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Demand Gen gets promotion assets

Google's Demand Gen help page now lists promotion assets, which put discount tags on YouTube Shorts and in-stream ads. Only campaigns with a Merchant Center product feed qualify.

Jerry Quin2 min read2 sources

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The short answer

What changed

Demand Gen campaigns run ads across YouTube (including Shorts), Discover, Gmail, Maps and the Google Display Network. Google's About Demand Gen campaigns page now says: "Add promotion assets to your campaign to feature discount tags on YouTube Shorts and in-stream formats when using a Google Merchant Center product feed."

Who has it

Only Demand Gen campaigns that use a Google Merchant Center product feed. The page doesn't give a date, say whether it's rolling out gradually, or name other placements.

What I'd do this week

Advice, not from Google: if you run feed-based Demand Gen into a holiday sale, look for promotion assets in those campaigns now and match the asset's dates to the sale. Details below.

What the page says now

A promotion asset highlights "your sales and promotions for people that are searching for the best deals your business has to offer." Google already uses them on Search text ads and on YouTube Shorts and in-stream video ads.

The Demand Gen page now mentions them in several places. The frequently asked questions read: "Sitelink extensions and promotion assets are available for Demand Gen campaigns." Next to that: "YouTube Shorts and YouTube In-stream ad formats are eligible for promotion assets." And the comparison table lists "Promotion assets (YouTube Shorts and YouTube In-stream)" under Demand Gen creative assets.

The catch: you need a feed

The page answers its own question, "Are promotion assets available for all Demand Gen campaigns?", with: "No, this feature will only be available for Demand Gen campaigns that use a product feed from Google Merchant Center."

So a Demand Gen campaign built only from images and videos, with no product feed attached, doesn't qualify.

What the pages don't cover

The Demand Gen page names only Shorts and in-stream. It doesn't mention Discover, Gmail, the Display Network or YouTube in-feed for promotion assets.

Google's About promotion assets page describes the special occasion label showing "below your Performance Max Shorts and In-stream surfaces on YouTube" and doesn't mention Demand Gen. Neither page gives a launch date.

One limit carries over from the promotion assets page: "QR code and Barcode promotions don't serve on Search, Shorts, or In-stream video ads."

What I'd do this week

This is my advice, not Google's.

List your Demand Gen campaigns and check which ones have a Merchant Center feed attached. Those are the only ones this applies to.

If you have a sale coming, open one of those campaigns and look for promotion assets. If the option is there, add one with start and end dates that match the sale, so the discount tag doesn't keep running after the offer ends.

Check that the offer in the asset matches what's on the site and in the feed. A discount tag on a video that the landing page doesn't honor is a fast way to lose the click.

If you don't see the option yet, don't build a plan around it. The page doesn't say every account has it today.

Jerry Quin

Jerry Quin is the pen name of a paid media practitioner who has managed Google Ads accounts at an agency for 10 years. He writes about Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, ChatGPT Ads, and the rest of paid media and digital marketing, from what's rolling out to what he'd actually do about it.

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