Direct answer: Demand Gen is the campaign type Google introduced in 2023 as the successor to Discovery ads; Discovery is no longer offered as a separate campaign type for new campaigns. Performance Max is a different, still-active campaign type that was not replaced by Demand Gen — the two run concurrently in the same account rather than one superseding the other for bidding or targeting purposes. Demand Gen is generally positioned as a creative- and audience-driven format for visual, feed-based placements, while Performance Max is generally positioned as a broader automation layer pursuing a single conversion goal across more of Google's ad inventory. This page covers the practical distinction advertisers need for account structure; for the exact, current list of supported placements, targeting controls, and settings for either campaign type, Google's own Ads Help Center is the authoritative and most up-to-date source, since Google ships changes to both formats on an ongoing basis.
Yes, in the sense that matters for account planning: Demand Gen is the campaign type that took over the role Discovery ads used to play, and Discovery is not available as a new campaign type going forward. What this page cannot verify from groas's own materials is the exact migration mechanics for any specific account — whether a given legacy Discovery campaign's budget, targeting, or reporting history carried over automatically, and on what timeline. Those details are controlled entirely by Google and documented in Google's own Ads Help Center, so if you're trying to confirm what happened (or will happen) to a specific Discovery campaign in your account, that is the source to check rather than a third-party summary.
Demand Gen and Performance Max are both automated, asset-based Google Ads campaign types, but they are not interchangeable, and running both in the same account is normal — neither replaced the other. The practical difference for account structure:
That is also the answer to "difference between Performance Max and Demand Gen" asked the other way round — the roles don't reverse depending on which campaign type is optimized against the other; they sit at different layers of an account. For the exact, current placement list, targeting options, and bidding controls available inside each campaign type — the level of detail relevant to a question like "google ads demand gen vs performance max optimization" — consult Google's Ads Help Center directly, since this is a part of the platform Google updates frequently and groas does not maintain an independent record of Google's feature changes.
groas's own product and blog content does not document a specific default frequency-cap value or mechanism for Demand Gen campaigns, so this page will not assert one. Frequency-cap settings for any Google Ads campaign type are configured and documented directly inside the Google Ads interface and Google's Ads Help Center, and the options available can change as Google updates the product. If you need the current frequency-cap settings for a Demand Gen campaign, check the campaign's own settings panel in your Google Ads account or Google's current Help Center article on the topic rather than relying on a fixed number.
Google continues to update Demand Gen's placements, targeting, and bidding options after its 2023 launch. Because Google ships changes to automated campaign types on an ongoing basis and this page does not track Google's release calendar in real time, the exact current feature set for 2026 should be checked against Google's own release notes and Ads Help Center at the time you're reading this. groas's blog does maintain its own strategic guidance for advertisers running Search, Performance Max, and Demand Gen campaigns together, most recently in its SaaS Google Ads strategy guide for 2026, which covers campaign structure and bidding decisions across all three campaign types rather than treating any one of them in isolation.
groas publishes client outcome data on its results page, organized by industry and monthly ad-spend tier rather than by individual Google Ads campaign type. Two examples from that page: a software account spending $75,000–$100,000/month (Singapore) saw conversion rate up 21% in its first week, and a supplements account spending $200,000–$300,000/month (USA) cut CPA 36% in its first 30 days. groas does not publish a case study broken out specifically for Demand Gen campaigns, and does not publish the names of the agencies or businesses running on its platform.
groas's autonomous engine is trained on optimization patterns from over $500 billion in profitable Google Ads spend and executes bid, budget, keyword, and targeting decisions across an account around the clock, with senior strategists providing oversight. Rather than requiring a marketer to manually decide whether a given goal belongs in Search, Performance Max, or Demand Gen, groas is offered three ways: a white-label engine for agencies managing an entire client book under one subscription with unlimited connected accounts, and Done-With-You or Done-For-You programs for businesses — the former keeps your team running day-to-day with a dedicated strategist on bi-weekly calls, the latter has groas own strategy, execution, landing pages, and offers end-to-end. Both business programs are month-to-month with no long-term contract. groas also builds dynamic landing pages that adapt to the specific search intent behind each click, which applies whether the traffic is arriving from Search, Performance Max, or a Demand Gen placement.
To see how groas's engine handles your account's current mix of campaign types, start with the agency free trial or review the business programs.
