New ways to Help You Drive Performance with Demand Gen

In the current digital world, people are leaning towards visual content for ideas and inspiration across various platforms. To keep up, brands must be present at the right times and places for their audience. YouTube, for example, creates stronger connections compared to traditional social media. Gen Z, in particular, ranks YouTube as their top choice for feeling productive with their time, and 61% of them feel a closer bond with YouTube creators than those on other platforms. This connection leads to impressive outcomes: a Nielsen study revealed that YouTube offers 2.3 times higher long-term return on ad spend compared to paid social media.

In 2023, Google rolled out Demand Gen campaigns aimed at helping businesses engage more deeply with potential customers and increase online sales and leads. Demand Gen allows you to generate and convert interest on YouTube and Google’s most engaging visual platforms, even when consumers aren’t actively searching for you. It comes with AI-driven features and flexible controls to link your business with the right customers at any stage of their buying journey.

Today, the tech company is unveiling new methods to enhance your Demand Gen campaigns, including expanded options to tailor campaigns for specific channels, fresh creative tools, and more detailed product and in-store information in your ads. We’ll also provide an update on the timeline for transitioning your Video Action Campaigns to Demand Gen.

Control where your ads appear

We've heard from many of you that flexible controls are crucial for AI-powered campaign optimization. Building on the success of creative preferences and an early experiment, we're expanding channel controls to all available ad surfaces in Demand Gen globally starting in March. With channel controls rolling out as a beta to everyone, you’ll be able to precisely choose where your ads appear across YouTube, Discover and Gmail — including the ability to tailor your Demand Gen campaigns to serve specifically on YouTube Shorts., the company said in a blog post.

A UI image showing how you can now precisely choose where your ads appear across YouTube and Google with channel controls in Demand Gen.]

You can precisely choose where your ads appear across YouTube and Google with channel controls in Demand Gen.

On top of that, the tech company is adding Google Display inventory to Demand Gen, helping you stay in front of more customers no matter where they’re browsing — reaching over 90% of the global internet audience across more than 3 million sites and apps.

To get the most out of your reach, Google suggests that all advertisers utilize the complete inventory in Demand Gen for seamless optimization across various channels. Check out the advantages of cross-channel optimization here.

Boost your creative impact

Engaging creatives are the backbone of successful campaigns. This means having a solid mix of assets that fit the requirements of different formats and inventory, ensuring you can connect when it counts — and that appeal to the varied needs and interests of your audience. To assist you in creating more effective ad creatives, we’re rolling out additional options to customize your assets for different screens and formats:

  • Demand Gen provides a range of video and image formats to help you tell unique brand stories on YouTube. Starting in late February, you’ll also be able to run 9:16 vertical image ads on Shorts for a more immersive, full-screen experience.
  • Last November, Google introduced video enhancements in Demand Gen, enabling you to flip your original video and produce new videos in various aspect ratios. In the next few weeks, we’ll be launching a new feature that allows you to create shorter versions of your videos at scale

Create shorter versions of your videos at scale with new video enhancements.

The company highlighted enhancements in the ad creation process within Demand Gen. Users will now have the ability to choose specific video enhancements for their ads, allowing for greater diversity in video assets. If preferred, users can opt out and manually edit their videos within the workflow. Additionally, ad previews can now be shared with creative stakeholders outside of Google Ads, streamlining the feedback and approval process.

Enhance sales through a more integrated purchasing experience

Furthermore, new features are being introduced specifically for retailers to facilitate increased sales throughout the purchasing journey and to improve the online-to-offline shopping experience:

  • For advertisers utilizing a Google Merchant Center account, Google will soon introduce a new experience in Demand Gen that incorporates product feeds, enabling deeper product discovery. Customers will be able to access comprehensive product details directly from your ads, allowing for a smooth transition between product detail pages.

Get full product details directly from your ads with improved experiences in Demand Gen with product feeds.

  • With local offers for Demand Gen with product feeds, you can show real-time local product availability, connecting online shoppers with your physical storefronts and driving them to nearby store locations. Then, maximize your omnichannel strategy by optimizing for both online sales and in-store visits with omnichannel bidding.
A UI image showing that you can now indicate real-time local product availability in your ads with local offers.

Show real-time local product availability in your ads with local offers.

Check out how different platforms stack up in terms of performance.

Google is rolling out new reporting columns in Google Ads to give you a clearer picture of how your Demand Gen campaigns are doing compared to your paid social efforts, which can help with budget planning. These new columns, available to advertisers worldwide this month, will include view-through conversions to match the way social ad platforms track performance. Plus, they’ll separate the effects of Demand Gen from other Google campaigns, making it easier to compare across channels.

Take a look at the key milestones for upgrading Video Action Campaigns.

Last year, Google revealed an upgrade for Video Action Campaigns, allowing advertisers to tap into new features through Demand Gen. Many advertisers have already noticed improved performance after making the switch. According to a Nielsen study, Demand Gen typically offers a 58% higher ROAS compared to Video Action Campaigns. That’s why we’re moving forward with steps to make the upgrade process smoother.

If you’re using Video Action Campaigns, here are some important milestones for the upgrade and answers to common questions.

Starting in April, following the launch of channel controls, you’ll no longer be able to create new Video Action Campaigns in Google Ads and Display & Video 360 platforms. "We recommend that you start upgrading to Demand Gen yourself before the automatic upgrade goes into effect starting in July to maintain full control of your campaigns," The blog post read.
  • Use the upgrade tool (available in March) to apply your historical settings and learnings from Video Action Campaigns to your new Demand Gen campaigns. This helps you upgrade while maintaining your existing strategy and driving consistent performance. Your new Demand Gen campaigns will continue to serve only on YouTube and Google video partners (if you’ve opted-in) until you adjust the settings. While channel controls in Demand Gen will be released as a beta in March, you will be able to continue serving only on YouTube just as you can do today in Video Action Campaigns.
  • To instantly access new and expanded features in Demand Gen, such as a wide range of inventory and lookalike segments, we recommend creating new Demand Gen campaigns, or using the copy-and-paste tool to upgrade today. Check our FAQ page for more guidance.
Beginning in July, Google announced that it will automatically upgrade any remaining Video Action Campaigns within Google Ads. This upgrade process is expected to take several months, and not all accounts will be transitioned simultaneously. 
  • The insights gained from your previous Video Action Campaigns will be utilized in your new Demand Gen campaigns to ensure consistent performance. Your inventory settings will remain intact, allowing your ads to continue appearing exclusively on YouTube and Google video partners (if you have opted in) until you make any changes to the settings.
Marks and Spencer (M&S), a leading global retailer in clothing and home goods, achieved significant success by leveraging Demand Gen to enhance their results. In collaboration with Incubeta, M&S conducted a Demand Gen test that surpassed their projected return on ad spend (ROAS) by 186%, while also achieving a 66% reduction in cost per acquisition (CPA). The campaign's performance was also notably better than that of their paid social initiatives.