Google's New Ad Formats Need Your Agency to Actually Turn Them On
Google just added two features to Demand Gen campaigns: affiliate location extensions that surface in Google Maps, and one-click ads inside YouTube Shorts. Social Media Today reported the changes on September 24. The stated goal is faster conversions, which for most advertisers means fewer taps between "saw the ad" and "bought the thing."
For leasing, that translates directly. A location extension on Maps means someone searching "apartments near me" can see your community pin up as a paid placement with your address and info attached, not just an organic listing buried under three ILS competitors. A one-click Shorts ad means a 22-year-old scrolling video at 11pm can hit your ad and land on a schedule-a-tour page without leaving the app. Fewer steps, in theory, means more leads per dollar. That's the pitch, anyway.
Here's the catch nobody puts in the press release: none of this activates by default. Demand Gen is opt-in at the campaign level, and location extensions require your Google Business Profile to be linked and verified correctly, which is the kind of housekeeping that tends to sit half-finished in most CRM setups. If your agency isn't specifically turning these on and configuring them, your leasing budget is running the old version of Demand Gen while competitors' campaigns get the new plumbing.
- 01Have you enabled affiliate location extensions on our Demand Gen campaigns, and is our Google Business Profile verified and linked to make that work?
- 02Are you running any YouTube Shorts placements with one-click ads right now, and what percentage of our Demand Gen spend is allocated there?
- 03What was our cost-per-lead from Demand Gen the month before this update versus after you implemented these features?
- 04If these formats require a bidding strategy change, which one did you switch to, and what was our prior strategy?
- 05Since Google hasn't published a firm rollout date for full availability, when did these features actually appear on our account, and how do you know?
- 06Are you A/B testing Demand Gen with these new formats against our existing search and ILS spend, or just adding budget on top?
Source: Social Media Today, September 24, 2026
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