Google Discovery ads are now Demand Gen: what changed and how to use them

Editor's note: Google retired Discovery campaigns in March 2024 and automatically upgraded them to Demand Gen. This article has been rewritten to cover the current format.

Discovery ads no longer exist as a campaign type. Google launched Demand Gen as their replacement in 2023, finished migrating every Discovery campaign by March 2024, and has kept expanding the format since. If you're searching for how Discovery ads work, Demand Gen is the answer to your actual question.

The core idea survived the rebrand. These are visual, feed-native ads that reach people while they browse rather than while they search. What changed is nearly everything around that idea.

Where Demand Gen ads appear

Discovery ads ran in three placements: the Discover feed in the Google app, the Gmail promotions and social tabs, and the YouTube home feed.

Demand Gen kept all three and added YouTube Shorts, YouTube in-stream, and YouTube search results. That YouTube expansion is the headline: the format now runs video and image ads across every major Google surface except classic search text ads.

What Demand Gen does that Discovery couldn't

Video. Discovery was image-only. Demand Gen runs video in-feed, in-stream, and on Shorts, which matters for any organization with story-driven creative.

Carousels. Multi-image carousel cards, familiar from Meta, now run across Google surfaces.

Lookalike audiences. Demand Gen brought lookalike segments to Google, built from your first-party lists. Google had retired similar audiences elsewhere, so this is the main place lookalikes still exist in Google Ads.

More bidding control. Discovery offered conversion-focused bidding only. Demand Gen adds maximize clicks, which gives awareness-stage campaigns a sensible objective that Discovery never had.

Google has kept folding formats into Demand Gen since launch. Video Action campaigns merged in during 2025, and Google began moving standalone Display campaigns into Demand Gen in June 2026. The direction is clear: this is becoming Google's single home for visual, feed-based advertising.

Demand Gen vs. Performance Max

The two formats get confused because both use Google's AI and both run across multiple surfaces. The difference is control and intent.

Performance Max is goal-driven automation across all of Google, including search. You give it assets and a conversion goal, and it decides everything else, including where ads run. Reporting on what worked stays limited.

Demand Gen is placement-specific. You know your ads run in feeds on YouTube, Discover, and Gmail, and you choose the audiences. It behaves like a social advertising channel inside Google, which makes it the better fit when you want feed-style ads with more visibility into where your budget goes.

Run Performance Max when you want maximum automated conversion volume and can live with limited transparency. Run Demand Gen when awareness and mid-funnel engagement are the goal, or when your reporting requirements demand knowing where ads appeared.

How to set up a Demand Gen campaign

1. In Google Ads, create a new campaign and choose your objective, or select "Create a campaign without a goal's guidance" for more control. 2. Select Demand Gen as the campaign type. 3. Set budget and bidding: maximize conversions, maximize conversion value, or maximize clicks. 4. Build your audience from first-party segments, lookalikes, custom segments, or Google's interest categories. 5. Upload creative: images, videos, carousels, headlines, and descriptions. Give the system real variety, since it assembles combinations per placement. 6. Set up conversion tracking before launch, even for awareness campaigns. You'll want the data later. 7. Launch, then leave it alone long enough to learn. Demand Gen needs a few weeks of data before performance judgments mean anything.

Tips for getting results from Demand Gen

Feed your first-party data in. Lookalikes built from donor files, alumni lists, or patient inquiry lists outperform interest targeting for most mission-driven organizations we work with.

Make creative for the placement. A vertical video that works on Shorts dies in a Gmail feed. Upload formats for each surface rather than letting Google crop one asset everywhere.

Judge it as a mid-funnel channel. Demand Gen reaches people who weren't searching for you. Measured on last-click conversions alone it will look weaker than search, and that comparison misses the point. Watch assisted conversions and branded search lift.

Exclude what you can't defend. Review placement reports and content exclusions regularly, especially for healthcare and civic organizations with adjacency concerns.

Where this fits in a media plan

Demand Gen works as the awareness and consideration layer that feeds your search and remarketing campaigns. For organizations that already run paid social, it extends the same creative approach into Google's feeds with different reach.

Cordelia Labs plans and manages Demand Gen alongside search, social, and programmatic for organizations that have to justify every placement. If you're deciding whether the format belongs in your mix, schedule a performance audit and we'll look at your account together.