shows how to set them.

Do lookalike segments still work as targeting?

Not by default, and none of the 18 pages we read mentions it.

Lookalike segments let you reach people similar to a seed list, at a reach tier you choose: narrow, balanced or broad. Google aims to fill those tiers with about 2.5%, 5% and 10% of users in your target location. Previously, the tier was a boundary. Google now describes the default behavior as evolving “towards a suggestion mode”, and offers a way to “retain the original Lookalike segments behavior as a Targeting Constraint by opting-out of the new update” (Google Ads Help 16902001).

Read what that implies. If you picked narrow because you wanted a tight audience, you no longer have one unless you have opted out. The tier is an input to the model, in the same way Performance Max audience signals are. Trade coverage puts the change at March 2026; Google’s page documents the behavior and the opt-out but does not give a date, so we are not going to assert one.

How do you opt out of lookalike suggestion mode?

Through a form, linked from that Help page. As of October 28, 2026, there is still no toggle in the interface.

That is worth planning around rather than discovering. If your account depends on lookalike reach being a real boundary, submit the opt-out before you build the campaign, not after you notice the audience is wider than you asked for. Allow time for Google to process it.

Building the segment takes time too. Google says a new Lookalike segment needs about 72 hours to populate, so create it 2 to 3 days before launch.

What is the minimum seed list size for a lookalike segment?

Google states that “the sum of all your submitted seed lists must be over 100 active matched people”. That is a low bar, and lower than the figure a lot of guides quote. The underlying lists are subject to the same audience mechanics covered in our Google Ads remarketing guide, so if your seed list is not growing, that is where to start.

Can you control where Demand Gen ads appear?

Partly, and the limits are sharper than the category admits. This is the section to read before you put a brand-sensitive client into Demand Gen.

Can you control frequency in Demand Gen?

No. That is Google’s own answer, verbatim, to that exact question: “No. The system automatically controls impression frequency to show your ad to the right people, at the right time, and the right number of times” (Google Ads Help 14509385).

There is no frequency cap. There is no frequency target. The practical consequence, and it is one nobody writes down: if you also run Performance Max, the same person can be served by both and neither dashboard shows the combined frequency. Your real per-user exposure is higher than any single campaign report suggests, and you have no lever to bring it down except budget.

How do you report on frequency in Demand Gen?

You report on frequency with unique reach and impressions, because Demand Gen has no frequency report or cap. Google’s FAQ, checked on October 28, 2026, points to unique reach, which reports at campaign level, alongside impressions. Then divide impressions by unique users to get an average frequency.

As an illustration with example numbers, take 90,000 impressions over 30,000 unique users. In that case, each person saw the ad 3 times on average. However, that figure covers one campaign only. If Performance Max or a second Demand Gen campaign reaches the same people, nothing adds those exposures together.

So treat the number as a trend line, not a cap. When average frequency climbs while click-through rate falls, refresh the creative or widen the audience. Budget is still the only direct lever on how often people see you.

How do you control brand safety in Demand Gen?

Two levels, and this is the part where Google’s own documentation does not match the product.

What Google says. Its Demand Gen FAQ states that you manage content exclusions on the Content Suitability page at account level, that “the core suitability settings (inventory type, content types. and labels) will not be available at the campaign level”, and that “Topics and placement exclusions will not be generally available at the campaign or ad group levels” (Google Ads Help 14509385).

What is actually true. In practice, you can exclude placements on a Demand Gen campaign or ad group, and it works. Indeed, we do it in client accounts. The Google Ads API supports negative placement, YouTube channel, YouTube video and mobile application criteria at campaign, ad group and customer level (Google Ads API criteria reference).

Read Google’s wording carefully and, in fact, the two positions are reconcilable. “Not generally available” is not the same as “not available”. Our reading is that the FAQ has simply not kept up. If someone tells you Demand Gen cannot exclude placements, check the campaign yourself before you accept it.

Google’s own migration page now backs this up. Its feature list, checked on October 28, 2026, marks placement exclusions and topic exclusions as supported in Demand Gen. Only content suitability exclusions, in contrast, stay account level.

Should you exclude at account level or campaign level?

