Google Display Ads moving to Demand Gen: timeline and migration

By Piyush Sachdeva · Performance marketer. Founder of Performance Marketing News and Social Masla. · Drafted with AI assistance and checked against the linked official sources.

Published Oct 14, 2026Announced May 26, 2026Last verified Oct 14, 2026

Google is folding standalone Display campaigns into Demand Gen, where the Google Display Network becomes one channel alongside YouTube, Discover and Gmail. Announced on 26 May 2026, the change runs in phases: a migration tool for voluntary moves has been rolling out since June, new Display campaigns will at a later date be creatable only in Demand Gen, remaining eligible campaigns will then migrate automatically, and Google expects the transition to complete by 2027. Migration carries over settings, budgets and 42 days of performance history, cannot be reverted, and is blocked by a specific list of features.

Key facts
Platform	Google Ads
Feature	Google Display campaigns migration to Demand Gen
Announced	May 26, 2026
Status	Rolling out
Where available	Migration tool in phased rollout since June 2026 for eligible advertisers, under Campaigns › Edit › Upgrade to Demand Gen. Google gives no date for the end of new Display campaign creation or for automatic migration, and says the transition is expected to complete by 2027.
Who is affected	Every advertiser running Google Display campaigns, especially those using manual CPC, viewable-impression bidding, pay-for-conversions, shared budgets, bid adjustments, portfolio bidding, lead form assets or uploaded HTML5 ads.
Action needed	Required planning. List your Display campaigns and check them against Google’s blocker and unsupported-feature lists. Migrate voluntarily on your own schedule, one campaign at a time, outside any active lift study. Migration cannot be reverted.
Sources	Google Ads & Commerce blog: Google Display Ads is migrating to Demand Gen · Google Ads Help: Google Display Ads campaigns have a new home in Demand Gen · Google Ads Help: Google Display Network integration with Demand Gen · Google Ads Help: About Demand Gen campaigns

What changed

Demand Gen is Google’s campaign type for visual placements, combining image and video assets with audience targeting across YouTube including Shorts, Discover, Gmail and, since April 2025, the Google Display Network’s image inventory. Google Video Partners inside Demand Gen was renamed to the Google Display Network, and the opt-in moved to the ad group level, where an “Include Google Display Network” checkbox sits in the Channels panel. The announcement says Display advertisers can still serve exclusively on the GDN, reaching audiences across two million sites, videos and apps, and gain channel controls and the features Google announced at Marketing Live. It attaches one figure: advertisers adding the GDN to Demand Gen campaigns see on average a 9.5% increase in ROI, footnoted “Google Internal Data, Global, Aug 2025,” plus a GoFood case of 24% lower CPA and 19% more conversions.

The migration help page is where the detail lives. The tool is under Campaigns › Campaigns: filter by campaign type Display, select campaigns, then Edit › Upgrade to Demand Gen, in batches of no more than 100. The new campaign is named “[Original name] #2,” labelled “Pasted as Demand Gen,” and verifiable under Tools › All bulk actions › View changed campaigns. What carries over: up to 42 days of performance history, which Google says cuts learning to about one or two days; settings and learning; the budget, though spend earlier on migration day is not counted; paused or enabled status; Target CPA, Maximise conversions, Maximise conversion value, Target ROAS and Maximise clicks bidding; lookalike, new-customer, Customer Match, remarketing, custom and contextual audiences; placement and topic exclusions. Logos and business names are pre-populated, with a placeholder logo if none exists. The original campaign is set to Removed and retained for reporting for five years. Ads are re-reviewed and may be disapproved.

Two lists decide whether a campaign can move. Blockers you must fix first: responsive display ads carrying old-format disclaimers, a missing logo, custom promo text or price prefixes, click-to-call assets, lead form assets, ad group bid modifiers, product filters, shared budgets, certain ad group exclusions, campaign-level content suitability exclusions, and opting out of native formats. Features not supported in Demand Gen, whose campaigns the tool simply skips: manual CPC, viewable-impression bidding, pay for conversions, bid adjustments, seasonality adjustments, portfolio bidding, combined audiences and non-demographic observation settings, hard targeting on household income and parental status, uploaded HTML5 and third-party ads, planned for late 2026, and Brand Lift or Search Lift on the GDN. Migrated campaigns have the GDN on by default and it cannot be deselected during migration; YouTube and Gmail can be added afterwards. Migration cannot be reverted. Google advises bid levels similar to the Display campaign, a conversion window above 28 days, bid changes limited to 15% with a week between them, and not migrating during an active lift study. The Demand Gen overview adds that daily budget allocation by channel is due later this year and that sensitive categories are generally not eligible for Gmail or the GDN.

