AdWords Gmail Sponsored Promotions: What Replaced Them in Google Ads

AdWords Gmail Sponsored Promotions no longer exist. Standalone Gmail campaigns stopped serving on 28 June 2022, and Gmail ads now run as one channel inside Google Ads Demand Gen campaigns.

I run Gmail ads in Demand Gen for 12 online store accounts. This post covers the timeline from the old format to today, what Google removed along the way, and what I see in my own accounts.

Do AdWords Gmail Sponsored Promotions still exist?

No. According to PPC Land (12 September 2026), dedicated Gmail campaigns became read-only on 1 July 2021 and stopped serving on 28 June 2022. Google told advertisers to move to Discovery campaigns (Search Engine Land), and those were later upgraded to Demand Gen (Google Ads Help).

If you want to advertise in Gmail today, you do it through a Demand Gen campaign.

What were Gmail Sponsored Promotions?

Gmail Sponsored Promotions (GSP) were ads styled like email rows at the top of the Promotions and Social tabs. Google opened them to all AdWords advertisers in September 2015 (Marketing Dive).

A click on the row expanded it into a larger creative. Per PPC Land, Google charged for that first click, and the click from the expanded ad to the advertiser’s site was free. Marketing Dive reported targeting by keywords, affinity audiences, demographics and topics.

AdWords itself became Google Ads on 24 July 2018 (Google Ads Help). Guides written before that date call the product AdWords.

What is the timeline from GSP to Demand Gen?

The format went from GSP to Discovery to Demand Gen. This is the sequence:

Date	What happened	Source
September 2015	GSP opens to all AdWords advertisers	Marketing Dive
24 July 2018	AdWords is renamed Google Ads	Google Ads Help
May 2019 and April 2020	Discovery ads announced, then generally available	PPC Land
1 July 2021	Dedicated Gmail campaigns become read-only	WordStream
28 June 2022	Dedicated Gmail campaigns stop serving	Search Engine Land
October 2023	Demand Gen opens to all advertisers	Google Ads Help
January to March 2024	Remaining Discovery campaigns upgrade to Demand Gen	Google Ads Help
30 January 2025	Channel controls announced, rolling out from March	PPC Land
1 September 2025	CNIL fines Google €325 million over Gmail inbox ads	CNIL

What did Google take away in the move?

Manual bidding, device controls and keyword targeting. PPC Land lists all three as lost. WordStream’s 2021 report shows what the old dedicated campaigns offered: manual CPC bidding, device targeting, ad rotation settings and custom HTML Gmail ads.

What you gain is channel control. In Demand Gen you set where an ad group serves (YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Maps or the Google Display Network) at the ad group level (Google Ads Help). To run Gmail alone, you isolate it in its own ad group.

Google also notes that Demand Gen optimizes on marginal cost, so a channel can serve at lower volume than you expect. The step-by-step setup is in my guide to setting up ads on Gmail.

How do Gmail ads perform in Demand Gen?

Over the last six months my 12 online store accounts averaged a 2.3% CTR on Gmail. 80% of accounts stayed within 20% of that average, up or down.

Metric	Value
Gmail CTR, average across 12 store accounts	2.3% (last six months)
Accounts within 20% of that average	80%
Gmail share of the Demand Gen budget	10% to 40%, depending on the account
CPC	below $1 in some accounts, above $5 in others

In most of my accounts, Gmail converts a bit worse than YouTube and a bit better than Discover. Image ads usually do a bit better than product feed ads.

These are averages across accounts I manage, from one practitioner. Check your own account’s channel report before you copy any of them.

What went wrong with my Gmail ad copy?

I did not consider that headlines and descriptions also show when a person opens the Gmail ad.

A Gmail ad has two states. Closed, it looks like an email row in the inbox list, with a logo, the advertiser name, a headline and an “Ad” label. Open, it expands into a larger creative with images, text and a button to your site. The same copy appears in both places, so each headline and description has to read naturally in the closed row and in the open ad.

A quick test: read the headline alone as a one-line inbox row. Then read the headline and description together as the opened ad. If either version sounds off, rewrite it.

When should you not run Gmail ads?

I do not run Gmail ads on small budgets, because they take time to work.

Google recommends a daily budget of at least 10 times your target CPA when you bid on target CPA (Google Ads Help). For example, a $50 target CPA calls for at least $500 a day. In my accounts, a target CPA campaign with a budget below about 10 times that target struggles to spend.

Eligibility is the other limit. Google says sensitive-category campaigns are generally limited to YouTube and are not eligible to serve on Gmail (Google Ads Help).

Do Gmail ads work the same in the US and in Europe?

In my experience, no. In the US, a Gmail ad opens and reads like a real email. In Europe the format is more limited and stays visibly an ad.

Regulators have acted on this format. On 1 September 2025 the French data protection authority, the CNIL, fined Google €325 million. It ruled that ads shown like emails in the Promotions and Social tabs need consent, and counted 53 million people who saw them without it. Google had six months to comply or pay €100,000 per day for each company.

The decision applies to France. PPC Land reports that modified Gmail ad formats now appear in the EU, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, with no date stated.

What should you read next?

To build a Gmail campaign, start with How to Set Up Ads on Gmail. For retail niches, see Gmail Ads for Bike Shops and Gmail Ads for Toy Stores. To judge whether a campaign pays, learn your break-even ROAS first.

Unsure whether Gmail belongs in your Demand Gen mix? Tell me about your store and I will say what I see in your account.