How we actually run it. Account level carries the standing blocklist, because it should apply everywhere and you only want to maintain it once. Meanwhile, campaign level carries what you find in that campaign’s placement report, treated the same way you treat search terms in a Search campaign: review, exclude the waste, repeat.

One real constraint remains. For example, if you run several clients or several brands in one Google Ads account, the account-level list is shared across all of them. That is an argument for separate accounts rather than a reason to skip the list.

Can you choose which channels your ads run on?

Yes, and this is the control most people never find. Google’s description is that you can “choose the Demand Gen channel where your ads show so you can curate the ad experiences to align with your marketing strategy”.

Use it. YouTube in-stream, YouTube in-feed, Shorts, Discover, Gmail, Maps and the Display Network behave nothing like each other, so a single ad group spanning all of them tells you nothing about which worked. Running separate ad groups per channel is the closest thing to placement control Demand Gen offers, and it is the only way to make the reporting mean anything.

Google suggests the same split when a channel gets too little spend (checked October 28, 2026). Isolate that channel in its own ad group with a higher target CPA, and accept that it may run less efficiently.

Demand Gen promotion assets and channel controls are tracked in our Google Ads updates log.

Why can you not change location or language on your campaign?

A constraint that catches people mid-flight, and it is in Google’s FAQ. “In Demand Gen, you can only set the location or language at the campaign or ad group level (never both). Edits to location and language can only be made at the level where they were set.”

So decide at build time. If you set targeting at campaign level you cannot then vary it per ad group, and the field you want to edit will not be where you expect it. Given that the advice above is to run separate ad groups per channel, think about whether those ad groups also need different geographies before you create the campaign rather than after. In addition, radius targeting only works at campaign level, so a store-radius plan settles the question for you.

How do you set up a Demand Gen campaign step by step?

In six screens: campaign, goal, campaign targeting, bidding and budget, ad group, then ads. The table follows Google’s create flow (Google Ads Help 13695389) and adds the decision that matters at each step.

How long should you wait before judging a new Demand Gen campaign?

Two timing rules from the same Google page save the most frustration:

• Allow at least 24 hours for new ads to be reviewed and approved before you judge delivery.
• Wait for around 50 conversion events before you change bidding. Google’s general rule is to wait for 50 conversions before making changes to the campaign.

Step 1 is where most setups go wrong before they start. The conversion goals you add decide what bidding learns from, so check them against our Google Ads conversion tracking guide first. Google’s flow also offers channel prioritization in account or campaign settings, which guides how spend is distributed across channels. Use it alongside per-channel ad groups, not instead of them.

Should you turn off optimized targeting?

For most remarketing and tightly targeted campaigns, yes. Optimized targeting lets Google serve beyond the audience you selected, and it is on by default.

The effect is the same one covered in the remarketing guide: you build a careful audience, Google goes outside it, and you report the result as if the audience did the work. In Demand Gen this also causes overlap with Performance Max, where the same expansion behavior is permanently on and you cannot switch it off at all.

Google positions lookalike segments and optimized targeting as complementary, and for prospecting that is fair. However, for anything where the audience is the point, expansion is the thing working against you.

Which bidding strategy should you use for Demand Gen?

Google’s own list is “Maximize Clicks, Maximize Conversions, tROAS, Target CPA, Target CPC, and value based bidding”. Although Target CPC is on that list, it appears in only one of the 18 pages we read.

The common mistake, however, is starting on Maximize conversions with no data and a small budget. As a result, the campaign has nothing to learn from and no room to learn in. Starting on Maximize clicks to build signal, then switching, is the standard practitioner route, and it works, but set a date to switch when you start or you will still be buying clicks in month three. Which strategy does what across the account is covered in our Google Ads bidding strategies guide.

When can you switch Demand Gen to Target ROAS or value bidding?

Google lets a campaign switch to value bidding once it has 50 valued conversions in 35 days, with 10 of them in the last 7. Also, as checked on October 28, 2026, an account with 100 valued conversions across its Demand Gen campaigns in 35 days qualifies.

Google’s FAQ also differs from the clicks-first route above when conversions are the goal. It recommends starting on Maximize conversions or Target CPA, then moving to a target after at least 50 conversions. So keep Maximize clicks for traffic goals, or for building remarketing lists in a separate campaign.

