Google Ads
intermediate
5 min read5 steps220 views

How to Create a Demand Gen Campaign in Google Ads

Demand Gen campaigns (formerly Discovery Ads) reach users across YouTube, Gmail, and Google Discover feeds. Create a campaign with Sales, Leads, or Traffic objective, select Demand Gen as the campaign type, add audience targeting (similar to Meta's interest and custom audience targeting), upload ima

Demand Gendemand gen campaign google ads

Quick Summary

Demand Gen campaigns (formerly Discovery Ads) reach users across YouTube, Gmail, and Google Discover feeds. Create a campaign with Sales, Leads, or Traffic objective, select Demand Gen as the campaign type, add audience targeting (similar to Meta's interest and custom audience targeting), upload image and video creative in multiple formats, and set a budget with Maximise Conversions or Target CPA bidding.

Process Flow

Interactive diagram — drag to pan, scroll to zoom

Step-by-Step Guide

Follow these 5 steps to complete this guide

1

What Are Demand Gen Campaigns?

Demand Gen campaigns serve visually rich ads across Google's entertainment and discovery surfaces: YouTube (Home feed, Watch Next, Shorts, In-stream), Gmail (Promotions and Social tabs), and Discover (Google's personalised content feed). They are Google's answer to Meta's feed-based advertising — visual, interest-driven, and designed for mid-funnel engagement.
2

Campaign Setup

Create a new campaign. Choose Sales, Leads, or Website Traffic as the objective. Select 'Demand Gen' as the campaign type. Configure audience targeting, creative assets, and bidding.
3

Audience Targeting

Demand Gen supports in-market audiences, custom segments (based on search terms, URLs, or apps), remarketing lists, customer match, and lookalike segments (similar to Meta's lookalike audiences). Lookalike segments expand from your seed audience to find similar users.
4

Creative Formats

Single image ads, carousel ads (up to 10 cards), video ads, and product feeds (for e-commerce). Upload assets in multiple aspect ratios: landscape (1.91:1), square (1:1), and portrait (4:5). Video should be in landscape, square, and vertical formats.
5

Bidding and Budget

Use Maximise Conversions for volume or Target CPA for efficiency. Budget recommendation: at least 15x your target CPA as a daily budget for the algorithm to learn effectively.

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