Create a Demand Gen line item

Demand Gen line items are ideal for visually-appealing, multi-format ads served on Google’s top platforms and capture engagement across various Google platforms.

Prerequisites

To run Demand Gen line items you must first complete the initial setup for running YouTube & partners and Demand Gen line items, then enable Floodlight optimization for YouTube and YouTube auto-tagging.

Enable Floodlight optimization for YouTube: Floodlight optimization is an advertiser-level setting that applies to all new and existing YouTube & partners and Demand Gen line items within the advertiser.
Enable YouTube auto-tagging: Enable YouTube auto-tagging for your advertiser in Display & Video 360 Partner Settings to improve attribution signals for conversion measurement.

Create a Demand Gen line item in Display & Video 360

Step 1 of 3: Create a new line item

Demand Gen line items can only be created in insertion orders using automatic budget allocation if the insertion order exclusively contains Demand Gen line items. Insertion orders that contain Demand Gen and other line item types (including YouTube & partners line items) cannot use automatic budget allocation.

Start in an existing insertion order or create a new one. Demand Gen is available within insertion orders with “Conversions” or “Clicks” objectives, or insertion orders without objective. Learn more about insertion order objectives
In your insertion order, select New line item.
Select Demand Gen as the line item type.

Note: Demand Gen line items in Display & Video 360 do not support line item-level frequency caps, unlike other line item types such as YouTube video action, reach, or view line items. However, they will respect and increment frequency caps set at the campaign or insertion order level. This ensures that consistent frequency controls can be set for all inventory, including YouTube, Discover, Gmail and Google Display Network within Demand Gen line items.

Step 2 of 3: Enter your line item details

Optional: Use a targeting template to set pre-defined targeting settings.
Enter a Line item name.
Device targeting, and category exclusions are automatically set in the “Targeting” section. You can select Add targeting to set other line-item level targeting options. Additional types of targeting are available in the line item's ad groups.
Configure your line item's settings:
1. Pick custom flight dates or use the same dates as the line item's insertion order.
2. Enter the line item's budget and pacing settings. After you save the line item, you can't change between daily and flight, but you can update the budget amount.
3. In the Bid strategy section, initially choose either “maximize conversions”, “maximize clicks”, or “target CPA” as your bid strategy. If you choose “target CPA”, set your target bid. (Optional) Once you’ve collected enough conversions you can update the bid strategy to "maximize conversion value" or "target ROAS". Learn more about value based bidding strategies.
4. (Optional) Add a product feed to your line item to show browsable product imagery below your ads. The product feed option is visible during line item creation if you have linked a Google Merchant Center account to your advertiser. Learn more about product feeds.
Select the Floodlight activities you want the Demand Gen line item to optimize towards and track as conversions. At least one Floodlight activity must be selected, unless you're using the “maximize clicks” bidding strategy.
1. With Floodlight optimization for YouTube enabled, you can select which attribution model should be used for optimization, and the default for reporting. Your Floodlight group’s primary attribution model will be pre-selected, but can be changed to any attribution model, including the Engaged View (read only) model that was automatically created when Floodlight optimization was enabled in your account.
2. The post-click and post-view windows of each Floodlight activity can be customized, which impacts reporting and optimization if set to a shorter window than your Floodlight configuration, as well as the conversion counting settings. Learn more about conversion counting for line items
3. (Optional) Choose any additional settings for your line item, including Third-party vendors to enable third-party measurement for your line item.

