Demand Gen Campaign

With a Demand Gen Campaign, businesses can find, attract, and reach out to potential converts and drive their interest through visually appealing, dynamic, and engaging ads. At the same time, attract attention and encourage them to take action at key moments. This type of campaign will appear when people go live, browse, and interact with content on Google. To better understand this type of campaign and how to implement it, follow the following article from Ad Support!

Learn about the Demand Gen Campaign

This campaign type is ideal for advertisers looking to distribute visually appealing and engaging ads across Google’s network. It can capture user engagement and actions on platforms such as YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Google’s video partners. Not only does this campaign attract and reach customers with rich, engaging ads, but it also encourages audiences to take action through ad formats based on brand or product storytelling. Studies show that for every three users, one person has purchased a product from a Google feed they initially did not intend to buy.

Benefits of running a Demand Gen Campaign

Wide reach

Maximize the visual and engaging touchpoints of YouTube and Google (YouTube Shorts, Discover, Gmail, and Google’s video partners). This allows businesses to reach over 3 billion users with more than 50 billion Shorts views per day worldwide. With the support of AI, Google creates the perfect combination of visuals, messaging, and ad placements. As a result, businesses can attract the attention of many users and drive them to make quick purchases. Additionally, you can easily preview which video or image ads perform best on YouTube and Google to ensure that they deliver the right message.

Create a personalized ad experience

With just a few clicks and the support of Google’s AI technology, businesses can distribute dynamic, visually appealing ads to the most suitable potential customers. Lookalike audience segmentation helps businesses reach qualified new audiences outside their current customer base, including people who have purchased, visited a website, or watched videos on a YouTube channel. Based on detailed audience data, you can fine-tune custom audiences to meet your objectives. Furthermore, A/B testing allows you to optimize and enhance campaign performance.

Bidding and measurement based on AI

With the support of measurement tools, you can determine whether your advertising spend is yielding effective results. Through measurement, the Demand Gen Campaign allows you to optimize website traffic, convert users, and adjust bids based on performance metrics. It also uses data-driven attribution models to display the full value of a campaign within the Google ecosystem.

Through reports, businesses can measure the performance of different elements across multiple ads in the campaign. The data provided in the reports allows you to compare performance between elements in various ads and campaigns. Based on this, you can make strategic decisions on which components to improve for better performance. Key metrics that advertisers should focus on when analyzing campaign components include: clicks, click-through rate (CTR), impressions, conversion value, and more.

How to create a successful Demand Gen Campaign

Step 1: Create a new campaign and select an advertising objective

Log into your Google Ads account, click the “Create” button with the (+) icon, and then select “Campaign” from the drop-down menu. Next, enter your campaign name and toggle the option to “Run Product Feed Campaign” if you are using a product feed to create product ads.

When creating a campaign in Google Ads, choose one of the supported objectives: Sales, Website Traffic, Brand and Product Consideration, or Create a Campaign Without Guidance on Goals. Once you’ve selected the appropriate goal, choose the campaign type as Demand Gen.

Step 2: Set up targeting features

Device targeting

This feature allows you to target ads to users based on the devices they are using. For this campaign, you can set device targeting criteria at the campaign level. In the Devices section, you can choose to display ads on all eligible devices or set specific targeting criteria for particular devices. This targeting option allows you to expand your reach. You can select targeting for computers, mobile phones, tablets, or TV screens.

Language and Location Targeting

If you want your ads to reach the desired customers, you can add the language they speak and the location you want to target. By default, the targeting criteria are set at the ad group level to optimize performance. The default language setting is “All languages,” and the default location is “All locations.”

If you want to target within a specific radius around a location, change the targeting criteria to the campaign level. To enable this feature, scroll to the bottom of the page and find the Locations and Languages section. Enable location and language targeting at the campaign level. Next, select Advanced search to open the map interface. From here, you can target within a radius around the selected location.

Once the campaign is published, you will not be able to change the language and location targeting to the ad group level.

Step 3: Set your bid and budget

Choosing a bid strategy will determine how you optimize your bids to achieve your advertising goals. Here you can choose from Maximize conversion value, tROAS, Maximize conversions, Target CPA, and Maximize clicks.

Now select your campaign budget type by entering a guaranteed budget for your ad to be delivered. Here you have 2 options when setting your budget including daily budget or total budget. If you choose the total budget, you need to fill in the start and end dates for your campaign.

Step 4: Create Ad Groups

With the audience targeting feature, you can reach new audiences with a higher likelihood of conversion. If you haven’t defined the location and language at the campaign level, you can do so at the ad group level.

