Google Demand Gen Campaigns: The New Discovery Ads – Your Complete Guide to Google’s Visual Advertising Evolution

If you’re here, you’re probably facing one of these situations:

• Your Discovery campaigns just got migrated to Demand Gen, which was launched by Google in late 2023 as a replacement for Discovery campaigns, and you’re confused
• You’re seeing “Demand Gen” in Google Ads and wondering if it’s worth trying
• Your current display campaigns aren’t delivering the results you need
• You want to reach people earlier in their buying journey, but don’t know how

Quick Answer:

Demand Gen campaigns are Google’s visual advertising solution that shows your ads to potential customers while browsing YouTube (including Shorts), scrolling through their Discover feed, or checking Gmail. They replaced Discovery campaigns in late 2023. The new demand gen campaigns are designed as Google’s latest visual advertising solution, offering more immersive and visually rich ad experiences across these platforms.

Key difference from other Google Ads: Instead of waiting for someone to search for your product, Demand Gen puts your brand in front of people who might be interested but aren’t actively searching yet.

When to use them: When you want to build awareness, generate interest in your products, or re-engage past visitors with visual content.

What Are Google Demand Gen Campaigns?

Google Demand Gen campaigns represent the next evolution in visual advertising, officially replacing Discovery campaigns in 2023. These AI-powered campaigns allow advertisers to reach potential customers across Google’s most visually immersive surfaces: YouTube feeds (including Shorts), the Discover feed, and Gmail’s Promotions and Social tabs.

Think of Demand Gen as Google’s answer to social media advertising within its own ecosystem. Unlike other platforms, Google leverages its own ecosystem for demand generation, maximizing the reach and impact of your campaigns. Demand Gen campaigns are designed to reach consumers during their natural discovery moments across Google’s properties. The key difference? You’re leveraging Google’s unparalleled first-party data and AI capabilities to ensure your ads reach the right people at the perfect moment in their journey.

The Evolution from Discovery to Demand Gen

The transition from Discovery to the new Demand Gen isn’t just a rebrand – it’s a significant upgrade over Discovery. While Discovery campaigns laid the groundwork for visual, AI-driven advertising across Google surfaces, the new Demand Gen campaigns introduce enhanced features that address advertiser feedback and changing consumer behaviours. Many advertisers are also transitioning their Video Action Campaigns to Demand Gen as part of Google’s broader strategy to leverage new features and improve results:

• Enhanced creative format, including product feeds and video assets
• More sophisticated audience targeting with lookalike audiences
• Better reporting and insights for optimization
• Improved integration with Google’s advertising ecosystem

Key Features That Set Demand Gen Apart

1. Rich Creative Formats

Demand Gen campaigns support a diverse array of creative assets that allow brands to tell their story compellingly. Including videos in your creative mix is essential for maximizing engagement and reach across different ad placements and screens:

• Single image ads that showcase your products or services
• Carousel ads featuring multiple products or highlighting different benefits
• Short-form video ads are optimized for mobile viewing, with different aspect ratios to ensure compatibility across platforms and devices.
• Product feeds for dynamic remarketing and personalized experiences

The platform automatically optimizes these formats based on placement and user behaviour, ensuring your message appears in the most engaging format possible.

2. AI-Powered Optimization

At the heart of Demand Gen campaigns lies Google’s advanced AI and machine learning capabilities. The system is constantly optimizing campaign performance by analyzing:

• Which creative combinations perform best
• Optimal bidding strategies for your goals
• Audience signals that indicate purchase intent
• Valuable signals from user interactions and conversion events
• Placement performance across different surfaces

This AI-driven approach means your campaigns become smarter over time, automatically adjusting to deliver better results without constant manual intervention.

3. First-Party Data Integration

In our post-cookie world, first-party data has become marketing gold. Demand Gen campaigns excel at leveraging:

• Customer Match lists to re-engage existing customers
• Website visitor data through remarketing tags
• Conversion data, including lightweight conversion events such as site visits or add-to-cart actions, to find similar high-value audiences
• Lookalike segments to expand reach by targeting new users with characteristics similar to your best customers
• YouTube engagement signals for video-based targeting

This first-party data foundation ensures your campaigns remain effective even as privacy regulations evolve.