Step 3 of 3: Set up your ad group and ads

Select Create new ad group to set up an ad group for your line item:
1. Enter an Ad group name.
2. Select Add targeting to configure ad-group level targeting. Learn more about targeting options for YouTube & partners and Demand Gen line items.
  1. Select Inventory sources to select your desired inventory source.
    1. All Google inventory: Ad group can serve across all eligible Google inventories (YouTube, Discover, and Gmail). This option is selected by default.
    2. All Google & Display Network inventory: Ad group can serve across all eligible Google inventories (YouTube, Discover, Gmail), as well as the Google Display Network).
    3. Selected inventories: Ad group can serve only on the selected inventories (from YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Google Display Network) and ad formats within YouTube ( from Skippable in-stream, In-Feed, and Shorts).
  2. If using audience targeting, choose one Audience type per ad group for best control and visibility into performance.
  3. To prevent narrowing eligible inventory, positive targeting of keywords, categories or placements is not available for Demand Gen line items. Exclusions are supported.
3. If you’ve added a product feed to your line item choose which products from your Google Merchant Center account can show below ads in this ad group.
4. Select Create new ad.
5. Enter an Ad name.
6. Choose an Ad type.
  Video ad
  - Select up to 5 videos to use as a creative. Search for YouTube videos or paste YouTube URLs. Videos must be 10 seconds or longer. Select Add logo to upload or select a previously uploaded image. Select a square (1:1) image to use as the logo in your ad.
    
    Maximum file size for any image is 5120 KB.
    
    Recommended: 1200 x 1200. Min. required: 128 x 128.
    
    For video, carousel, and product-only ads, exactly one logo is required. For image ads, up to 5 logos are supported.
  - Add a companion banner. Select either an image that's automatically generated from the videos in your YouTube channel (recommended) or upload your own. Companion banners appear on computers only.
  - Enter the text for your headline, which can contain up to 15 characters including spaces. The headline should promote your product or service.
  - Add a long headline and description. Long headlines can be up to 90 characters and descriptions can be up to 70 characters.
  - Select your call to action text from the drop-down list and enter your business name. In certain layouts, this may appear in the text of your ad.
  - Enter the landing page URL for your ad. You can customize the display URL for your ad by providing up to two descriptive terms that will be appended to your landing page domain.
  - (Optional) Add a Click tracker URL. Select More options to add a tracking template, final URL suffix, or custom parameters to the final URL.
  Image ad
  - Select up to 20 images to use in your ad. At least 1 landscape or square image is required, in the correct aspect ratio.
    
    Maximum file size for any image is 5120 KB. Additional image ad specifications:
    
    Landscape image (aspect ratio: 1.91:1). Recommended: 1200 x 628. Min. required: 600 x 314.
    
    Square image (aspect ratio 1:1). Recommended: 1200 x 1200. Min. required: 300 x 300.
    
    Portrait image (aspect ratio: 4:5). Recommended: 960 x 1200. Min. required: 480 x 600.
  - Select Add logo to upload or select a previously uploaded image. Select a square (1:1) image to use as the logo in your ad.
    
    Maximum file size for any image is 5120 KB.
    
    Recommended: 1200 x 1200. Min. required: 128 x 128.
    
    For video, carousel, and product-only ads, exactly one logo is required. For image ads, up to 5 logos are supported.
  - Enter the text for your headline and description. Headlines can contain up to 15 characters. Descriptions can be up to 70 characters.
  - Select your call to action text from the drop-down list and enter your business name. In certain layouts, this may appear in the text of your ad.
  - Enter the landing page URL for your ad. You can customize the display URL for your ad by providing up to two descriptive terms that will be appended to your landing page domain.
  - (Optional) Add a Click tracker URL. Select More options to add a tracking template, final URL suffix, or custom parameters to the final URL.
  Carousel ad
  - Select Add card to create between 2 and 10 cards to be used in your carousel ad. Each card contains images, a headline, call to action and landing page URL.
    
    Select at least 1 landscape (1.91:1) or square (1:1) image to create a new card. Optionally, you can also add 1 portrait (4:5) image. The images you add to this card must have the same aspect ratios (landscape, square or portrait) as the other cards in your ad. If your card has multiple images, only 1 of these images will be used in the ad when shown.
  - Select Add logo to upload or select a previously uploaded image. Select a square (1:1) image to use as the logo in your ad.
    
    Maximum file size for any image is 5120 KB.
    
    Recommended: 1200 x 1200. Min. required: 128 x 128.
    