That last row needs a word of caution. The adjustment only lowers cost when conversions fall short of Google’s prediction. Also, it shows up in cost reporting with no separate line. So compare early cost per conversion with care, because part of it may be a credit rather than real efficiency.

What is the minimum budget for a Demand Gen campaign?

There are two numbers here and conflating them is the most expensive mistake in this topic.

These are not the same thing, and in fact the gap between them is enormous. Google will accept a $5 daily budget, and it will do nothing. On a $30 target CPA, Google’s own guidance points at roughly $300 a day, and its low-budget page (checked October 28, 2026) suggests at least $100 a day per ad group to avoid a cold start. That is a long way from $5.

So the honest version for a client conversation: Demand Gen is not a channel you test with pocket money. If the budget available is small, a tightly run Search campaign will instead teach you more per dollar. Use Demand Gen when you have budget to give it and a reason to want reach.

What do Google’s own pages say about Demand Gen budgets?

Google’s pages give several budget numbers, and they do not all agree. As checked on October 28, 2026, the About page says 10 times your target CPA. The low-budget troubleshooting page, however, says 20 times. In addition, the troubleshooting page sets dollar floors per ad group.

How much should you budget for Demand Gen in practice?

Budget at least 10 times your target CPA to launch, and aim for 20 times once results justify it. Both figures come from Google. So we treat the gap between them as room to learn, not a rule to pick from.

Here is a worked example with example numbers, not client data. Take a $40 target CPA and two ad groups. The 10 times rule points to $400 a day, the 20 times rule to $800, and the per ad group floor to $200.

So that account should launch at $400 a day at the very least. If even the minimum is out of reach, cut ad groups before you cut the multiple. After all, a thin budget split across many ad groups learns slowest of all.

Why is my Demand Gen campaign not spending?

The most common support question in this topic, and Google maintains a dedicated troubleshooting page for it, which tells you how common it is. Items 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 come from Google’s page. By contrast, items 3, 6 and 8 are ours, from accounts we have debugged. Work down in order.

Number 4 catches good accounts. Excluding unknown demographics feels like tightening targeting. In fact, it removes a large slice of the addressable audience, because Google does not have demographic data on everyone.

What else stops a Demand Gen campaign from serving?

Beyond budget and targets, Google’s troubleshooting page lists several setup faults that can hold a campaign at zero impressions. As checked on October 28, 2026, the common ones are video status, sensitive-category rules, thin product feeds and recent edits.

• Propagation: new campaigns and major changes can take up to 24 hours to sync, though often under 12.
• Video status: Google’s troubleshooting page says a private or unlisted video can stop a YouTube-targeted ad from serving, so check it first.
• Sensitive categories: first-party lists, custom segments and Lookalike segments are off limits there, so use predefined audiences instead.
• Feed depth: a product feed needs at least 4 approved, in-stock products from 4 different item groups. Google recommends 50 or more.
• Analytics audiences: Google Analytics lists only serve when Google signals is on in Analytics.
• Recent edits: big changes in the last 72 hours reset learning. So give the campaign 5 to 7 days, and keep later changes within 15%.

Those checks also cover a common forum complaint: a YouTube-only Demand Gen campaign stuck at $0 for days.

How loose should Demand Gen targets be?

Looser than you would set for Search. When a campaign will not spend, Google suggests loosening Target CPA or Target ROAS by 20% to 30%. It also suggests targets about 30% looser than your Search or Performance Max benchmarks. After all, it treats Demand Gen as a mid-funnel format.

After that, change targets by about 20% at a time, as Google’s low bid page advises. As a result, each move has room to settle. In addition, if Maximize conversions spends unevenly, Google suggests switching to Target CPA set above the CPA you are already getting.

What are the Demand Gen ad specs?

Table stakes, and worth getting exactly right because missing ratios cost you placements rather than just looking untidy.

Which image ratios do you need?

The 9:16 ratio is the one most spec pages we read omit. Trade coverage reported it as newly available in May 2025 and Google’s specification page gives no date, so treat the timing as trade-sourced. It is what serves in Shorts, which is where a lot of Demand Gen inventory now sits. So if you supply only three ratios, you are opting out of a surface without meaning to.

What are the video requirements?