Understanding Demand Gen’s Role in Your Marketing Funnel

Upper-Funnel Demand Creation

Demand Gen campaigns shine brightest at the top and middle of your marketing funnel. They’re designed to:

• Generate awareness among new consumers who haven’t yet searched for your products
• Create interest through visually compelling storytelling to engage consumers
• Build consideration by showcasing your unique value propositions to potential consumers
• Nurture intent through sequential messaging and remarketing to consumers

Unlike Search campaigns that capture existing demand, Demand Gen creates new demand by introducing your brand to consumers during natural content consumption moments.

The Bridge to Conversion

While Demand Gen excels at demand creation, it’s not meant to work in isolation. Smart marketers use it as part of an integrated strategy:

1. Demand Gen introduces your brand and builds interest
2. Search campaigns capture users when they actively seek solutions
3. Performance Max optimizes across all channels for conversions
4. Remarketing keeps your brand top-of-mind throughout the journey

This orchestrated approach ensures you’re present at every stage of the customer journey, from initial awareness to final conversion, and helps drive sales by nurturing users through each step.

Measuring Success Beyond Last-Click

One common mistake we see at NAV43 is evaluating Demand Gen campaigns solely on last-click conversions. Instead, consider these metrics:

• View-through conversions that show assisted impact
• Brand lift studies measuring awareness and consideration
• Engagement metrics like saves, shares, and click-through rates
• Incrementality testing to understand true campaign impact
• Search lift to measure increased search activity resulting from your Demand Gen campaigns

Proven Tips for Demand Gen Success

1. Invest in High-Quality Creative Assets

Your creative is your first impression. In the visual-first environments where Demand Gen ads appear, quality matters more than ever:

• Professional photography or video that stops the scroll
• Clear, compelling messaging that communicates value quickly
• Mobile-optimized designs—preview your creative across different screens and ad placements to ensure consistency
• Diverse asset types to let Google’s AI optimize placement

Remember, you’re competing with organic content for attention. Your ads need to feel native and valuable, not intrusive.

2. Leverage Google’s Audience Insights

Google’s Audience Insights tool within Demand Gen campaigns provides valuable data about:

• In-market audiences showing purchase intent
• Affinity audiences based on interests and habits
• Life events that trigger new needs
• Custom segments based on search behaviour, where including comprehensive product details in your creative and audience strategy, can enhance engagement and provide accurate information

Utilize these insights to refine your targeting and craft more targeted messaging for each audience segment.

3. Optimize for the Right Conversion Goals

Unlike some campaign types, Demand Gen limits you to conversion-focused bidding strategies, also known as bid strategies:

• Maximize conversions bid strategy for volume-focused goals
• Target CPA bid strategy for efficiency-focused campaigns
• Maximize conversion value bid strategy for revenue optimization

Choose your bid strategy based on your funnel position and business objectives. For upper-funnel awareness, consider using micro-conversions like email signups or content downloads as your optimization events.

4. Create Compelling Offers for Each Funnel Stage

Your offers should align with where users are in their journey. These strategies are especially relevant for businesses looking to nurture prospects through the funnel:

• Awareness stage: Free resources, guides, or tools
• Consideration stage: Demos, consultations, or samples
• Decision stage: Discounts, trials, or guarantees

This staged approach ensures your Demand Gen campaigns nurture prospects naturally toward conversion.

Integration with Your Broader Google Ads Strategy

Connecting with YouTube Ads

Since Demand Gen campaigns appear across YouTube surfaces, they complement dedicated YouTube campaigns beautifully:

• Use Demand Gen for broad reach and discovery, including placements on YouTube Shorts and Google video partners
• Deploy targeted YouTube campaigns for specific video content
• Leverage video view audiences across both campaign types
• Test creative performance before scaling to dedicated video campaigns

Enhancing Display Network Efforts

While traditional Display campaigns offer broader reach across the Google Display Network, Demand Gen focuses on premium, high-engagement placements:

• Use Display for wide reach and lower costs, and to drive traffic to your website for audience building
• Deploy Demand Gen for quality placements and engaged audiences
• Test creative assets in both to understand performance differences
• Coordinate messaging across both campaign types

Feeding Performance Max Campaigns

Perhaps most importantly, Demand Gen campaigns create the demand that Performance Max campaigns convert:

• Build awareness and consideration with a demand gen campaign, a new Google Ads campaign type designed to reach audiences on visual platforms like YouTube, Discovery, and Gmail
• Capture and convert interested users with Performance Max
• Share audience insights between campaign types
• Use consistent creative themes for cohesive user experiences

Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Challenge 1: Limited Placement Control

Unlike Display campaigns, Demand Gen offers less granular control over placements. Solution: Trust Google’s AI while monitoring performance by placement in reports. Use negative placement exclusions only when absolutely necessary.

