A Demand Gen campaign is the Google Ads campaign type built for people who are not searching yet. It shows image, carousel and video ads in the places people scroll rather than search: YouTube (including Shorts and the home feed), the Google Discover feed on Android and the Google app, the Promotions and Social tabs in Gmail and, depending on how the campaign is set, Google’s display partners. I plan, build and manage Demand Gen campaigns for UK businesses that have something worth showing and want new customers beyond the people already typing their product into Google.
What Demand Gen does that a search campaign cannot
A search campaign waits for someone to type a query. That is efficient, but it limits you to people who already know they want what you sell. Demand Gen goes to people earlier: someone watching a renovation video on YouTube, reading articles in Discover or clearing their Gmail Promotions tab. They were not looking for you, so the ad has to earn their attention with a picture, a short video and a clear reason to care.
Google introduced Demand Gen as the replacement for Discovery campaigns, which were upgraded automatically, and has since moved video campaigns that were chasing conversions into it as well. If your account had a Discovery campaign, you probably have a Demand Gen campaign now, whether or not anyone chose its settings.
Run with care, it brings new people to your brand in feeds they already use. Audiences are built from your own customers, so Google looks for people who resemble buyers rather than people who click on anything. And the campaign is judged on enquiries and sales recorded on your site, not on views or impressions.
Who Demand Gen suits, and who it does not
It suits businesses with a product or service that looks good on a phone screen and a buying decision that takes more than one visit: furniture and homeware, fashion, holidays and experiences, courses and training, home improvement, subscriptions and online shops with a product feed. It also suits businesses whose search campaigns have hit a ceiling, where spending more on the same keywords only pushes up the cost per click.
It is a poor fit if you have no images or video and no way to get them, because the format depends on creative. It is also the wrong place to start for urgent, need-it-now services such as emergency plumbing or locksmiths: those customers search, and a well-run Google search campaign will serve you better. And if conversion tracking is not yet reliable, I would fix that first, since Demand Gen bidding learns from the conversions it is fed.
What the work covers
Audiences
The strongest Demand Gen audiences start from your own data. A Customer Match list of past buyers can seed a lookalike segment, which asks Google to find people who behave like them. I add custom segments built from the search terms and competitor sites your buyers use, then exclude existing customers where the goal is new business. Under UK GDPR, a customer list can only be uploaded if your privacy notice covers it and you have a lawful basis for that use, so I check this before any list leaves your CRM. Google also expects consent mode to be in place for UK users before it uses their data for personalised advertising.
Creative
Each ad needs images in landscape, square and portrait formats, headlines, descriptions and, ideally, short video in both horizontal and vertical versions so it fits YouTube, Shorts and Discover. The opening seconds of a video and the first image in a carousel do most of the work. Studio production is rarely necessary; clear product shots and a person explaining the offer to camera often hold attention better in a feed. I write the copy, brief or edit the assets with you, and plan a regular refresh so the campaign does not go stale after a few weeks.
Product feed
For online shops, Demand Gen can pull products from Google Merchant Center and show them as a scrolling row of items under an image or video. That only works as well as the product feed behind it: accurate titles, good images, correct prices and stock. I check the feed and group products so the campaign shows the lines you most want to sell.
Bidding and budgets
Most campaigns start on a conversion-focused strategy so Google can learn which people act, then move to a target cost per acquisition or a return-on-spend target once there is enough data. The budget has to be large enough for the campaign to record conversions every week; spread too thinly, it never leaves the learning phase. I separate campaigns by goal (prospecting new people, or re-engaging past visitors) so one does not quietly take credit for the other.
Measurement
Demand Gen reports include view-through conversions, where someone saw an ad, did not click and bought later. Some of those sales would have happened anyway. I report click-based and view-based results separately, compare them with GA4 and your CRM, and where the budget allows I suggest a holdout or lift test to see how many sales the campaign truly added.
How I build a Demand Gen campaign
- Check tracking and consent. I confirm that enquiries and sales are recorded once, with the right value, and that the cookie banner and consent mode send the correct signals. My guide to checking that conversion tracking works shows the kind of test I run.
- Agree the goal and the number that counts. A cost per lead, a cost per first order or a return on ad spend, set against what a customer is worth to you.
- Build audiences and exclusions. Seed lists, custom segments and the customers to leave out.
- Prepare creative. Images, video and copy in every format the placements need, with two or three distinct angles to test.
- Launch with controls. Channel settings, locations, content exclusions and a budget sized for learning.
- Leave it alone while it learns. Changing bids or audiences every few days resets the learning.
- Review, refresh and scale. Weekly checks, new creative before the old set tires, and budget increases only when the cost per result holds.
Problems I see most often in UK accounts
- Former Discovery campaigns that were upgraded automatically and never revisited, still running old images and broad settings.
- Success measured on platform conversions that include view-through sales, so the campaign looks far better in Google Ads than in the bank account.
- Lookalike seed lists built from an old mailing list with no clear lawful basis for advertising use.
- One set of images left running for months while results slide.
- Ads that promise one thing and send people to a generic home page. A dedicated landing page built for paid traffic usually does more for results than any bid change.
- Demand Gen and Performance Max promoting the same products with no plan for which one does what.
Where Demand Gen fits with the rest of the account
Think of it as the stage between awareness and search. Search catches people who are ready to buy. Performance Max campaigns spread one budget across every Google channel, search included, which makes them hard to read; Demand Gen gives you more say over audiences and creative in the visual placements. A YouTube video advertising campaign built for reach or views suits brand awareness, while Demand Gen is aimed at clicks and conversions.
Many UK businesses weigh Demand Gen against Facebook and Instagram advertising, since both put visual ads in a feed. They reach different moments in someone’s day, and the same creative can often be adapted for both. When I look after a whole account through monthly PPC management, Demand Gen is one part of a plan, not a campaign run in isolation.
What you receive
- A short written plan: goal, audiences, budget and how success will be measured.
- Campaign build, including ad copy and creative briefs in every format the placements use.
- A tracking and consent check, with fixes listed in order of priority.
- Reports in plain English, at an interval agreed before work starts, that separate click-based from view-based results and say what I changed and why.
Next step
Before we speak, it helps to know the most you can pay for a customer and still make money. The break-even ROAS calculator works that out in a minute. Fees depend on the number of campaigns and how much creative work is needed, and each quote is written in GBP and agreed in writing before work starts. Book a call and tell me what you sell, what you spend on Google now and what you want to change; I will tell you plainly whether Demand Gen is worth testing.