Video Action Campaigns are being upgraded to Demand Gen

Demand Gen is replacing Video Action Campaigns (VAC)*. With Demand Gen, advertisers are able to seek inspiration, conduct research, and make online purchase decisions on the most browse surfaces across YouTube and Google. On average, advertisers who run video ads with Demand Gen saw similar conversions to their Video Action Campaigns at a similar cost per action. ¹ And by adopting a multi-format strategy, you’ll drive even better performance. Advertisers who uploaded video and image assets to Demand Gen saw 20% more conversionsat the same cost per action than those who uploaded video assets only ² .

Key dates:

• April 2025: The option to create new Video Action Campaigns will be removed from Google Ads.
• Starting in July 2025: Existing Video Action Campaigns will be upgraded to Demand Gen campaigns automatically. For more details, refer to campaigns upgrading to Demand Gen section.

Learn more in the Google Blog post about this update.

¹ Google internal data, Global, July 2024, YouTube and GVP inventory only, Google Ads.

² Google internal data, Global, Jan 2024 through Feb 2024

On this page

• How are Demand Gen and Video Action Campaigns different?
  • Features you gain by upgrading to Demand Gen
  • Feature comparison
• How to update to Demand Gen
  • Copy and paste tool
  • Migration tool
• Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

How are Demand Gen and Video Action Campaigns different

Campaigns upgrading to Demand Gen will retain many of the settings you’re familiar with in Video Action Campaigns, but benefit from added features. There is also an added benefit to performance that can come from a Demand Gen campaign’s ability to optimize performance across these added dimensions with automated smart bidding.

Demand Gen inventoryis expanded from YouTube to also include Discover, Gmail, and Google Display Network.

Where Ads Show?	* Discover	Gmail	YouTube	YouTube Shorts	Google Display Network
Demand Gen
Video Action Campaigns

*Discover Feed is a feature unique to mobile devices. Users can read a feed of articles surfaced to them based on their interests. On Android, users access it by scrolling left from their home screen. On iPhones it is on the iOS Google App.

Demand Gen Ad formatsare expanded to include Image. Learn More about Demand Gen campaign asset specs and best practices .

Ad Formats	Instream video	In-feed video	Shorts video	In-feed image	Shorts image
Demand Gen
Video Action Campaigns

Features you gain by upgrading to Demand Gen

Creatives

• Creative preferences: Creative preferences allow you to anchor a video asset to a particular format within your Demand Gen ad.

• Creative A/B experiments: Demand Gen experiments allow advertisers to test the effectiveness of cross channel creative, including both image and video, by creating a head-to-head test in a clean experiment environment that ensures users are randomly assigned to isolated groups.
• Text prompt AI generated images: Easily create custom image assets with generative AI, you can create new and original image assets in just a few clicks. If you have existing images that perform well, you can generate similar options.

Campaign settings

• Lookalike segments: Lookalike segments are groups of people that share characteristics with others on an existing “seed” list. You’ll provide the seed list using your first-party data, including a customer match list or a list of people who’ve interacted with your website and app, or YouTube channel. We’ll then use this information to find other potential customers with similar characteristics.
• Maximize Clicks Bid Strategy: Max Clicks bidding strategy is a great option for someone who wants to run Demand Gen but doesn’t have conversion goals set up in their account.
• Language and Location settings are available at the campaign and ad group level: Advertisers may choose between setting their location/language settings at the ad group or campaign level based on their needs. Having these settings at the ad group level allows for easier budget fluidity between your targeted locations if that’s of value to you. If not, you can still create separate campaigns for different locations to more strictly enforce how budgets are allocated across locations. Please note, once you choose if you want your setting at the ad group level or campaign level, you can’t change it once the campaign is set live. Note that Radius or ‘Proximity’ targeting is still available in Demand Gen, but only at the campaign level.

Reporting

• Format segmentation reporting: Gather additional transparency to understand insights broken out at the format level – segmentation is broken out by In-Feed (inclusive of Discover Feed, Gmail, YouTube Home Feed, YouTube Watch Next, and YouTube Search), Skippable In-Stream, and Shorts.

Feature comparison

Green text indicates a feature you gain in Demand Gen, red text indicates a feature not available in Demand Gen.

How to upgrade to Demand Gen

The path you take to upgrade depends on your account goals and circumstances, but you can proactively transition by shifting Video Action Campaign budget to your Demand Gen campaigns, or creating new Demand Gen campaigns that mirror the strategy and organization of how your Video Action Campaigns are set up.

There are three ways that you can approach the transition from Video Action Campaigns to Demand Gen:

1. Transition your budgets manually: Once you are ready to start moving budgets over to Demand Gen, you can decrease the budgets on your Video Action Campaign while proportionally increasing your budgets on your Demand Gen campaign.
2. Use copy and paste : Use copy and paste to create a copy of your existing Video Action Campaign, and paste it as a brand new Demand Gen campaign, carrying over existing settings.
3. Use the migration tool (available starting Q1 2025): We’ll take learning from your previous Video Action Campaign and apply them to your new Demand Gen campaign to minimize the learning period. Using this tool will disable your previous Video Action Campaigns but they will remain visible in your account for reporting purposes. If you plan to transition as video only without leveraging new Demand Gen features, use the migration tool to transform your Video Action Campaign into a Demand Gen campaign.

Copy and paste and migration tool

In Google Ads, you can replicate existing campaigns and convert them to Demand Gen using a copy and paste option that builds on to the existing campaign copy and paste workflow . This option will only show up if the selected campaigns are Video Action Campaigns.