Supply all four orientations Google lists, 16:9, 1:1, 4:5 and 9:16, rather than one and hoping. Google’s specs page (checked October 28, 2026) sets a 5-second minimum and says videos under 10 seconds will not serve in YouTube in-stream. Beyond that, here is rough guidance that holds up in practice:

• YouTube in-stream: 15 to 30 seconds works. You can go longer, but it rarely helps.
• Shorts: vertical, under 60 seconds, and realistically 6 to 15.
• Gmail and Discover: short, under 30 seconds.
• The first three seconds decide everything. Indeed, this is the one creative rule that holds across every channel here.

Google will auto-generate vertical, square and shortened versions of your videos, and those settings are on by default. That is convenient and it is also a brand control question, because a machine crop of a carefully framed shot is not always a good ad. Check the asset automation settings before you assume everything running is something you made. Google’s creative enhancements page (checked October 28, 2026) lists shorter videos, resized videos, landing page previews and generated text as ticked by default.

How many assets should you supply?

Google recommends three images of each orientation for maximum placement coverage, and allows up to 20 image assets per ad. Recommendations are not targets. In practice a campaign with five images per ratio, three or four videos, five headlines and five descriptions has enough for the system to find something, and refreshing creative every few weeks matters more in Demand Gen than in Search because the same users see it repeatedly and you cannot cap how often.

Demand Gen vs Performance Max: which should you use?

The highest-volume comparison in this topic, and the answer is clearer than most pages make it.

The decision rule: if you want to reach people who are not looking for you yet, and you want some control over how and where, use Demand Gen. If, instead, you want Google to capture existing demand everywhere at once, use Performance Max. Running both is normal, although the thing to watch is that they overlap on the same users with no shared frequency control.

The full picture across every type is in Google Ads campaign types in 2026.

How is Demand Gen different from a Search campaign?

Search answers people who are already looking, while Demand Gen reaches people before they search. In other words, Search runs on keywords on Google Search. Demand Gen, in contrast, runs on audiences across YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Maps and the Display Network.

So the two work as a pair rather than as rivals. Demand Gen builds the audience, and Search then catches those people when they look for you by name or category. For this reason, we watch branded search volume after a Demand Gen launch. It is one sign the campaign is doing its job.

How do you see where your Demand Gen ads showed?

Better than Performance Max, worse than Display used to be.

What you get: a breakdown by format and channel, so you can see in-feed against in-stream against Shorts against Discover against Gmail against Display. That segmentation is a genuine gain over what Discovery campaigns offered, so it is the first report to open.

What you do not get: a full site list for the Display Network. Google’s reporting page (checked October 28, 2026) says the “Where ads showed” report names YouTube channels and videos for Watch Next, in-stream and Shorts. However, Gmail, Discover and Display Network traffic sits together in one Total line.

What you do get, despite the documentation: the ability to act on what you see. So exclude at account level for the permanent blocklist, up to 65,000, and at campaign or ad group level for what this campaign turned up. In other words, treat the placement report the way you treat a search terms report. It is the single highest-return recurring task in a Demand Gen account and most people skip it because a Help page told them they could not.

Are view-through conversions inflating your Demand Gen results?

One reporting behavior to check rather than assume: Demand Gen can fold view-through conversions into your headline number, and for new campaigns it does so unless someone turns it off. Google’s documentation states that “Newly created Demand Gen campaigns will have VTC optimization enabled by default” (Google Ads Help 16399666).

With it on, biddable view-through conversions enter the Conversions column, which makes the campaign look better against a click-based comparison. Check the setting before you compare Demand Gen to Search, because the two columns may not be counting the same thing. Google also notes that the optimization applies to video assets only, and it recommends a 1-day window for primary view-through conversions. The wider method is in our PPC reporting guide.

How do you measure Demand Gen with conversion lift and comparable columns?

Measure Demand Gen on two levels: a like-for-like conversion column for daily calls, and a lift test for the budget call. Click-through and view-through conversions answer different questions, so separate them before you compare Demand Gen with Search or Performance Max.

Google records each conversion once, against the highest-ranking event: a click first, then an engaged view, then an impression. To see the split, segment the Conversions column by Ad event type, as the table shows.

So set the click-through row beside Search, because that is the closest like-for-like number. Engaged views and view-throughs show influence, but exposure alone does not prove the ad caused the sale.

