Demand Gen in Google Ads: what it is, how it differs from Performance Max and when it pays off

As of: 27 October 2026. We describe Demand Gen according to Google's help documentation from this date; settings and recommendations can change, so compare the numbers with your own account panel before you set a budget.

What a Demand Gen campaign in Google Ads is

Demand Gen is a Google Ads campaign built to create demand: it shows image and video ads to people who are browsing content rather than typing a query into search. According to Google's help page on Demand Gen campaigns, the ads run on YouTube, Discover, Gmail and the Google Display Network.

Why add such a campaign when you already advertise in search? Search collects demand that already exists: someone typed a phrase and is looking. Demand Gen reaches people earlier, before they know they need your product.

Where Demand Gen ads are shown

Demand Gen ads run on YouTube, Discover, Gmail and the Google Display Network, surfaces based mainly on browsing content. Google's help documentation lists them as follows:

• YouTube: Shorts, in-feed ads in video lists, the YouTube home feed and the watch-next section and YouTube search.
• Discover: Google's recommended-content feed.
• Gmail: ads in Gmail.
• Google Display Network: the Google Display Network plus Google's video partners.

Google also mentions Maps: the introduction of the Demand Gen help page and the API documentation list it among the surfaces, although the placements list in the help page does not, so check availability in your account. Google's help does not list Google search results among these surfaces (YouTube search is listed). If you want to reach people who are actively looking for your service, you need a Search or Performance Max campaign. Demand Gen is a complement, not a replacement.

How Demand Gen differs from Performance Max and Search campaigns

Search serves queries, Performance Max spreads budget across all of Google's inventory, and Demand Gen focuses on browsing surfaces. According to Google's help page on Performance Max, that campaign type runs across Google's whole ad inventory, including Search, YouTube, Discover, Gmail and Maps, and Search campaigns with exact match keywords serve before it when a query matches.

According to Google's help, bidding in Demand Gen covers clicks, conversions and conversion value. If you are choosing between two campaigns to drive sales, the comparison of Performance Max and Search is in our article Performance Max vs Search.

What budget and how many conversions Demand Gen needs

Google gives two different multipliers of the target CPA for a Demand Gen daily budget: 10 times and 20 times. Google's Demand Gen best practices page gives 10 times for target CPA and at least $100 a day for maximizing conversions or conversion value. A separate page on low budgets recommends 20 times the average target CPA for conversion strategies. Because Google's own help pages disagree, plan the budget from the higher multiplier until your account panel shows its own recommendation.

The second barrier is data. The same guidance tells you not to evaluate a campaign before it has generated at least 50 conversions, and to merge ad groups with fewer than 30 conversions in 30 days into others. Change bids and budgets slowly, by 5-10 percent a week and no more than 15 percent. In our experience, big budget jumps disturb the campaign's learning.

To check what CPA fits your product margin before you set the campaign goal, work it out in the ROI calculator. We cover the choice between target CPA and target ROAS in Target ROAS vs Target CPA.

What creative to prepare for a Demand Gen campaign

A Demand Gen campaign needs assets in three proportions: vertical, square and horizontal. Google's guidance gives as a benchmark for one ad 3 vertical, 3 square and 3 horizontal images, plus one video in each of those formats. The help page also lists image formats: landscape 1.91:1, logo 1:1 and portrait 4:5.

• Video: prepare the same material in vertical, square and horizontal versions.
• Images: prepare several versions with different product framing instead of one graphic scaled to three formats.
• Text: add headlines, descriptions, a business name and a call to action; more assets give the algorithm more combinations to test.

Google allows a campaign made only of images or only of video, but stresses that combining both usually performs better. Google advises testing new creative first in a new campaign so the system has room to explore; in our experience we move only the best creative into the main campaign afterwards.

When Demand Gen pays off and when it is better to wait

Demand Gen pays off when your search campaigns already deliver and you want to reach new audiences before they start searching. In that setup Search and Performance Max collect demand and Demand Gen feeds it. Without that base, a demand-building campaign burns budget on an audience you cannot account for.

Before you add a reach campaign, check which audience segments already pay back today. In the Falcon Car Rental case study, excluding the 18-24 age group with a ROAS of 1.53 was one of two steps after which Google Ads ROAS rose from about 4.2× to 8.27×. The same order applies to Demand Gen: tidy up segments first, then add reach.

How to set up and measure a Demand Gen campaign

In our experience you set up a Demand Gen campaign in four steps: measurement, goal and bidding strategy, assets, and audiences, and measurement comes first, because Google's help recommends setting up conversion tracking and making sure the Google tag works properly.

• Measurement: check the Google tag and conversion events, because the campaign learns only from what you pass to it.
• Bidding strategy: pick clicks, conversions or conversion value to match the campaign goal; in our experience, with few conversions we start with a maximizing strategy.
• Assets: upload the images, video and text from the previous section.
• Audiences: in our experience, add lookalike segments, which Google mentions in its campaign description.

After launch, read the result at the pace the data arrives. A campaign that has not collected 50 conversions is still learning, so its cost per conversion does not yet tell you whether the channel works. You can check the purchase and lead tracking that optimization relies on in the GA4 Audit. We run such campaigns as part of our Google Ads service, and if you are looking for a partner, the digital marketing agency Zest starts with measurement and only then picks channels.