Demand Gen Campaigns 2026: Setup, Creative Specs, and What Changed When It Swallowed Video Action and Display

demand gen started as the campaign type google built to compete with meta for the feed. in 2025 it absorbed video action campaigns, in 2026 it is absorbing display, and in march 2026 the lookalike slider stopped being a targeting rule. most setups still treat it like the discovery campaigns it replaced. this guide is the current shape of the thing and the structure that works in it.

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what demand gen actually is

a single campaign type that serves video, image, and carousel ads across youtube (in-stream, in-feed, shorts), discover, gmail, maps when a location asset is present, and the google display network. audiences are built from customer match, lookalike seeds, custom intent, and optimized targeting rather than keywords. channel controls sit at the ad group level: the default is "all google channels," which google recommends because it "ensures efficient budget allocation and cost control," with a "let me choose" option to pick surfaces manually (google ads help, channel controls in demand gen).

here is what most guides get wrong: they describe demand gen as google's paid social product and stop. it is now google's consolidated non-search, non-shopping campaign. video action campaigns could not be created after april 2025, were auto-upgraded from july 2025, and hit the final deadline in april 2026 (google ads help, video action campaigns are being upgraded to demand gen). standalone display campaign creation is ending, with a migration tool from june 2026 and auto-migration to follow (google ads help, display campaigns have a new home in demand gen). if you run youtube or display on google, you run demand gen.

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the fundamental shift: from a discovery campaign to the home of everything that is not search or shopping

before: discovery ads for feeds, video action campaigns for youtube conversions, display campaigns for the network, each with its own bidding, creative, and reporting.

after: one campaign type with ad-group-level channel controls, mixed cpm and cpc billing by surface, image and carousel alongside video, product feeds, lookalike seeds, and a reporting column set google calls "platform comparable conversion columns" so the numbers line up with paid social (google ads and commerce blog, december demand gen drop, december 11, 2025).

and targeting loosened. from march 2026, lookalike segments run as a suggestion: the reach slider "will no longer function as a strict targeting constraint" and instead uses "your selected reach level and seed list as signals to help google ai prioritize conversions," with opt-out controls arriving later in the year (google ads help, use lookalike segments). the seed list matters more than the slider now, which is the same shift meta made with advantage+ audience.

in plain english: demand gen is google's feed engine. feed it the same way you feed andromeda: many different creatives, a clean conversion signal, a strong first-party seed, and structure that concentrates data.

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what this broke in existing accounts

1. upgraded video action campaigns running video-only creative

the upgrade carried the campaigns over, not the creative mix. google's own figure: advertisers combining video and image assets saw "20% more conversions at the same cost per action than those who uploaded video assets only." upgraded campaigns that never added image assets left that on the table and served nothing on discover and gmail image inventory.

2. lookalike reach set to narrow and treated as a wall

accounts that used the 2.5% narrow setting as a precise audience found delivery expanding past it after march 2026. the slider became a signal. campaigns whose economics depended on the constraint need the opt-out or a re-baselined cpa.

3. channel controls used to prune surfaces on a hunch

turning off gmail or the display network because "it never converts" removes the surfaces where the campaign learns cheaply and where view-through conversions accrue. google added view-through conversion columns specifically so those surfaces could be read; accounts pruned them before reading.

4. display campaigns migrated without logos and assets

the migration preserves status, budgets, bidding, audiences, and 42 days of history, and requires assets such as business logos that display campaigns never needed. campaigns migrated without them serve fewer formats.

5. billing surprises

video action was cpm-only; demand gen bills cpm or cpc depending on surface and format. cost per view and cost per click comparisons across the upgrade date are comparisons of two billing models.

6. judged on last click against search

google's december 2025 data: "68% of demand gen conversions" came from people who had not seen the brand's search ads in the prior 30 days. read on last click next to a brand search campaign, demand gen looks weak; read on new reach, it is doing the job it exists for.