Why it matters

This is the end of the Display campaign as a type, and it is bigger than the Video Action Campaign migration that preceded it, because Display is where a lot of older account structure lives. The two lists are the story. If your Display campaigns run on manual CPC, viewable CPM, pay-for-conversions or portfolio bidding, the tool will skip them, and when the forced phase arrives those campaigns will need rebuilding rather than migrating. Shared budgets, a default in many agency accounts, are a blocker. Lead form assets go. Hard income and parental targeting become hints.

Our view: do not wait for the automatic phase. Voluntary migration lets you pick the order, keep the 42-day history and run one campaign through re-approval before the rest. Treat the GDN-on-by-default behaviour as a feature, not a trap: it preserves what the campaign was doing, and you can widen to YouTube and Gmail later, ad group by ad group, once channel budget allocation ships. The 9.5% ROI figure is Google’s own, from August 2025, for adding GDN to existing Demand Gen campaigns; it says nothing about what happens to a migrated Display campaign.

What to do

In Campaigns › Campaigns, filter by campaign type Display and export the list with bid strategy, budget type, assets and audience settings.
Mark each campaign against the two lists: fix blockers such as shared budgets, lead form assets, promo text and bid modifiers; flag unsupported bidding such as manual CPC and pay-for-conversions for a rebuild as a new Demand Gen campaign.
Check for active Conversion Lift or Brand Lift studies and finish them before migrating the campaigns involved.
Migrate one representative campaign with Edit › Upgrade to Demand Gen, confirm it under Tools › All bulk actions, check that its ads are approved, and watch it for two weeks with bid changes held to 15%.
After migration, open each ad group’s Channels panel to confirm the GDN is the only channel on, then decide deliberately whether to add YouTube and Gmail.

Still unknown

Google gives no date for the end of new Display campaign creation or for automatic migration, and the May blog’s “by 2027” is the only completion marker. Support for uploaded HTML5 and third-party ads is “planned for late 2026” without a month. Channel-level daily budget allocation is “later this year.” We have not run the tool on an account; the one-campaign-first approach above is how we would start.

Frequently asked questions

When are Google Display campaigns moving to Demand Gen?

In phases. The migration tool began a phased rollout in June 2026 for voluntary moves. Google says new Display campaigns will later be creatable only in Demand Gen and remaining eligible campaigns will migrate automatically, without dates, and that the transition is expected to complete by 2027.

Can I keep my ads only on the Google Display Network after migrating?

Yes. Google says Display advertisers can still serve exclusively on the GDN inside Demand Gen. Migrated campaigns have the GDN channel on by default and it cannot be deselected during migration; YouTube and Gmail can be added afterwards per ad group.

What blocks the Display to Demand Gen migration?

Google lists items you must fix first: responsive display ads with old-format disclaimers, a missing logo, custom promo text or price prefixes, click-to-call assets, lead form assets, ad group bid modifiers, product filters, shared budgets, certain ad group exclusions and campaign-level content suitability exclusions. Campaigns using manual CPC, viewable impressions, pay for conversions, bid adjustments, seasonality adjustments or portfolio bidding are not migrated by the tool.

Can a migrated Display campaign be changed back?

No. Google’s help page says migrated campaigns cannot be reverted to Google Display Ads campaigns. The original campaign is set to Removed and kept for reporting for up to five years.

Official sources

Related coverage

Update history

Oct 14, 2026 — First coverage. Published five months after the announcement because the migration tool is now rolling out and the forced phases have no date yet.

Suggested checks are editorial guidance, not platform requirements. Every claim links to its official source. Report a correction →