    For video, carousel, and product-only ads, exactly one logo is required. For image ads, up to 5 logos are supported.
  - Enter the text for your headline and description. Headlines can contain up to 15 characters. Descriptions can be up to 70 characters.
  - Select your call to action text from the drop-down list and enter your business name. In certain layouts, this may appear in the text of your ad.
  - Enter the landing page URL for your ad. You can customize the display URL for your ad by providing up to two descriptive terms that will be appended to your landing page domain.
  - (Optional) Add a Click tracker URL. Select More options to add a tracking template, final URL suffix, or custom parameters to the final URL.
  Product-only ad
  Select Add logo to upload or select a previously uploaded image. Select a square (1:1) image to use as the logo in your ad.
  
  Maximum file size for any image is 5120 KB.
  
  Recommended: 1200 x 1200. Min. required: 128 x 128.
  
  Enter the text for your headline and description. Headlines can contain up to 15 characters. Descriptions can be up to 70 characters.
  
  Select your call to action text from the drop-down list and enter your business name. In certain layouts, this may appear in the text of your ad.
  
  Enter the landing page URL for your ad. You can customize the display URL for your ad by providing up to two descriptive terms that will be appended to your landing page domain.
  
  (Optional) Add a Click tracker URL. Select More options to add a tracking template, final URL suffix, or custom parameters to the final URL.

Select Create ad.
(Optional) If you'd like to use multiple ads, select Create new ad again and repeat the steps above. For best results run at least 5 ads per ad group, with a different call-to-action button and headline for each ad.
Select Create ad group.
Select Create to save your new line item.

When starting a new line item or making changes to bids, targeting, or ads, allow for 30 days before evaluating performance and making optimizations.

Targeting best practices

Device targeting

Device targeting allows you to target your ads to people based on the device they're using. Learn more Device targeting.

For Demand Gen campaigns, device targeting can be set at the line item level.

In the “Devices” section, you can either choose to show your ads on all eligible devices or set specific targeting for devices. Showing ads on all devices can help you expand your reach. If you want to focus your reach on specific devices, you can choose to target computers, mobile phones, tablets, or TV screens.

If you select mobile phones and tablets, under “Advanced settings”, you can choose all or specific operating systems, device models, and networks to target.

Language and location targeting

To help ensure that your ads reach the customers that you want, you can include the languages your customers speak and the locations you want to target. Learn more about location and language targeting.

By default, targeting is set at the ad group level to better optimize your ads performance. Language defaults to “All languages” and location is set to “All locations”.

Changing location & language targeting is available at the line item and ad group level.

Please note:

We recommend setting location and language at the ad group level to better align with your other targeting and to make sure your budget is being allocated to where your ads are performing best.
Setting location and language at the line item level is only recommended if you need to target a radius around a location, and can't be changed after publishing this line item.
Setting line item level location and language will clear your ad group level location and language settings.

Follow the steps below to enable LI level language and location targeting (only available at the time of LI creation and can’t be changed later on):

Navigate to the Targeting section and click “More options”.
You will see the “Location and Language” section.
Toggle the "Enable campaign level location and language targeting" switch. This will allow you to set the location at the line item level.
After that navigate to targeting section where you will see a new options “Geography” and “Language”
Select edit pencil to open the map interface. Here, you'll also be able to target by radius of your chosen location.

Note: You won’t be able to change the language and location targeting back to ad group level after publishing the line item if you chose targeting at the line item level.

Follow the steps below to enable ad group level language and location targeting (will apply if you didn’t choose these settings on the line item level, else line item level settings will apply):

Navigate to the ad group page and look for “Ad group targeting”
Click Add targeting and choose either the “Language” or “Geography” targeting.
Select edit pencil to open and choose your targeting.

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Create a Demand Gen line item

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Prerequisites

Create a Demand Gen line item in Display & Video 360

Step 1 of 3: Create a new line item

Step 2 of 3: Enter your line item details

Step 3 of 3: Set up your ad group and ads

Video ad

Image ad

Carousel ad

Product-only ad

Targeting best practices

Device targeting

Language and location targeting

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