Video Action Campaigns

Video action campaigns were a YouTube campaign type built to drive conversions, not views. They have been retired. Google's help page on the change says it removed the option to create new ones in April 2025, began automatically upgrading existing ones to Demand Gen in July 2025, and upgraded the remaining campaigns in April 2026. Where one could not upgrade, Google deleted the original and created a Demand Gen campaign with compatible settings, paused for your review. If you are reading an old tutorial, the menus it describes no longer exist. Because the upgrade happened over several months, accounts were affected at different times. Check the change history for the date your campaign changed, and use it to split your reports into before and after.

The upgrade process has specific effects. Upgraded campaigns are named with the original name followed by #2 and keep the original status. The original campaign is set to Removed or Paused but stays available for historical reporting. Features with no Demand Gen equivalent become unavailable, settings with expanded options default to the closest previous choice, and new features are opted out by default. Ads must be re-approved, and spend already recorded in the old campaign is not carried into the new campaign's pacing, which matters for monthly budgets. Demand Gen carries conversion-focused bidding forward, with Clicks, Conversions, and Conversion Value goals. Target ROAS requires conversion history, and Google lists specific volumes by campaign type, so a small account may need to start with a simpler goal.

The change in scope is large. Google's comparison says video action campaigns served on YouTube and Google video partners with video only, billed on CPM. Demand Gen adds Discover, Gmail, and the Google Display Network, adds image and carousel ads, and bills differently depending on surface and format, including CPM, CPC, teaser click in Gmail, or engaged view in Discover video. Gains include creative preferences, creative A/B experiments, AI-generated images, lookalike segments, Maximize Clicks bidding, ad-group-level location and language settings, and format segmentation reporting. Creative is now broader. Because Demand Gen also runs image and carousel ads, adding a few good static images alongside your video can give the system more combinations and more surfaces.

Google also lists what was lost: frequency caps, shared budgets (which carry over but can trigger a Bid strategy misconfigured status), seasonal events targeting, new customer acquisition, lead form ads in beta, and affiliate location assets. The practical mistake is trying to rebuild the old setup as a plain video campaign, which optimizes toward views, not conversions. Another is leaving an upgraded campaign untouched and assuming it behaves the same. It runs on different inventory with different billing, so results will move. Audit the lost controls. Without frequency caps, a small remarketing audience may see the ad too often, so watch frequency and consider narrowing the audience or shortening the flight.

To handle an inherited account, open the campaign list and look for names ending in #2. Compare cost per conversion before and after the upgrade over the same length of time, and check that the conversion goal is still the one you want. This week, review whether the lost controls, especially frequency caps and new customer acquisition, matter to you, and if so use other tools to compensate. Add image assets to the campaign if you have them, since Demand Gen can now use both. Re-approval of ads means a short gap. Plan upgrades for a quiet week and check that every ad is approved before a promotion starts.