You'll have to add your logo and business name during the process, since these are Demand Gen settings that Video Action Campaigns don't have. Logo and business name will be pre-populated based on existing Demand Gen, Performance Max, or other ads campaigns.

How to copy an existing campaign and paste as a new Demand Gen campaign

1. Go to Campaigns within the Campaignsiconmenu.
2. Select the Video Action Campaign you want to copy.
3. Select the Editmenu, then select Copy.
4. Select the Editmenu again, then select Paste. You’ll then find checkboxes with paste options.
5. Select the upgrade option to change your selected campaigns to Demand Gen.
6. Choose to Copy campaigns to Demand Genor Migrate campaigns to Demand Gen.
   • Copy campaigns to Demand Gen: Your existing campaigns remain unchanged.
   • Migrate campaigns to Demand Gen:
     • Your Video Action Campaign will show a "Removed" status. You will still see it in your account and campaign level historical reporting will be retained.
     • A new Demand Gen campaign will be created. This campaign will inherit most of the settings from the previous Video Action Campaign and will retain some of the performance data associated with the former Video Action Campaign to help you maintain performance.
7. Set your Business name.
8. Select theedit logo to set your campaign logo. You can choose your logo in 3 ways:
   • Upload: Upload your own file.
   • Website or social: Enter your URL. We’ll scan your website for images that meet our size requirements.
   • Asset library: Choose your preferred logo from the asset library.
9. Select your desired image and select Save.
10. Choose which ad channels your campaign is eligible to run on. You can choose YouTube, or All Google channelsto run on YouTube as well as Gmail, Discover Feed, and the Google Display Network (GDN) (Note that the Google Video Partners channel is a subset of the GDN.) You can edit this selection in the campaign settings after the new campaign is created.
11. To finish, select Paste.

Once you paste, you can navigate to your campaign and also add features that are unique to Demand Gen, such as Lookalike audiences or video and image together in one campaign.

Budget and spend considerations when migrating your campaigns

If you use a daily budget

Be mindful of partial day’s spend when you’re migrating. One day might slightly throw off your pacing against your spend goal.

If you use a total budget

Ideally wait for the flight to end and run Demand Gen for your next flight. If you choose to migrate mid-flight, budget already spent in your Video Action Campaign would not be accounted for in the new Demand Gen campaign.

What to expect as your campaigns are upgraded to Demand Gen

Starting at the end of July through September, any accounts with a Video action campaign spend within 2025 will have all their Video action campaigns upgraded to Demand Gen. If a given account has not spent on any Video action campaigns in 2025, we will remove all Video action campaigns in the account. Note that these campaigns will still retain historical data for reporting purposes.

Campaigns will be auto upgraded in batches in September. If you would like to avoid auto upgrading we recommend self-upgrading using the migration tool mentioned above to ensure full creative control.

Campaign defaults

Demand Gen campaigns have different features than Video action campaigns. This means some features you used in Video action campaigns may no longer be available, and new features will be introduced. Below is a high-level overview of how features will be handled during migration:

• Features unavailable in Demand Gen: This functionality will be unavailable post-migration.
• Existing features in Demand Gen: Your settings for these features will stay the same.
• Current features in Demand Gen with expanded functionality: Your settings will default to the closest equivalent from your previous campaign. For example, If a Video action campaign setting (like setting X) previously had choices “1” and “2”, then in Demand Gen, setting X now offers “1, 2, 3, 4, 5”. Your migrated campaign will default to “1” and “2”.
• New features: By default your campaign will be opted out of this new setting. You will have to turn it on to opt-in (recommended).

Confirm campaign updates

Updated campaigns will have the naming convention “[Original campaign name] #2” and will be the Demand Gen campaign type. This should be one way to verify. Additionally, labels can help you confirm in the campaigns table:

1. Go to Campaigns within the Campaignsmenu.
2. Select the Columnsiconabove the campaigns table.
3. Select Modify columns.
4. Select the All columnsdrop-down.
5. Check the box next to Label within the "Attributes" drop-down. (You can drag the columns up on the right hand panel so the "Labels" column appears on the left hand side in your campaigns table.)
6. Select Apply.
7. Select Add filterin the campaigns table.
8. Select Labelwithin the Attributes drop down.
9. You will view 2 different types of labels related to this update:
   1. "Pasted as Demand Gen"
   2. "Pasted as Demand Gen on [Date]"

Errors in copied campaigns

There are a few rare cases that can lead to errors (view Migration Tool Troubleshooting section to understand the errors and self-troubleshoot). Our teams are investigating ways to resolve the errors in bulk to avoid disruptions to your campaigns. However, if it’s urgent that your copied campaign starts serving, we suggest self-upgrading and creating new campaigns with the migration tool.

Shared budgets and Demand Gen upgrade

Video action campaigns utilize shared budgets, a feature that is unavailable in Demand Gen. Understand how the system handles your campaign's budget when it undergoes this upgrade (for example, you have one or more Video action campaigns sharing a budget):

1. All your Video action campaigns will be recreated as Demand Gen campaigns.
2. Your new Demand Gen campaign will retain the shared budget in your campaign settings. However, since shared budgets are incompatible with Demand Gen, you may view a “Status: Bid strategy misconfigured” message for your campaign.
3. Your campaigns will respect the spend cap across them, but from a pacing perspective it will be as if they aren’t sharing the budget across campaigns (they will pace as if they’re an independent campaign, and not sharing a budget with the other campaign).
4. If you remove the shared budget (recommended), the campaign will revert to pacing as if it were a standard campaign without a shared budget. Note that once you revert the budget type, you can't switch it back to a shared budget (not recommended since it’s an incompatible feature in Demand Gen).

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)