7. the same creative on every surface

vertical video for shorts, landscape for in-stream, static for discover and gmail. one 16:9 video uploaded everywhere serves badly on half the inventory.

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the data

• google, january 30, 2025: youtube delivers "2.3x higher long-term roas than paid social"; demand gen delivers "58% higher roas than video action campaigns"; channel controls expanded to all surfaces in march 2025; display inventory added, reaching "over 90% of the global internet population"; 9:16 vertical image ads on shorts; product feeds and local offers (google ads and commerce blog, new ways to drive performance with demand gen). self-reported.
• google: advertisers combining video and image assets saw 20% more conversions at the same cost per action versus video only; upgraded video action advertisers saw "similar conversions to their video action campaigns at a similar cost per action." (google ads help, video action upgrade)
• google, december 11, 2025: 68% of demand gen conversions came from users who had not encountered the brand's search ads in the preceding 30 days. (google ads and commerce blog)
• google: lookalike-as-a-suggestion from march 2026; the reach slider's 2.5%, 5%, and 10% thresholds no longer constrain reach; opt-out available; the 100-user seed minimum is no longer stated. (google ads help, lookalike segments)
• google: video action campaigns closed to creation april 2025, auto-upgraded from july 2025, final deadline april 2026; display campaigns migrate from june 2026 with 42 days of history preserved. (google ads help)
• google: channel controls at the ad group level across youtube, discover, gmail, maps, and the display network; default is all channels. (google ads help)
• the metrics that make demand gen readable against meta are the ones google added for that purpose: platform comparable conversion columns and view-through conversion columns. compare on those, and on a geo holdout, not on last click.

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what changed in 2026 specifically

march 2026: lookalikes became suggestions. the seed list is the lever; the slider is a hint.

april 2026: the last video action campaigns were force-upgraded, with incompatible features removed. anything still labeled video action in an account is history.

june 2026: the display migration tool. standalone display campaign creation is ending; existing campaigns migrate with status, budget, bidding, audiences, and 42 days of history, and need demand gen assets such as logos.

ongoing: ai-powered personalization through optimized targeting and new customer acquisition goals, auto-generated video variants and shortened cuts, checkout links and web-to-app connect for direct purchase paths, and the comparable conversion columns.

unchanged: the surfaces reward native creative in the right aspect ratio, and a campaign with a weak conversion signal still cannot bid.

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what actually works now

1. one campaign per goal, ad groups by audience or surface, not both

campaign-level budget, target cpa or target roas once the campaign has 30 or more conversions a month, maximize conversions before that. ad groups split by audience (customer match seed, lookalike seed, custom intent) or by surface when the creative genuinely differs, never by both at once, or the data fragments.

2. feed it a real seed

customer match lists of buyers, refreshed monthly through data manager, as the lookalike seed and as the exclusion on prospecting. after march 2026 the seed is what the system uses to find people; a stale or tiny seed produces a vague audience. pair with the new customer acquisition goal so the campaign prefers people not already on the list (see the google ads attribution guide for customer match through data manager).

3. creative per surface, all three formats

• shorts: 9:16 video, 6 to 15 seconds, hook in the first 2 seconds, sound-on with captions.
• in-stream: 16:9 or 1:1 video, 15 to 30 seconds, skippable, the offer before second 5.
• discover and gmail: 1:1 and 4:5 static images and carousels, product-forward, one line of copy.
• display: the same statics plus a logo and a headline set.

upload video and image in every ad group; the 20% conversion lift is from the mix, not from either alone. use creative preferences to pin a vertical video to shorts and run a creative a/b experiment when you want a real answer on a format.

4. leave channel controls on all channels until you have a reason

read the per-surface breakdown for 30 days first. exclude a surface only when it has spent enough to judge and its view-through plus click-through cost is out of range. brand safety exclusions (youtube channels, placements) are a separate control and worth setting on day one.

5. bid on the conversion, not the view

the optimization event is the same primary conversion action as search, with enhanced conversions on (see enhanced conversions). video views and engagements are diagnostics.