Conversion Lift is the closer test of cause, and Google lists it as supported for Demand Gen, including Display Network inventory. In contrast, Brand Lift and Search Lift do not cover the Display Network part (checked October 28, 2026). Google also says view-through optimization should not change a Conversion Lift test, but it does not try to prove the ad caused the sale either.

How do you protect lead quality in Demand Gen?

Protect lead quality by feeding qualified leads back to Google Ads, not just form fills. Demand Gen reaches people earlier in their journey, so raw form submissions can look cheap while few become customers.

Google’s About page suggests optimizing for lightweight events such as add to basket or site visit, which helps a new campaign learn. For lead generation, though, that can teach bidding to chase volume. So once volume allows, import qualified leads or sales as the primary goal, as our guide to Google Ads CRM tracking explains.

In our 22-account benchmark, lead generation accounts put a median 49.2% of spend into non-brand Search, at a 6.17% conversion rate. That is the budget Demand Gen leads compete with, so compare cost per qualified lead across both rather than raw form cost.

How do you A/B test a Demand Gen campaign?

Demand Gen supports experiments, which is more than can be said for some campaign types, and there are two useful forms.

• A/B experiments split traffic between a control and a variant so you can test a real change, such as audience strategy or bidding.
• Asset tests compare creative within the same campaign instead.

The discipline matters more than the tool. Decide the duration before you start, do not stop when it looks good, and be honest about whether you have the conversion volume to resolve anything. A campaign producing thirty conversions a month cannot resolve a ten percent difference, and running the test anyway produces a confident wrong answer rather than no answer.

And if view-through conversion optimization is on, which it is by default for new campaigns, decide before the test which conversion definition you are judging it by. After all, changing that halfway through is how a losing variant becomes a winner.

What does Google need before a Demand Gen experiment shows a result?

Google needs at least 50 conversions per arm before a conversion-based Demand Gen experiment surfaces a result. As checked on October 28, 2026, results also need 100 data points before they appear. Reports then default to a 70% confidence level.

• Campaigns: at least two Demand Gen campaigns, ready but not yet running, that differ in one variable.
• Arms: two by default and up to ten, with a 50% split recommended for two arms.
• Variables: creative, audience, product feed or bidding. Google does not recommend testing budget.
• Confidence: 70% is directional, 80% balances speed and certainty, and 95% is conclusive.
• Ending: end the experiment yourself, because unpaused campaigns can keep serving on restricted traffic.

So at 70% you are reading a direction, not a verdict. For a budget decision, however, wait for 95%. If purchases are too few, Google suggests shallow conversions such as add to cart. Also, our Google Ads experiments guide covers setup across campaign types.

Who should use Demand Gen in 2027, and who should skip it?

Use it when you have budget for reach and creative worth watching. Skip it, or wait, when you need hard frequency caps, placement-by-placement approval or Search intent. Specifically, the matrix turns the limits covered on this page into a decision for the situations we see most.

If most of your rows say “not yet” or “no”, put the budget into Search first and come back when tracking, budget and creative are ready. How the always-on campaign types compare is covered in Performance Max vs Search.

How should you structure Demand Gen campaigns across the funnel?

Structure Demand Gen by funnel stage rather than by channel alone. For example, run one campaign for prospecting and one for people who already know you. Each stage needs its own audience, creative and bid goal, so a single campaign rarely does every job well.

Keep the structure lean, though. Google’s FAQ recommends combining similar audiences into fewer ad groups. Its migration advice also suggests merging ad groups with fewer than about 30 conversions in 30 days. So add a stage only when its budget can still reach the per ad group floors in the budget section.

For re-engagement, your own lists matter most. Customer Match lists and site visitors make the strongest seeds, and our guide to Customer Match settings covers the matching settings behind those lists.

Is Demand Gen worth it?

Sometimes, and the honest answer needs both halves.

The case for it. It reaches people before they search, it learns faster than Display did, and the channel and format reporting is genuinely better than what came before. In particular, for ecommerce and consumer brands with decent creative, it works. And increasingly the question is moot, because Google is folding Display into it and making the choice for you.

What did the most careful public Demand Gen test find?

