Advertising & Paid Media
Demand Gen campaigns
Also known as: Demand Gen, Google Demand Gen, Demand Generation campaigns
Demand Gen is a Google Ads campaign type built for visually led prospecting across YouTube, Discover, Gmail and other Google feeds. Advertisers supply image, video and text assets plus audience signals, and Google's systems assemble and place ads to create interest before someone actively searches. It replaced Discovery campaigns and sits between upper funnel video and lower funnel search or shopping activity.
What it is
A Demand Gen campaign is a single campaign type that serves image and video creative across Google's feed and entertainment surfaces rather than the search results page. You upload a set of assets, choose audiences and a bidding goal, and the system decides which combination appears on which surface. It is designed for demand creation, so the buying intent of the audience is usually lower than in search campaigns.
Why it matters
Most discovery now starts before a query is typed, in feeds, short video and AI-assisted browsing, so brands need a way to be seen at that stage. Demand Gen gives paid teams access to those placements with conversion-oriented bidding rather than pure reach buying. It also creates the branded demand that later shows up as direct navigation, branded search and prompts that name your company.
How it works
Practitioners build asset groups with several aspect ratios of image and video, add headlines and descriptions, then layer in first party customer lists, lookalike segments and interest audiences as signals. Bidding is usually set to maximise conversions, conversion value or clicks, with product feeds attached for retail use cases. Reporting is reviewed by asset, audience and surface, and creative is refreshed regularly because feed audiences fatigue quickly.
When it applies
Use Demand Gen when you have enough creative volume and a clear conversion goal, and you want incremental reach beyond what search and shopping already capture. It applies most in launch, new market entry and categories where people do not yet know to search for your solution.
Examples
- A DTC skincare brand runs vertical video and lifestyle images to lookalike audiences built from its highest value customer list, measuring cost per first purchase.
- A B2B software firm uses Demand Gen to promote a webinar clip to interest audiences, then retargets viewers with search and LinkedIn ads.
- A car dealer group attaches a vehicle feed and runs in-feed image ads on Discover to drive test drive bookings in defined postcode areas.
How it is measured
- Cost per conversion and conversion value against the campaign goal
- Incremental unique reach and average frequency versus existing YouTube activity
- Asset level click through rate and view rate to guide creative refresh
- Lift in branded search volume and direct sessions during flight periods
Insights on Demand Gen campaigns
Related terms in Advertising & Paid Media
- AI-generated creativeAI-generated creative is ad and marketing creative produced or adapted using generative models, including images, video, voiceover, headlines and body copy. Teams use it to produce more variants, localise faster and test concepts that would be too costly to shoot. It still needs human direction, brand review and legal checks before it runs.
- Asset groupsAn asset group is the creative container inside a Google Performance Max or Demand Gen campaign, holding headlines, descriptions, images, logos, videos and audience signals. Google assembles ads from these assets and serves them across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps. Retail campaigns can tie an asset group to a specific set of products through listing groups.
- Brand safetyBrand safety is the practice of preventing advertising and brand content from appearing next to material that could damage reputation, such as violent, illegal or misleading content. Brand suitability is the related, narrower idea of matching placements to a specific brand's tolerance and values rather than a universal baseline. Both rely on exclusion lists, content classification and verification reporting.
- ChatGPT AdsChatGPT Ads refers to advertising placements inside OpenAI's ChatGPT. OpenAI has publicly signalled that advertising is part of its commercial plans and has been testing and building out ad capabilities, so the format details continue to change. For marketers it represents a possible new paid surface alongside organic visibility in AI assistants.
- ChatGPT Sponsored AgentsChatGPT Sponsored Agents is the name given to a paid placement format in which a brand's agent or assistant can be surfaced inside a ChatGPT conversation to help complete a task, such as booking, quoting or buying. It sits alongside other advertising formats OpenAI has discussed for ChatGPT, where commercial results are marked as sponsored rather than blended invisibly into answers. Availability, naming and mechanics are still moving, so treat any specification as provisional and check current OpenAI documentation before planning spend.
- Conversational advertisingConversational advertising is paid placement inside a dialogue, whether that is an AI assistant, a chatbot, a messaging app or a voice interface. Instead of a static creative next to content, the ad appears as a response, suggestion or handover at the point where the user has expressed intent. The defining features are turn-by-turn context, a disclosure label, and the option for the user to keep talking rather than click away.
Primary research · August 2026
How ChatGPT Shortlists Software Brands
An audit across 10 categories and 60 buying questions. I recorded what ChatGPT reads, throws away and links to when a buyer asks it which software to buy, and what that decides.
- 60
- Questions asked
- 10
- Software markets
- 2,680
- Results read
- 367
- Links shown
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