April 2025 marked the sunset of Google Discovery campaigns and the sunrise of Demand Gen. The new campaign type kept the inventory (YouTube Home Feed, Discover, Gmail) but added AI-powered features: lookalike segments based on first-party data, video-to-image creative generation, and lookalike targeting from seed audiences.
For a real estate client, Demand Gen lookalike segments found audiences with 2.3X higher intent than traditional affinity audiences.
The video-to-image feature was particularly useful — it automatically extracted key frames from video ads and created static image variations for placements that did not support video. One video ad generated 12 image variations, each performing differently across placements.
The reporting also improved: placement-level performance data showed exactly which YouTube channels and Discover feeds were driving results.
The transition from Discovery was not seamless — some campaigns saw 15-20% performance fluctuation in the first two weeks. Our migration strategy: run both campaign types in parallel for 30 days before fully switching.
