• by Laurie Sullivan , Yesterday

Google wants brands to rethink their approach to performance marketing, so on Thursday the company announced it is testing new tools to connect video ads through messaging with support from "Demand Gen" ads on YouTube.

The idea is to help advertisers drive high-quality leads and acquire customers on YouTube and its other platforms through Demand Gen ads. It gives lead generation advertisers another action to take beyond sending users to a website or landing page.

Essentially, Google is turning YouTube advertisements into customer service portals to help businesses connect faster and feel closer to consumers who have questions about their products and services.

The announcement focuses on expanding Demand Gen ads for traveler advertisers by surfacing local activities, events, and real-time offers like personalizing hotel ads to serve relevant properties to the correct audiences.

The updates are part of Google’s August Demand Gen Drop announcement that builds on hundreds of improvements the company says it made to the campaign type during the second half of 2025.

These ads aim to move consumers off the verge of deciding, and closer to purchasing.

Google also expanded video creation by making "Multimodal Video Creation in Asset Studio" available to all advertisers, so they can now go from storyboarding to creating horizontal and vertical assets in one workflow.

The services announced today are an extension of those that rolled out in early 2025, when Google connected Demand Gen ads, which launched in 2023, with YouTube to foster deeper connections than traditional social media.

At the time the company rolled out controls to customize campaigns for specific channels, new creative enhancements, and product and in-store details in ads. 

In June, Google moved Google Display Ads campaigns to Demand Gen as the Google Display Network (GDN) expanded.