How a Video Action Campaign worked
It was the Google Ads campaign type built to get action out of YouTube rather than attention. You supplied video assets, headlines and descriptions, chose audiences, and the campaign combined skippable in-stream placements with feed placements, adding a call-to-action button and a companion banner around the video. Bidding was conversion-based, so the system optimised towards leads or sales instead of views.
Its distinguishing feature was that it stitched several YouTube placements into one campaign and let automated bidding decide where the next impression should go. That was unusual when it launched, and it is precisely the behaviour Google has since generalised across its newer campaign types.
Why Video Action Campaigns still matter
The first reason is historical. If an account ran them, that data sits in reporting under a campaign type you can no longer create, and anyone comparing this year against last needs to know why the line stops rather than assuming something broke.
The second is advice. A great deal of published guidance, agency template and training material still tells you to build one. Following it wastes an afternoon and, worse, makes you doubt your own account when the option is not there. Knowing the type was retired and folded into Demand Gen ends that loop quickly.
Common mistakes with Video Action Campaigns
While they existed, the usual error was treating them as a cheap substitute for search. They reached people who were not looking for anything, so the cost per conversion sat higher than search and the conversions arrived later. Accounts that judged them against a branded search target switched them off before they had a chance to do anything.
Since the migration the mistake has changed shape. Campaigns moved automatically kept their old settings inside a system that behaves differently, and in most accounts nobody went back to re-examine the bidding goal, the asset mix or the exclusions. An automatic upgrade moves a campaign; it does not review it.
What to do about it
If you are reading an old plan or proposal that specifies a Video Action Campaign, translate it rather than following it. The intent was conversion-focused video, and Demand Gen is where that now lives. Rebuild the audiences, upload video in more than one aspect ratio, add image assets, and set the conversion goal deliberately rather than accepting whatever the account defaults to.
If your own campaigns were migrated, treat the result as a new campaign wearing an old name. Check what it is bidding towards, which placements it is allowed to use, and whether the conversion action it optimises for is still the one that matters commercially. Leave the historical figures alone as a record, and start the performance comparison fresh from the migration date rather than pretending the two periods are the same thing. The mechanics of the replacement type are covered on the Demand Gen campaigns page.