You can select existing audiences by searching for any current custom segments, data-based segments, or similar segments, or by choosing specific interests and demographic insights. Additionally, you can create a new audience in the Audience Builder at the ad group level.

Here, you can continue to choose or disable the optimization feature for targeting criteria to ensure the campaign achieves optimal performance. You can exclude specific audiences based on your audience strategy. Alternatively, you can choose demographic details to focus solely on specific demographic segments.

Step 5: Create an ad

In the drop-down menu of the ad group you want to create an ad for, select New ad. Next, select the appropriate ad format: video, image, carousel, etc. Next, enter the ad name and select or add ad content components.

For single-image ads, up to 20 images including landscape photos (1.91:1 aspect ratio, 1200 x 628 pixels), square photos (1:1, recommended size 1200×1200 pixels), portrait photos (4:5 aspect ratio, 960×1200 pixels). Up to 5 headlines of 40 characters, up to 5 descriptions of 90 characters, a 25-character business name with 5 logos, a final URL, and a call to action (CTA) in the drop-down menu.

Carousel ads include 2 – 10 cards with similar image formats as photo ads. Headline up to 40 characters, description content 90 characters, final Url and business name up to 25 characters, logo and CTA.

For video ads on Internet-connected TV, the number of videos is from 1 – 5 videos, minimum duration is 5 seconds. Horizontal video (aspect ratio 16:9, resolution 1920 x 1080 pixels), square (aspect ratio 1:1, resolution 1080 x 1080 pixels), vertical (4:5 or 9:16, resolution 1080×1920 pixels). Call to action up to 10 characters, headline up to 40 characters, headline up to 90 characters, description up to 90 characters, business name up to 25 characters, square logo up to 1, and website link.

Step 6: Test and publish the Demand Gen Campaign

After creating the ad, check the campaign to see if any errors need to be fixed. If you need to edit anything, edit it again and when you are ready, click Publish Campaign and you are done. Once completed, the campaign will enter the approval process for at least 24 hours.

While the campaign is live, you need to regularly monitor performance to make appropriate adjustments. To see the performance of the campaign, you can look at the overview page, general reports, segment reports, component reports, attribution reports, audience reports, and Ad placement reports.

Demand Gen Campaign optimization methods

Conduct A/B Testing

A/B testing allows you to propose and implement changes to your Demand Gen Campaign. By performing tests, you can measure the results and make appropriate adjustments to optimize performance.

Tests on this campaign will apply to all available ad spaces. It enables advertisers to test different variations of image and video campaigns. If you’re using a conversion-based bidding strategy, Demand Gen Campaigns require at least 50 conversions for the tests.

When creating experiments for campaigns, there should only be one variable difference. Once you obtain statistically significant results for a test group, pause the other test groups and allocate the budget to the test group with the more impactful results. Additionally, always conduct tests, monitor results, and learn from the insights.

Target audience targeting

To create a suitable audience group, advertisers should leverage targeting criteria at the ad group level. By setting up location, language, and demographic information at the ad group level, you can deliver the right message. This approach allows for easier management and ensures separate performance reporting by using ad group-level reports.

Re-engage current customers using internal data from customer lists, website visitors, app users, and other Google platforms. Connect your YouTube account to re-engage viewers and subscribers. Identify and re-engage users who have searched for you or your products by adding relevant keywords, including 10-15 high-performing words on Google.

Create similar audiences or use exclusion criteria to build new customer files. Additionally, you can add other signals about the audience to help Google identify high-converting potential customers. Furthermore, you can use audience segments of people considering purchases, demographics, interests, etc., to create a tailored audience.

Use the right bid strategy

Keep your campaign running for the first 14 days after switching to value-based bidding. Set a reasonable conversion window and don’t change it during campaign testing unless it’s urgent. Use the bid strategy report to evaluate performance. Set tROAS 20% lower than your historical average ROAS to start your campaign.

Contact Google Ads experts for consultation

Since this type of campaign targets and captures the attention of the audience with engaging, dynamic ads that spark interest and create demand for products or services, it also encourages users to take the desired action at crucial times. The setup process will vary depending on the ad format, and optimization can be challenging, especially for beginners. Therefore, if you need detailed guidance on how to implement and optimize your campaigns, contact a Google Ads expert today. This will help you achieve successful campaigns with the best results and efficient budget optimization.

This article has provided useful information about a Google Ads campaign type. We hope that it has helped you understand the key features of the Demand Gen Campaign and how to create an effective campaign.

Frequently Asked Questions