All tutorials

Create a Demand Gen campaign

Step 4 of 6In Google Ads

Choose the campaign goal, spending controls, and audience before you add your ad.

Open Google Ads (opens in a new tab)

Opens in a new tab. Keep this lesson open as you work.

Before you start

  • A Google Ads account with billing details.
  • A campaign goal, budget, and intended audience.
  • Verified website conversion tracking if your bidding uses conversions.

Choose the goal

  1. Select “Create”. Select “Campaign”.
  2. Choose “Sales”, “Leads”, or “Website traffic” to match your intended result.
  3. When Google requests the campaign type, select “Demand Gen”.
  4. Enter a campaign name that identifies the product and goal.
  5. Leave “Run a product feed campaign” disabled for this tutorial.
  6. Select the conversion goals that match your intended result.

Set bidding and budget

  1. Choose an available bid strategy that matches your goal and measurement.
  2. Choose a daily budget or a total campaign budget.
  3. Enter the amount that you authorize for advertising.
  4. For a total budget, set both the start date and end date.

Define the ad group

  1. Set the locations and languages for the intended audience.
  2. To use an existing audience, select it in “Audiences”. To use a new audience, create one in “Audiences”.
  3. In “Channels”, choose the eligible channels where your ad should appear.
  4. Before you keep or disable “optimized targeting”, review it.
  5. Review audience exclusions and demographic selections.

Check before you continue

The campaign draft has your goal, budget, dates, locations, languages, audience, and eligible channels.

What to know

  • An ad group contains ads that share audience settings. A bid strategy controls how Google bids for advertising opportunities.
  • Optimized targeting can reach people beyond your selected demographic signals. It can change who receives the ad.
  • Available channels depend on the ad type, audience, and campaign settings. An image cannot serve as a YouTube In-stream video ad.
  • A product feed supplies catalog items from Merchant Center. Product-feed campaigns cannot use the standalone ad path in this tutorial.
  • An average daily budget is not a daily spending cap. Google can spend up to twice that amount on one day.
  • Google enforces minimum budgets during setup. Available bid strategies depend on your goal and account eligibility.

Reference and tools

Google Ads instructions · Reviewed October 16, 2026. Platform controls can vary by account.