6. read it against meta on comparable columns

use the platform comparable conversion columns and the view-through columns, set the same conversion windows on both platforms, and compare on new-customer share. demand gen's job is reach beyond search; the 68% figure is the benchmark for "is it finding new people."

7. migrate display on purpose

use the migration tool before the auto-migration, add the required assets, check bidding and audiences carried over, and re-baseline cpa on the new billing model. do not compare pre- and post-migration cost per click as if the billing were the same.

8. calibrate with a holdout

view-through credit and new-reach claims are both platform numbers. a quarterly geo holdout on demand gen tells you what it caused (see incrementality testing).

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what to stop doing immediately

• stop running upgraded video action campaigns with video-only creative.
• stop treating the lookalike slider as a targeting wall.
• stop pruning channels before 30 days of per-surface data.
• stop uploading one landscape video to every surface.
• stop judging demand gen on last click next to brand search.
• stop bidding on views when the goal is conversions.
• stop comparing cost per click across the video action or display migration date.

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the orbit agent instructions

{
  "guide": "demand-gen-campaigns-setup",
  "agent_tasks": {
    "audit_creative_format_mix": {
      "check": "for each demand gen ad group, count active video assets by aspect ratio (9:16, 16:9, 1:1) and image or carousel assets",
      "flag": "any ad group with video only or image only, or no 9:16 video while shorts is enabled",
      "recommend": "add the missing format so each ad group carries vertical video, landscape or square video, and static images"
    },
    "audit_seed_and_acquisition_goal": {
      "check": "read each campaign's lookalike seed list size and refresh date, customer match exclusions, and whether the new customer acquisition goal is set",
      "flag": "a seed list older than 30 days or under 1,000 matched users, no exclusion of existing customers on prospecting, or no acquisition goal",
      "recommend": "refresh the buyer seed through data manager monthly, exclude existing customers, and set new customer value mode"
    },
    "audit_channel_controls_and_exclusions": {
      "check": "read channel selections per ad group, days of data and cost per conversion per surface, and brand safety exclusions",
      "flag": "surfaces excluded with fewer than 30 days of data, or no brand safety exclusions on youtube inventory",
      "recommend": "restore all channels until each has 30 days of data, and apply placement exclusions for brand safety separately"
    },
    "audit_bidding_and_conversion_signal": {
      "check": "read the bid strategy, monthly conversions, optimization event, and enhanced conversions status on each demand gen campaign",
      "flag": "target cpa or target roas under 30 conversions a month, an optimization event that is a view or engagement, or enhanced conversions off on the primary action",
      "recommend": "bid maximize conversions until 30 a month, optimize on the primary conversion, and enable enhanced conversions"
    },
    "audit_migrations": {
      "check": "list any remaining video action campaigns and standalone display campaigns, their end dates, and migrated campaigns missing required assets such as logos",
      "flag": "any unmigrated display campaign after the migration tool is available, or a migrated campaign missing assets or with bidding that did not carry over",
      "recommend": "run the migration tool, add required assets, verify bidding and audiences, and re-baseline cpa on the new billing model"
    },
    "compare_on_platform_comparable_columns": {
      "check": "monthly, read platform comparable conversions, view-through conversions, new customer share, and cost per new customer for demand gen and for meta prospecting with matched windows",
      "flag": "new customer share below 50 percent on a prospecting campaign, windows that differ between platforms, or no geo holdout on demand gen in 180 days",
      "recommend": "align windows, report the comparable columns side by side, and schedule a holdout to calibrate view-through credit"
    }
  }
}

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the bottom line

demand gen is where youtube, shorts, discover, gmail, and display live now. give it every format in every ad group, a fresh buyer seed, the real conversion as the bid target, all channels until the data says otherwise, and read it on the comparable columns and a holdout rather than last click.

the campaign type consolidated. the discipline is the same one meta taught: feed the model different creative and a clean signal, then let it find the people.

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built by orbit - the performance marketing intelligence layer. questions? jose@orbitllm.com