The case against, and it needs its date attached. The most careful public head-to-head we found is Gianpaolo Lorusso’s test for Adworld Experience, which ran Demand Gen against a professionally built Display campaign at matched budgets of about 20 euros a day each over roughly five weeks (Adworld Experience, February 22, 2024). Overall, Demand Gen produced more conversions at lower cost. It also produced a slightly lower percentage of engaged sessions in analytics, on placements that were almost entirely YouTube, while the Display campaign drew on roughly 500 placement exclusions built from earlier testing.

Note the date. That test, however, predates the Display Network integration, ad group channel controls and the migration itself. So read it as a directional result about how the two channels buy attention, not as a current benchmark.

Both of those are true at once; indeed, that tension is the real story. More conversions alongside weaker engagement is roughly what you would expect from a channel where you cannot cap frequency and where the placement mix is heavily weighted to one surface. Above all, the exclusion work is what closes that gap, which is why it matters that the documentation talks people out of doing it.

What we do: run Demand Gen where reach is the objective and the creative is good enough to earn attention, judge it on click-based conversions, and on incrementality, which means whether those conversions would have happened anyway, rather than on the default column, and keep expectations honest with the client about what can and cannot be controlled. If someone needs tight placement control for brand reasons, Demand Gen is the wrong channel and no amount of setup fixes that.

How does Demand Gen ROAS compare with Performance Max and Search?

In our own data, Demand Gen returned the lowest median ROAS of any ecommerce campaign type. It made 2.04x, while Performance Max made 4.95x and non-brand Search made 3.09x. However, that Demand Gen figure comes from only 3 accounts, so treat it as a direction rather than a benchmark. The account-level ranges are in our Google Ads benchmarks by campaign type.

The figures come from Google Ads Performance Benchmarks by Campaign Type (Sharma, 2026, Zenodo). It covers 22 accounts we manage, from October 2025 to September 2026. ROAS here means conversion value divided by cost inside each account. The full tables sit on our PPC statistics page.

Read the spread before the median. With three accounts, a range from 1.05x to 8.41x is too wide to tell you what your store will see. Performance Max also took a median 53.1% of spend in those ecommerce accounts. That is why we size Demand Gen against what PMax already covers.

Why does Demand Gen ROAS look lower than Search?

Demand Gen ROAS looks lower mostly because it reaches people before they search. Many of them buy later through a branded search or a Shopping ad, and the last click takes the credit. Brand Search returned 16.44x in our data for exactly that reason: those shoppers already knew the store.

Google’s own figures are more upbeat, so weigh them as vendor data. In August 2026, Google said its second-half 2025 improvements lifted Demand Gen conversions or conversion value by 30% on average. Earlier, at Google Marketing Live in May 2025, it reported a 26% year-over-year rise in conversions per dollar.

So judge Demand Gen with a lift test or a holdout, not by its last-click ROAS against Search. If Performance Max is the weaker campaign in your account instead, start with our Performance Max troubleshooting guide. And if you want a partner to run both, our Performance Max agency guide lists what to check.

What should you check before your Display campaigns migrate?

A pre-migration audit, built from Google’s own list of unsupported features. Work through it per campaign.

The account-level version of this is in the 64-check Google Ads audit checklist.

What are the most common Demand Gen mistakes?

• Waiting for the automatic migration. Two of the three phases still have no date. As a result, you will not get to choose the day.
• Migrating a Manual CPC or pay-for-conversions campaign without rebuilding it. Instead, Google drops that bidding model; it does not convert it.
• Believing Google’s FAQ about placement exclusions. It says they are not generally available at campaign or ad group level. They work. Not excluding placements is the most expensive thing on this list.
• Assuming observation still exists. In Demand Gen you target or you do not.
• Trusting your lookalike reach tier. It is a suggestion unless you have opted out through the form.
• Leaving optimized targeting on a remarketing campaign. Google serves outside your audience, and then you report it as remarketing.
• Testing with a $5 budget. That is a validation floor, not a delivery floor.
• Comparing the conversion column to Search without checking the view-through setting. View-through optimization is on by default for new Demand Gen campaigns, so those conversions may already be in your headline number.
• Supplying three image ratios. The fourth, 9:16, is what serves in Shorts.
• One ad group across every channel. As a result, you learn nothing and control nothing.
• Excluding unknown demographics. It feels like precision, but in fact it is a large cut in reach.
• Expecting frequency control. Google’s answer is “No”, and meanwhile Performance Max is hitting the same people.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Demand Gen campaign in Google Ads?

