Google is consolidating Discovery campaigns into Demand Gen and shifting some Discover billing to CPM, where you pay for attention rather than clicks. From June 2026 eligible advertisers can move existing campaigns using the migration tool. The change quietly alters what you are paying for.
A billing model is not a detail. It decides whether you are buying eyeballs or buying actions, and most advertisers find out which one only when the numbers move.
Google is changing the meter on Demand Gen. As it folds the old Discovery campaigns into Demand Gen, billing for some Discover placements is moving to CPM, where you pay for the impression and the attention, not the click. From June 2026 eligible advertisers can start moving existing campaigns across using the migration tool in the account.
The split now runs by surface. CPM placements like YouTube video and Discover video charge for attention. CPC placements like Discover image ads and Gmail still charge for engagement. Same campaign type, two different things you are paying for depending on where the ad lands.
Why it matters
If you are used to paying per click, a shift to paying per thousand impressions changes the maths under your campaign without changing the headline budget. Attention-based billing can be fine when the creative earns the attention. It punishes you hard when it does not.
Eligible advertisers can begin migrating Discovery campaigns into Demand Gen, where some placements now bill on CPM rather than per click
For Australian advertisers this lands in the run-up to a busy spending half. Move a campaign across without checking the billing surface and you can watch cost per result drift while the platform reports healthy delivery. The machine is running. It just might be running up a different sort of tab.
What to do about it
Before you migrate anything, map which of your placements bill on CPM and which on CPC. You cannot manage a cost you have not identified.
Judge CPM placements on attention metrics and downstream conversions, not click volume. If the video does not hold people, a CPM buy is the wrong place to be.
Migrate one campaign first, not the lot. Learning to walk before you run applies to billing changes too. Watch the cost per acquisition for two weeks before you move the rest.
Tighten the creative before you tighten the bids. On a CPM surface the creative is the lever that decides whether the spend earns anything back.
Keep a little budget in your back pocket through the transition. Migrations move numbers around in the first fortnight and you want room to absorb that without cutting spend on something that was working.