Google Demand Gen in 2026: what changes for Gulf advertisers

Demand Gen is Google's campaign type for reaching people before they search. It runs on YouTube, including Shorts and TV screens, in Discover, in Gmail and across Google's display network. In 2026 it became the centre of Google's advertising outside search. Video action campaigns had been upgraded into it by April 2026, Display campaigns are now being moved in, and Google has shipped updates to it every month. If your business advertises on Google beyond search, this is where the budget is heading.

Display campaigns are moving across

On 26 May 2026 Google announced that standalone Display campaigns will move into Demand Gen, with the move expected to finish by 2027. Its help page sets out the order: a migration tool from June 2026, then no new standalone Display campaigns, then automatic migration of whatever is left. Google has not dated the last two steps. The claim that Display ends in January 2027 comes from blogs, not from Google.

What survives the move, and what does not:

• A migrated campaign keeps 42 days of performance history.
• Manual CPC, viewable CPM, paying for conversions and bid adjustments are removed. Target CPA, maximise conversions, maximise conversion value, target ROAS, maximise clicks and target CPC remain.
• Click-to-call and lead form assets, shared budgets and legacy dynamic feeds are not supported, and need replacing before you migrate.
• The display network is switched on by default and cannot be deselected during migration.
• Old campaigns are set to removed and kept for reporting for up to five years.

Google says, from its own data, that advertisers who add the display network to Demand Gen see a 9.5 percent increase in return on investment. In practice it means less control: no manual bids, and inventory decisions shared with Google's AI. Move the smaller campaigns first, compare the results, and replace unsupported assets before Google does it for you.

What arrived at Google Marketing Live

Google Marketing Live, on 20 May 2026, added the following:

• Google Maps became a Demand Gen placement, in the browse, directions and place details views, and advertisers can opt in or out.
• Product videos: videos uploaded to Merchant Center are served with product feeds, removing the old limit of five videos. Despite some coverage, they are not generated from the catalogue.
• Product feeds reached more surfaces and more verticals, automotive among them. Google says adopting product feeds brings a 33 percent increase in conversions.
• Settings can be copied from an existing Performance Max campaign in one click.
• Creator videos arrived in the asset picker, and new measurement lets uplift experiments measure Demand Gen and Performance Max together.

A year of monthly updates

• January: shoppable ads on connected TVs became generally available, and branded searches driven by Demand Gen are now attributed to it.
• March: Veo in Google Ads, which makes video variations from still images; a YouTube engagements goal; and optimisation for follow-on views.
• April: optimisation for view-through conversions.
• June: automatic changes of aspect ratio, creative insights from Gemini, and web-to-app measurement.
• July: checkout links in nine more markets, and an upgraded target ROAS.
• August: a test that lets viewers start a conversation with the brand in a messaging app from a Demand Gen ad, and multimodal video creation in Asset Studio, now generally available.

Not in the Gulf yet

Checkout links, which let people buy directly from an ad, expanded in July to Switzerland, Australia, South Korea, Indonesia, Mexico, France, Poland, Israel and Argentina. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are not on that list. Google has not said which messaging apps or markets are in the August test, and Asset Studio's multimodal video creation launched in English.

What to do next

• List every Display campaign, note which use manual bidding or unsupported assets, and plan the migration before Google automates it.
• Supply Demand Gen video in horizontal, square and vertical shapes so it can serve on YouTube, Shorts and TV screens.
• If you sell online, connect a product feed and upload product videos to Merchant Center.
• Measure over a longer window than search campaigns, looking at branded search lift and view-through conversions, since Demand Gen reaches people before they are ready to buy.
• Tag every link with consistent UTM parameters, so your analytics can see what Demand Gen drove.

If you still have Display campaigns running and would rather plan the move to Demand Gen than wait for Google to make it, talk to ALXO about your account.