What is demand generation ad on Google?

Read time: 3 minutes

86% of Gen Z say that YouTube helps them discover new products they are interested in.

This is a stat released by Google some time back and I am not surprised.

Visual showcase of products is critical today and brands need to embrace this.

Many brands I work with today mention very clearly in their brief that they want their brand story to be narrated in visual or video format not by words.

And Google has been pushing hard to become a possible replacement for social platforms by introducing many new ad types which are visually more appealing.

In the same endeavour, Google recently launched Demand generation ads.

As coined by Google, Demand generation ads are an upgrade to the existing Discovery campaigns on Google ads.

After the broad match and performance max campaigns, Google is said to be using most AI in Demand generation ads.

This is how Google defines demand generation ads:

‘Demand Gen, a new AI-powered campaign designed to multiply your creativity and drive demand. It’s built to help advertisers who buy on social platforms find and convert consumers with immersive, relevant, and visual creatives that grab attention and spur action in the right moment.’

It is evident from this definition that Google is going after social platforms.

Google wants brands to use their social creatives on Demand gen campaigns and draw a parallel in terms of performance.

Demand generation ads will only show up on YouTube, shorts, Gmail and Discover section.

Here is what is additional in New Demand gen ads along with Discovery ads:

Expanded reach: With new demand gen ads, you can possibly use the reels you run on Instagram on YouTube shorts or in-stream. No need to create a different format for Google.

Tailored ad experiences: Brands can flex their storytelling with video and image ads under one campaign.

So going forward, you can engage your audiences in various formats like short-form videos, carousels, portraits, and square images- all within one single campaign.

Flexible bidding options: One of the biggest underlying challenges with Discovery ads has been that while it is a bottom-funnel campaign, very few times it is able to drive considerable conversions and conversion value for brands.

Most of the time it takes a lot of time and investment before getting conversions from Discovery ads. Google believes that it will become better with expanded reach and tailored ad experiences now.

Also, Demand gen campaigns can also run on ‘Maximize clicks’ bidding which means brands can use these ads for the consideration phase of the campaign which will eventually lead to sales from Google search or remarketing campaigns.

Reporting and measurement: With a visual ad type like demand generation, apart from measuring bottom-funnel metrics, it is also equally important to measure brand lift or search lift metrics.

Not everyone that will see your ad today will shop today.

But they may remember seeing your ad which can potentially lead to sales later.

This is where brand lift metrics come in handy.

So now you can measure if a demand generation campaign actually got you conversions or helped in increasing brand lift for your brand.

Audiences: oh boy! this is such an awaited feature with Google- Lookalike segments.

This is similar to Facebook lookalike audiences where you can bring in first-party data of your business and Google will match it with its intent and interest audiences to help you find customers similar to the ones who have already engaged with your brand- using inputs like past purchases, website and app activity, or YouTube engagement.

Now if you notice each of the enhancements that I have mentioned above, these are very similar to what Facebook ads already provide today- from 9:16 ads in the form of Reel ads, to creative A/B testing, to maximise clicks campaigns (traffic campaigns), to brand lift campaigns to creating lookalike segments.

It is clear that Google wants advertisers to use their social creatives on Google with the help of demand-generation ads and compare the results.

To me, demand-generation ads can end up becoming a double-edged sword for Google.

While it focuses on visually appealing mediums but the downside of these ads could be that it is limited to a few placements on Google. v/s If you compare demand generation ads with performance max, performance max has more placement options and it still takes considerable time for p max to optimise.

I will be conscious of using demand-generation ads for conversions for 2 reasons:

1- Google’s discovery campaign has not been successful to drive sales for many brands, mostly, this challenge will continue with Demand generation ads because the only addition that demand generation ad has compared to discovery ads from a reach perspective is YoutTube shorts and instream which have traditionally not been great for sales.

2- The new bidding and reporting formats introduced by Google do not indicate an increased focus on sales from demand generation campaigns. Introducing maximize clicks and brand lift study metrics is a sign that Google wants brands to use this inventory to drive mid-funnel initiatives. Nothing wrong in it however it clarifies Google’s shift from conversion only Discovery campaigns to Traffic oriented click campaigns.

Starting in October, Demand Gen campaigns will be available to all advertisers in Google Ads and your Discovery campaigns will be eligible for upgrades:

If you want to get early access to Google’s new Demand generation ads then you can do so by signing up for the beta version from here: Demand generation beta signup

That’s it for today folks!

In my nas community, I am organising an online event on the topic:

You can sign-up for this event from here: Register now

In this one-hour session, I will give you my first-hand view of how should you learn Digital marketing keeping today’s time of AI in mind.

By the end of this session, you will have a framework and resources to learn digital in depth.

Hope to see you there!

Cheers,

Apurv