Google Announces New Discovery Ad Formats For Mobile Search And Native Placements Google Marketing Live

The Evolution From Discovery Ads To Demand Gen Campaigns

Google introduced Google Discovery Ads back in 2019 at Google Marketing Live, making them available worldwide shortly after. Around March 2024, these were phased out and replaced by Demand Gen campaigns, representing an evolution rather than a complete replacement. The core concept remained consistent: visually-driven advertisements that appear within content feeds rather than search results, targeting users based on their interests and engagement patterns across Google's ecosystem. LEARN: Explore how our cross-platform mobile development services can amplify your app marketing strategy

The transition to Demand Gen brought several significant upgrades that matter for mobile app developers. Google enhanced the visual capabilities of these advertisements while simultaneously improving targeting options for advertisers. The platform now supports richer imagery and video formats that showcase products and services more effectively on mobile screens. For cross-platform app developers, this means the ability to demonstrate app functionality through short video clips or carousel images that highlight key features across both iOS and Android platforms. These visual ad formats complement a broader digital marketing strategy that emphasizes discoverability across multiple touchpoints.

Key Points

The transition to Demand Gen brought several significant upgrades that matter for mobile app developers. Google enhanced the visual capabilities of these advertisements while simultaneously improving targeting options for advertisers. The platform now supports richer imagery and video formats that showcase products and services more effectively on mobile screens. For cross-platform app developers, this means the ability to demonstrate app functionality through short video clips or carousel images that highlight key features across both iOS and Android platforms.

• Visual-First Approach: Demand Gen prioritizes visual content over text-based advertising, appearing within content feeds alongside organic material. This visual-first nature means high-resolution images and video clips outperform traditional ad copy, making these formats particularly effective for demonstrating app functionality.
• Mobile-First Design: These formats are optimized for smartphone screens and on-the-go consumption patterns. Vertical formats receive priority in available screen space, and successful campaigns invest in mobile-specific creative assets that take full advantage of modern smartphone aspect ratios.
• Native Integration: Ads blend seamlessly with organic content across Google's ecosystem, appearing in Google Discover, YouTube home feed, YouTube Shorts, and Gmail. This native approach means advertisements feel less like interruptions and more like relevant content recommendations, resulting in higher engagement rates.

Native Placements Across Google's Mobile Ecosystem

Demand Gen campaigns serve across three primary surfaces, each offering unique advantages for mobile app advertising. Understanding how these placements function helps developers design campaigns that maximize reach while respecting the distinct user behaviors associated with each platform. These native advertising formats work alongside web development practices to create cohesive digital experiences that drive user engagement and conversions.

Google Discover

Google Discover serves as a primary distribution channel, offering access to users who have opted into receiving personalized content recommendations. The Discover feed appears on the Google app and mobile browser homepage, presenting a continuous stream of articles, videos, and content based on user interests, search history, and engagement patterns. For mobile app advertisers, this placement offers visibility during idle moments when users are exploring topics related to their industry or interests. The feed-based nature means advertisements appear alongside organic content recommendations, creating natural integration with user browsing behavior. Combined with strong search engine optimization, Discovery ads help capture users at multiple points in their buyer journey.

YouTube

YouTube represents a critical placement with advertisements appearing within the YouTube app's home feed and increasingly within YouTube Shorts. The visual nature of YouTube makes it particularly effective for demonstrating app functionality through video content. Cross-platform developers can create single video assets that perform effectively on both iOS and Android devices, reducing creative production costs while maintaining consistent messaging across platform segments. Video assets should capture attention within the first few seconds, as users scroll quickly through content feeds.

Gmail

Gmail advertisements appear within the promotional and social tabs, offering a unique contextual environment for reaching users during their email checking routines. These advertisements open in an expanded format that resembles email content, allowing for more detailed messaging without requiring users to navigate away from their current activity. For mobile apps with email-based user acquisition strategies, this placement offers direct pathways to app installation without friction. RELATED: Discover mobile advertising best practices for your cross-platform app

Campaign Structure And Setup Fundamentals

Creating a Demand Gen campaign follows a structured approach that begins with selecting the campaign type within Google Ads. Understanding this setup process enables mobile app developers to launch campaigns efficiently while avoiding common configuration mistakes. When combined with a comprehensive AI automation strategy, these ad formats become even more powerful for driving sustainable app growth.

Step 1: Campaign Creation

Advertisers navigate to the campaign creation flow, select "Leads" as the campaign goal, and then choose "Demand Gen" as the campaign subtype. This configuration serves advertisements across Discover, YouTube (including Shorts), and Gmail from a single campaign structure, simplifying management while maximizing reach across Google's mobile ecosystem. The unified approach eliminates the need to build separate campaigns for each placement surface.

Step 2: Bidding And Budget Configuration

Bidding and budget configuration requires careful consideration of campaign objectives. Maximize conversions represents the recommended starting point for most advertisers, with target CPA bidding becoming appropriate once stable conversion volume establishes reliable performance data. Channel controls allow advertisers to test surfaces individually, either focusing on YouTube alone to emphasize video performance or Discover for image-focused campaigns. This flexibility enables optimization based on observed results rather than assumptions about platform performance.

Step 3: Conversion Tracking Setup

Conversion tracking stands as a critical component of successful Demand Gen campaigns, particularly for mobile app advertisers. Setting up website lead conversion actions enables tracking of post-click activity, while enhanced conversions for leads improves match rates to offline outcomes. For advertisers closing leads in CRM systems, importing conversion data through Google's Data Manager ensures that automated bidding has access to outcome information.

