Ads Decoded How to Drive Performance with Demand Gen
Sep 3, 2025
Sarah Hathramani, who leads Demand Gen product development at Google, shares how Demand Gen shifted from discovery to driving performance. She covers inventory expansion across YouTube, Discover, Gmail and Display. She discusses creative reuse and trimming tools, the impact of Merchant Center feeds on conversions, optimized targeting and Target CPC bidding for like-for-like social comparisons.
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Demand Gen Shifted To Product‑Centered Matching
- Demand Gen evolved from mid-funnel discovery to performance by matching users to products they’re likely to buy rather than matching users to ads.
- Google predicts motivations and finds any advertiser with those products, enabling discovery of smaller retailers relevant to purchase intent.
Add Display And Use Channel Controls
- Test adding Display Network to Demand Gen campaigns to gain more placements and performance levers.
- Use channel controls to run YouTube-only or YouTube-plus-Display so creatives can be tailored to each inventory like Gmail or Discover.
Lift And Adapt Social Creatives Immediately
- Start Demand Gen with your best social creatives now; you don't need perfect purpose-built video.
- Use built-in trimming and flipping tools to adapt landscape video to vertical Shorts or shorter lengths and control automated edits.