You miss VAC? Here’s how to recreate it in Demand Gen — Step by step 🛠

And it’s a valid question. VAC was predictable, effective, and YouTube-first. Many advertisers don’t want to explore carousels, or static ads, or random placements—they just want their best YouTube VSLs and CTAs to continue converting, with minimal disruption.

This guide is written for those advertisers. The ones who care less about broad reach and more about ROAS, conversion tracking, and scalable video performance.

Yes, Demand Gen is a different beast—but if your goal is to simulate VAC and control performance on YouTube, it can be done. You just need to know how to set it up right—and what to avoid, based on our experience.

How to rebuild VAC inside Demand Gen—without getting lost in the bloat

Step one: Lock in your goal—and make it a conversion

Before anything else, define your campaign objective—and if you're a direct response marketer, that means conversions, not clicks or engagements.

Demand Gen gives you the option to optimize for clicks, YT engagements, and subscriptions or other “softer” actions—but if your goal is sales, leads, or funnel progression, don’t water it down. Choose “Conversions” or “Conversion Value” as your campaign objective.

Pro tip: If your funnel includes upsells, subscriptions, or cross-sells, use the Conversion Value goal. This tells Google not just to find buyers, but to find those more likely to spend more.

In short: don’t experiment with “traffic” goals unless your business model depends on volume and retargeting. Demand Gen can be powerful for direct response, but only if you point the algorithm in the right direction from the start.

Step 2: Choose the right bidding strategy

By default, Demand Gen uses Maximize Conversions. If you want to guide Google toward a specific cost per acquisition, you can simply check the “Set a target cost per action” box and enter your desired CPA. Leave it unchecked if you want Google to get you as many conversions as possible within your budget, without a fixed cost target.

Tip: The same logic applies when you optimize for Conversion Value instead of just conversions.

• Leaving Target ROAS unchecked = “Maximize Conversion Value” (as in VAC).

• Setting a Target ROAS = traditional “Target ROAS” bidding from VAC.

This small checkbox determines whether you're giving Google full flexibility or guiding it toward strict performance targets. Use it based on how much data and confidence you have in your numbers.

Step 3: Take control of your placements

Here’s where Demand Gen gives you something VAC never could: placement control at the ad group level.

In the latest version, you can now choose exactly where your ads appear—across:

• YouTube in-stream

• YouTube in-feed

• YouTube Shorts

• Google Discover

• Gmail

• Google Display Network

This is a major upgrade from VAC, which automatically spreads your ads across all available YouTube surfaces with no option to narrow it down (of course, we are interested only in YT, other placements are not the topic of this article).

Examples:

1. If you're running a long-form VSL or testing Connected TV with a QR code overlay, you don’t want that ad wasted on Shorts or Gmail. Just select YouTube in-stream only, and you’ll keep your spend focused on placements that fit your format and funnel.

2. If you’re running a short UGC-style video with a strong hook and native feel—like a product reaction, quick demo, or testimonial—in-feed is where it shines. Just select YouTube in-feed only, and your video will appear alongside organic content in search results and home feeds, where users choose to click. This gives you intent + context—but only if your thumbnail and headline can stop the scroll.
   

3. If you’ve got a fast-paced, vertical video under 60 seconds—think TikTok-style “did-you-know” hook or a highly visual transformation—Shorts is the perfect testing ground. Select only YouTube Shorts, and your ad will show in mobile-first, short-form placements where attention spans are razor-thin. Don’t waste a long VSL here—Shorts is built for punchy, swipe-proof content.

Tip: Google may warn you that running on fewer channels can reduce performance, but if your strategy is precise (e.g., direct response via YouTube only), this new control is your best friend.

To view channel-level reporting, use the network segmentation to:

• Discover

• Gmail

• YouTube

• Google Display Network

To view the YT placements reporting breakdown, use ad format segmentation:

• Skippable in-stream

• In-feed

• Shorts

Step 4: Use the same audiences you trusted in VAC—now with Lookalikes

All audience types you relied on in Video Action Campaigns are fully supported in Demand Gen, and they function in much the same way. You can continue building high-performing ad groups using:

• Custom segments, such as people who searched for specific keywords or watched relevant YouTube content

• Remarketing lists, including site visitors, cart abandoners, and high-intent checkout starters

• Affinity, in-market, and life-event segments, for reaching people based on their interests or purchase behavior

The key upgrade Demand Gen offers is the ability to create lookalike audiences (referred to in some accounts as "similar segments"). When you upload a customer list through Customer Match—like recent buyers or top spenders—Google can now automatically find new users who behave similarly.

This opens the door to scaled prospecting without sacrificing relevance, especially when layered with strong creative and tight placement control.

Step 5: Set Your ad—understand the new responsive video format

Here’s what a Demand Gen video ad requires:

• At least one YouTube video link

• Final URL (your landing page)

• Headline(s) and Long Headlines (up to 5)

• Descriptions (up to 5)

• Call-to-action (from a dropdown list)

• Business name & logo

As you can see, the structure of a responsive video ad in Demand Gen isn’t drastically different from what you’re used to in a Video Action Campaign. However, there are a few key differences worth noting:

• Call-to-Action: Instead of writing your own CTA, you now select one from a predefined dropdown list (e.g., “Shop now,” “Learn more”). You can also check a box to let Google automatically rotate different CTAs to optimize performance.
  

• Video variations: You have the option to allow Google to:
  

  1. Generate vertical and square versions of your video

  2. Create a shortened version for short-form placements like YouTube Shorts

These options used to appear in campaign-level settings in VAC. In Demand Gen, they’re part of the ad setup flow, giving you more granular control per ad.

If you want to keep your ad experience close to VAC, it’s often better to leave these boxes unchecked, especially if you're running creative that’s already optimized for your chosen placements.

• “Choose where your videos show” setting. While Demand Gen gives you more fine-tuning options at the ad group level—like selecting specific placements (in-stream, in-feed, Shorts)—you might still want to test different video formats within the same ad group.

If that's the case, you can upload multiple videos into one ad and use the “Choose where your videos show” option at the ad level. This allows you to assign each video to the format it's best suited for. For example, you can:

• Assign your vertical UGC video to Shorts only

• Set your square demo video to run in-feed

• Reserve your long-form VSL for in-stream

This setup gives you flexibility to test multiple creative styles within the same ad group, without risking misplacement across formats that don’t match the video’s structure or intent.

It's a hybrid approach that works well when you're trying to scale variations, but still want to keep control over where each asset shows.

Conclusion: VAC is gone, but your strategy doesn’t have to be

This guide isn’t meant to cover every edge case or advanced Demand Gen tactic, but it gives you a solid, practical foundation for simulating the structure and control you had with VAC.

Yes, Demand Gen is broader, more dynamic, and packed with new capabilities—but if you’re a performance marketer who thrived with tight setups, long-form VSLs, controlled placements, and conversion-based bidding, you can absolutely recreate that model here.

The key is to:

• Lock in conversion-focused goals and bidding

• Control your placements and formats intentionally

• Keep the creative structure clean and testable

• Use audience signals with the same discipline you used in VAC

Once you're confident with this base setup, you can explore what Demand Gen offers beyond VAC—like image-based testing, in-feed variations, or Gmail retargeting—but only when you're ready.

Start with what worked. Then scale with what’s new.

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