Step 4: Audience Building

Audience building for Demand Gen campaigns leverages Google's first-party data capabilities. Loading customer lists enables remarketing to existing users while creating lookalike segments expands reach to prospects similar to best customers. Layering interests and intent signals provides additional refinement without overly restricting audience size. The balance between precision and scale often requires iterative testing to identify optimal audience configurations. LEARN MORE: Mobile app user acquisition strategies for cross-platform apps

Creative Best Practices For Mobile-First Advertising

Creative quality determines Discovery/Demand Gen campaign success more heavily than many other Google Ads formats. Since these advertisements appear within content feeds alongside organic content, they must compete for attention through visual impact rather than explicit positioning. Understanding mobile-specific creative requirements enables developers to create assets that capture attention effectively. These creative best practices align with broader web development best practices to ensure cohesive brand presentation across all digital touchpoints.

Mobile-First Visual Requirements

The mobile-first nature of these placements means vertical formats receive priority in available screen space. While horizontal imagery can work within certain ad formats, vertical and square formats take better advantage of mobile device aspect ratios. High-resolution images that clearly showcase products or services perform best, while cluttered backgrounds, excessive text, and awkward cropping undermine engagement potential. Successful Discovery/Demand Gen campaigns invest in mobile-specific creative assets that take full advantage of the vertical screen real estate available on modern smartphones.

Carousel And Video Options

Carousel formats enable multiple images within a single advertisement, allowing advertisers to showcase different product features, app screens, or value propositions without requiring users to click through immediately. For app developers, this format works exceptionally well for highlighting key features, demonstrating user flows, or showcasing different use cases. Video assets for YouTube placements should capture attention within the first few seconds, as users scroll quickly through content feeds. Short, impactful video clips demonstrating app functionality or highlighting key benefits perform better than lengthy explanatory content.

Asset Variety For Optimization

Asset variety enables Google's automated systems to optimize delivery based on observed performance. Providing multiple headline options, description variations, and image alternatives allows the algorithm to test combinations and identify high-performing variations. This testing occurs at the asset level rather than the ad level, meaning even individual elements within a single advertisement can be optimized independently based on real-world performance data. CONNECT: How our mobile development team creates app experiences optimized for advertising success

Audience Targeting And Optimization Strategies

Understanding how to effectively target and optimize Discovery/Demand Gen campaigns separates successful mobile app advertisers from those struggling to achieve meaningful results. The balance between automated targeting and manual control requires careful consideration based on campaign objectives. Effective audience targeting pairs naturally with search engine optimization to maximize overall digital visibility.

Optimized Targeting Considerations

Optimized targeting represents a powerful but potentially problematic feature within Demand Gen campaigns. Google's automated targeting can identify new audiences likely to convert based on patterns learned from existing campaign data, potentially expanding reach beyond initial audience specifications. However, advertisers focused purely on remarketing to existing customer lists may find this feature counterproductive, as it can introduce users who haven't previously engaged with the brand. Disabling optimized targeting requires explicit action within ad group settings, as it is enabled by default.

Lookalike Segment Strategy

Lookalike segments created from customer lists offer a middle ground between pure remarketing and fully automated targeting. These segments identify users with similar characteristics to existing customers while maintaining advertiser control over the similarity threshold. More similar lookalikes may convert at higher rates but offer limited scale, while broader lookalikes expand reach but may include less qualified prospects. The optimal balance depends on campaign objectives and available scale.

Optimization Timing

The timing of optimization decisions significantly impacts campaign learning and performance. Demand Gen campaigns require sufficient time--at least two weeks under most conditions--to gather data and allow bidding strategies to stabilize. Premature optimization based on limited data can lock campaigns into suboptimal configurations before patterns have fully emerged. Patience during the learning period, combined with close monitoring for obvious issues, typically produces better long-term results than aggressive early optimization. GUIDE: Mobile app analytics and performance tracking

Measuring Performance And Continuous Improvement

Performance measurement for Discovery/Demand Gen campaigns requires understanding the distinct nature of these ad formats compared to search advertising. While search campaigns capture users at moments of active intent, Discovery/Demand Gen formats influence users during discovery-mode browsing, building awareness and consideration that may not result in immediate conversion. For comprehensive performance tracking, integrate these campaigns with your AI automation workflows to streamline data analysis and optimization.

Key Performance Indicators

Key performance indicators for mobile app advertisers include view-through rates (indicating creative resonance with target audiences), engagement rates (measuring interaction with ad content), and eventually install rates and post-install engagement (tracking actual campaign outcomes). The relationship between these metrics provides insight into where campaigns succeed or struggle, enabling targeted improvements to specific funnel stages. Cross-platform analytics solutions can help track the full customer journey from Discovery ad impression through app install and first launch.

A/B Testing Approaches

A/B testing within Demand Gen campaigns enables systematic improvement of creative and audience approaches. Testing different visual styles, messaging emphasis, or audience targeting parameters generates data-driven insights that outperform intuition-based optimization. Google Ads provides experimental capabilities specifically designed for these testing scenarios, allowing controlled comparisons between campaign variations. Testing should focus on one variable at a time to isolate the impact of specific changes.

Ongoing Optimization

Continuous improvement in Discovery/Demand Gen campaigns involves both creative refresh and strategic refinement. Visual content can lose effectiveness over time as audiences become familiar with existing advertisements, necessitating periodic creative updates. Strategic refinement involves analyzing performance patterns across different placements, audience segments, and time periods to identify optimization opportunities within the campaign structure itself. EXPLORE: Our approach to mobile app development and growth

Sources

1. Search Engine Land - Google announces new discovery ad formats - Original 2019 GML announcement coverage detailing Discovery Ads, Gallery Ads, and Showcase Shopping ads

2. LeadsBridge - Google Discovery ads: A guide for businesses - Complete Demand Gen guide with setup steps and best practices for lead generation campaigns

3. Google Support - Demand Gen Campaigns - Official documentation on Demand Gen ad formats, requirements, and channel controls