A visual, feed-style campaign type running across YouTube including Shorts, Discover, Gmail, the Google Display Network and Google video partners. You supply images, videos, headlines and descriptions, choose audiences, and Google assembles and places the ads. It replaced Discovery campaigns, and Display and Video action campaigns are being folded into it.

Does Demand Gen run on Google Search?

No. Instead, it is a demand creation channel, not a demand capture one. If you need to reach people actively searching, that is a Search campaign.

How does the migration affect existing Display campaigns?

What happens to my Display campaigns?

They are being migrated into Demand Gen. Google began a phased rollout of a migration tool in June 2026. Two further phases, blocking new Display campaign creation and automatically migrating what remains, are both listed as “Coming later” with no date, and Google’s announcement says the transition is expected to complete by 2027.

Which Display features do not carry over to Demand Gen?

Google lists Manual CPC, Viewable Impressions bidding, pay for conversions, bid adjustments, seasonality adjustments, portfolio bidding, combined audiences, the observation setting for non-demographics, and Brand Lift and Search Lift for Display Network inventory. HTML5 and third-party ads are listed as coming soon. Google’s feature list marks placement and topic exclusions as supported. Some ad group exclusions and all campaign-level content suitability exclusions block the move, though, so clear those first.

What changes for history, audiences and frequency?

Will I lose my performance history when I migrate?

No. Performance history going back 42 days transfers, which Google says reduces relearning to roughly one to two days. The original campaign moves to Removed status and stays in the account for reporting for up to five years. The migrated campaign is renamed with a “#2” suffix, so update any report that references campaign names.

Do lookalike segments still work as targeting?

Not by default. Google describes the default behavior as evolving towards a suggestion mode, and offers a way to retain the original behavior as a targeting constraint by opting out. The opt-out is a form rather than a setting, so submit it before you build the campaign if you need the reach tier to be a real boundary.

What is the minimum seed list size for a lookalike segment?

Google states the sum of all submitted seed lists must be over 100 active matched people.

Can I control how often people see my Demand Gen ads?

No. Google’s answer to that question is “No. The system automatically controls impression frequency.” In short, there is no cap and no target. If you also run Performance Max, the same person can be reached by both with no shared frequency control.

How much control do you get over placements, budget and delivery?

Can I exclude placements in Demand Gen?

Yes, at both levels, and this is a case where Google’s documentation is behind the product. Its FAQ says “Topics and placement exclusions will not be generally available at the campaign or ad group levels”. In practice campaign and ad group exclusions work, the Google Ads API supports negative placement, YouTube channel, YouTube video and mobile application criteria at campaign, ad group and customer level, and practitioners have been doing it since at least 2024. Use the account list, capped at 65,000, for your permanent blocklist, and campaign level for what that campaign’s own placement report turns up. Note that core suitability settings such as inventory type and content labels genuinely are account level only.

What is the minimum budget for a Demand Gen campaign?

Two different numbers get confused here. There is a validation floor of 5 USD a day, or local equivalent, enforced through the Google Ads API from April 1, 2026 (Google Ads Developer Blog, February 27, 2026), which is the point below which a new or edited budget is refused. Campaigns already running below it keep serving until you edit the budget or the dates. And there is delivery guidance of roughly ten times your target CPA, which is the point below which the campaign cannot learn. A $5 budget will be accepted and will not work.

Why is my Demand Gen campaign not spending?

Usually budget far below ten times target CPA, or a target CPA set too low to enter auctions. After that: an audience too small, unknown demographics excluded, New Customer Acquisition combined with a lookalike, incomplete creative ratios, or conversion tracking not firing.

Which bidding options and image sizes apply?

Which bidding strategies can I use?

Google lists Maximize Clicks, Maximize Conversions, Target ROAS, Target CPA, Target CPC and value based bidding. Target CPC is genuinely available, although most guides miss it. Manual CPC, viewable CPM and pay for conversions are not available.

What image sizes do I need?

