Google expands Demand Gen with creator videos and checkout links

Google is turning Demand Gen into a more useful place for agencies that want to sell search thinking and performance media in the same breath. The latest update folds in multimodal video creation inside Asset Studio, lets advertisers promote creator partnership videos directly from the asset picker during campaign setup, and gives retailers a way to push Merchant Center videos into Demand Gen based on real-time user interest.

The commerce side got a bigger shove. Google said Demand Gen will add new Google Maps inventory, extend checkout links into nine new markets, and widen product feed support into more surfaces and verticals, including automotive. That matters because Demand Gen no longer looks like a loose upper-funnel add-on. It is starting to behave like a shoppable layer across YouTube, Discover, Gmail and other visual surfaces, with more paths from exposure to purchase.

Google has also been unusually explicit about the payoff from feeding the system better commerce data. The company says established Demand Gen campaigns with large product selections typically see a 33% increase in conversions after product feeds are added. It also says advertisers can get 18% more clicks at a similar cost when feeds are added to campaigns with shallow conversions. For agencies, that is the opening: feed management, creative testing, and creator strategy can all become billable work instead of just media buying.

The creator part is just as important. Through creator partnerships boost, advertisers can use organic creator videos in Google Ads campaigns and tap organic view metrics, but Google also reminds advertisers to secure sufficient rights before turning creator content into an ad. That creates a clean adjacent service for SEO agencies that already know how to read audience intent, search demand, and topic clusters. The smart play is not to pretend this is pure social. It is to translate organic search insights into creator briefs, video hooks, and product-led campaigns that are built to convert.

The timing fits Google’s broader rewrite of Demand Gen. Google launched the product in 2023, expanded channel controls and added Google Display inventory in January 2025, then placed Demand Gen inside its AI-powered Power Pack at Google Marketing Live 2025 alongside Performance Max and AI Max for Search. On May 20, 2026, Google pushed the format further toward measurable commerce, pairing creator partnerships with checkout links, feeds, and uplift testing. For agencies that can connect content, data, and measurement, Demand Gen is becoming a credible expansion path, not just another line item.