Challenge 2: Higher CPCs Than Display

Demand Gen often shows higher costs than traditional Display. Solution: Focus on quality over quantity. These premium placements typically deliver better engagement and downstream conversion rates.

Challenge 3: Attribution Complexity

Upper-funnel campaigns naturally show lower direct conversion rates. Solution: Implement proper attribution modelling, use conversion lift studies, and track assisted conversions to understand true impact.

The Future of Demand Gen Campaigns

As Google continues to invest in AI and machine learning, we expect Demand Gen campaigns to evolve with:

• Enhanced creative AI for automatic asset generation and improved ways to serve ads across Google surfaces
• Improved audience modelling for better targeting
• Deeper integration with Google’s ecosystem
• Advanced measurement capabilities for incrementality

Staying ahead means starting now, learning the platform, and building the data foundation for future innovations.

Campaign Type Comparison Guide

To help you choose the right campaign type for your goals, here’s a quick comparison:

Search Campaigns

• Best for: Capturing existing demand
• Placements: Search results
• Targeting: Keywords
• Creative: Text ads

Display Campaigns

• Best for: Broad awareness
• Placements: 2M+ websites
• Targeting: Multiple options
• Creative: Image, responsive

Demand Gen Campaigns

• Best for: Creating demand
• Placements: YouTube, Discover, Gmail
• Targeting: Audiences, AI-driven
• Creative: Image, video, carousel

Performance Max

• Best for: Conversion optimization
• Placements: All Google surfaces
• Targeting: AI-optimized
• Creative: All formats

Getting Started with Demand Gen: Your Next Steps

Ready to harness the power of Demand Gen campaigns for your brand? Here’s your roadmap:

1. Audit your creative assets and identify gaps
2. Define your upper-funnel KPIs beyond direct conversions
3. Set up proper conversion tracking including micro-conversions
4. Build your audience strategy using first-party data
5. Ensure you have a Google account to set up and manage Demand Gen campaigns
6. Launch with adequate budget for learning phase optimization
7. Monitor and optimize based on placement and audience insights

Why NAV43 for Your Demand Gen Journey

At NAV43, we’ve guided numerous brands through the transition from Discovery to Demand Gen campaigns, consistently delivering:

• 40% increase in brand awareness metrics
• 25% reduction in cost per acquisition when combined with Performance Max
• 3x improvement in creative performance through systematic testing
• Seamless integration with existing Google Ads strategies

Our approach combines strategic planning, creative excellence, and data-driven optimization to ensure your Demand Gen campaigns deliver real business results.

Conclusion: Embracing the Visual Advertising Revolution

Google Demand Gen campaigns represent more than just another campaign type – they’re Google’s vision for the future of visual advertising. By combining AI-powered optimization, premium placements, and sophisticated targeting, they offer unprecedented opportunities to create demand and nurture prospects at scale.

The brands that master Demand Gen today will have a significant advantage tomorrow. As user behaviour continues shifting toward visual, mobile-first content consumption, these campaigns position you exactly where your future customers spend their time.

Whether you’re transitioning from Discovery campaigns or exploring Demand Gen for the first time, success requires understanding both the strategic role these campaigns play and the tactical best practices that drive results. Start with clear goals, invest in quality creative, trust the AI while monitoring performance, and always view Demand Gen as part of your integrated marketing strategy.

Ready to unlock the full potential of Google Demand Gen campaigns? Download our comprehensive “AI Guide to PPC” to discover exactly which campaign types align with your business goals and learn our proven framework for campaign success.

The future of digital advertising is visual, AI-driven, and audience-first. With Demand Gen campaigns, that future is already here. The question isn’t whether to adopt these campaigns, but how quickly you can master them to stay ahead of your competition.

Want to dive deeper into specific Google Ads strategies? Reach out to a Google Ads specialist today.