Four ratios: 1.91:1 landscape at 1200 by 628, 1:1 square at 1200 by 1200, 4:5 vertical at 960 by 1200, and 9:16 portrait at 1080 by 1920, plus a 1:1 logo at 1200 by 1200. The 9:16 is the one most spec pages omit and it is what serves in Shorts.

How does Demand Gen compare, and is it worth it?

Demand Gen or Performance Max?

Demand Gen to reach people who are not searching for you yet, with real audience targeting, channel selection and the ability to turn optimized targeting off. Performance Max to capture existing demand across every surface including Search and Shopping, with far less control and audience signals that are not targeting. Running both is normal; the overlap on the same users with no shared frequency control is the thing to watch.

Do Discovery campaigns still exist?

No. Discovery was replaced by Demand Gen during 2023 and 2024. Video action campaigns are gone too, with creation removed in April 2025 and the final campaigns upgraded into Demand Gen by April 2026.

Is Demand Gen worth it?

For reach-led objectives with good creative, often yes. Check whether view-through conversion optimization is still on, which it is by default for new campaigns, before you compare its conversion column to Search, and be realistic that you cannot cap frequency. Placement exclusions do work at both account and campaign level, whatever the FAQ says, so brand-sensitive advertisers have more control here than the documentation suggests.

When does the automatic migration happen, and can you undo it?

When will Display campaigns be automatically migrated to Demand Gen?

Google has not published a date. As of October 28, 2026, its migration page still lists automatic migration as “Coming later”, and its announcement says the transition is expected to complete by 2027. Migrate deliberately before then, so you choose the day and clear any blocking settings first.

Can you undo a Display to Demand Gen migration?

No. Google states that migrated campaigns can’t be reverted back to Google Display Ads campaigns. Meanwhile, the original moves to Removed status and stays available for reporting. Test the move on one low-risk campaign, fix your reports, then migrate the rest.

Do paused or removed Display campaigns get migrated?

Removed campaigns are not migrated. Paused and enabled campaigns may be, depending on how recently they spent, and their status carries over, so a paused Display campaign becomes a paused Demand Gen campaign. Remove old campaigns you never plan to run again before the automatic phase arrives.

Does migrating reset my daily budget?

Yes, for the migration day only. Spend the Display campaign made earlier that day is not counted by the new Demand Gen campaign, so a $50 budget that has spent $10 starts again with $50. Google warns delivery can run under or over for the first 24 hours, so migrate early in the day.

Which targeting and format questions come up in 2027?

Can you add keywords to a Demand Gen campaign?

No. Demand Gen has no keyword targeting and does not serve on Google Search. Instead, you can build a custom segment from search terms, and Google’s FAQ suggests 10 to 15 terms that show interest or purchase intent. Google then looks for people who searched those terms, so the keywords shape the audience rather than trigger the ad.

Can you run Demand Gen ads only on YouTube Shorts?

Yes. In the ad group’s channel settings, choose Let me choose and tick only YouTube Shorts, as Google’s channel controls page describes. Even so, Google recommends All Google channels for most advertisers, because more inventory gives bidding more room to find conversions. So test a Shorts-only ad group beside a broader one.

Which YouTube ad formats can Demand Gen use?

Demand Gen video ads can run as skippable in-stream ads, in-feed ads and Shorts. Image ads, meanwhile, appear in YouTube feeds, search results and Watch Next. Videos must run at least 5 seconds, and Google says videos under 10 seconds will not serve in-stream. Google also lists Watch-While ads, an image format shown under videos on the watch page.

Does Demand Gen charge per click or per impression?

Both, depending on where the ad shows: Google’s FAQ lists CPM billing for YouTube video, YouTube image and Display Network ads. Discover image ads, however, bill by CPC, and Gmail bills a teaser click. Discover video bills by CPM under Maximize clicks, and otherwise by click or engaged view. With view-through optimization on, Discover bills at CPM for all formats.

Want your Display migration handled?

The two findings we make most often are a Display campaign sitting on a bidding model that does not survive the migration, and a Demand Gen campaign that has never had a single placement excluded, because a Help page said it was not possible.

Ask us to audit your campaigns before they migrate, or work through the account yourself with the 64-check Google Ads audit checklist. If ad copy is next, our responsive search ads guide covers what Google now decides for you there. For online stores, the structure we use is in ecommerce PPC management.