Google Ads released the Demand Gen campaign type back in August 2023. At first glance, it doesn’t seem all that different from Google Ad’s Display Ad campaign type; you can you upload your own banner graphics and you can utilize responsive display ads or video ads.

They also show your ads in similar ad inventory like Gmail, Youtube, etc. The major difference being that with Demand Gen campaigns your ads aren’t shown on 3rd party sites and apps that partner with Google via the Adsense program. 

Another huge difference with Demand Gen campaigns is that you can use lookalike segments in your campaign. It’s currently the only campaign type that lets you do that. Pmax has something similar but it doesn’t give you the ability to exclusively target a lookalike segment. The way Pmax works is you give it 1st party audience data as a signal, it essentially will use that to find similar users but it’s not bound to this.

I could see Demand Gen being a good alternative to Display Ads in a lot of situations since it’s likely to give higher quality traffic. This will also probably come at a cost but if the traffic converts better than it can definitely be worth paying more per click. 

I still would run Demand Gen campaigns for most businesses unless they have maximized their Search Ad Campaign spend or they’re an ecommerce business, in which case you’d run Demand Gen alongside Pmax and maybe a Search Ad Campaign.