In May of this year, Google unveiled upcoming changes and enhancements to Google Ads at Google Marketing Live 2023. The event was a major one, featuring over 20 announcements about how Google Ads planned to elevate its search experience, AI capabilities, measurement tools, and ad creatives. Among these, one announcement emerged as particularly noteworthy: the introduction of Demand Gen campaigns, a novel campaign type.

Demand Gen campaigns were developed to assist businesses in connecting with consumers beyond the text-centric search engine results page, instead leveraging more visually engaging and entertaining platforms such as YouTube, Discovery, and Gmail. Given the over 3 billion monthly active users across these Google-owned platforms, it’s evident that they have become potent channels for influencing potential customers even before they initiate a search. Google reports that 91% of consumers have engaged with a brand after discovering it on these platforms. Following months of anticipation, Google disclosed Google recently announced that its new Demand Gen campaigns would be accessible to advertisers through an open beta program. However, there was an unexpected twist: Demand Gen campaigns would be replacing Google Discovery Ads later this year.

Introducing Google Ads Demand Gen Campaigns

Unlike Google’s flagship search ads, Demand Gen campaigns are strategically designed to engage users before they even consider actively searching for a brand. Instead, Google Demand Gen campaigns focus on connecting with new audiences and cultivating interest among users of Google’s more visually driven and captivating platforms. These campaigns deliver ads across the Google Discovery Feed, Gmail, and various YouTube formats, including the YouTube feed, In-Stream, and Shorts, all within the same campaign structure. This new campaign type feels like a logical progression for social marketers accustomed to employing visually similar creatives and audience targeting strategies across other popular social platforms such as Facebook ads and TikTok ads. Interestingly, though, Google had previously launched and experienced success with a comparable campaign format known as Discovery Ads.

Differentiating Google Ads Demand Gen Campaigns from Google Discovery Ads

Google’s latest offering, Demand Gen Ads, shares similarities with its predecessor, Discovery Ads. Both campaigns are geared toward reaching new audiences across Gmail, YouTube, and the Google Discovery Feed. Additionally, both serve visually compelling ads that mimic the swiping, appearance, and functionality of common social ad formats. Since their debut in mid-2020, many advertisers have found value in using Google Discovery Ads as a cost-effective means to reach and convert a broad audience across these Google properties by repurposing their existing social creatives. This begs the question: Why is Google choosing to replace its already successful Discovery Ads with these new Demand Gen campaigns? The answer lies in the several key enhancements that Demand Gen campaigns bring to the table:

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Enhanced YouTube Reach

Presently, Google Discovery Ads reach users across the Discovery Feed, Gmail, and certain sections of YouTube, such as the Home Page and YouTube Feed. While impressive, this reach omits a significant opportunity within YouTube: its extensive video content library. Demand Gen campaigns encompass the entire reach of Google Discovery Ads while also extending into YouTube In-Stream and YouTube Shorts. This expanded mix of both short-form and long-form video ad content will substantially amplify the reach of these campaigns on YouTube.

Expanded Video Ad Formats

Within Google Discovery Ads, advertisers had the option of featuring either product images or custom image ads across Gmail, YouTube, and Discovery. However, with Demand Gen campaigns’ expanded reach into YouTube’s video content, advertisers can now incorporate up to five videos into their campaigns, in addition to multiple images, headlines, descriptions, logos, and calls to action. These videos will be displayed across existing Google Discovery and YouTube formats, adapting their assets and behavior based on the specific Google property and screen size. Therefore, it’s essential to include videos in various lengths and aspect ratios to ensure they seamlessly integrate across all the new video inventory.

New Ad Creative Experimentation and Tools

Many campaigns provide advertisers with tools to preview how their various text, image, and video assets might appear across different ad placements. However, given that Google’s new Demand Gen campaigns are specifically designed to promote businesses across the most visually immersive content in the Google ecosystem, Google has developed a new ad preview tool tailored specifically for Demand Gen campaigns. This tool empowers advertisers to easily visualize how different creatives will render across various screens and placements. Going beyond simply previewing the visual presentation of assets before campaign launch, advertisers can also leverage A/B experiments to conduct A/B testing with different image and video creatives within their Demand Gen campaigns. This feature provides invaluable insights into which types of assets resonate most effectively with targeted audiences, enabling continuous improvement and optimization of campaign performance.

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Additional Bidding Strategies

Google’s Discovery campaigns were primarily focused on helping advertisers reach and convert new audiences. As such, they functioned most effectively when paired with enhanced conversion tracking and only supported automated smart bidding options like “Maximize Conversions” or “Maximize Conversion Value.” These options come with the ability to set either a target cost-per-acquisition (CPA) or return on ad spend (ROAS) goal. Demand Gen campaigns, on the other hand, offer these same smart bidding options while also introducing the flexibility of using “Maximize Clicks” as a bid strategy. This addition can prove more suitable for advertisers dealing with lengthier or more intricate conversion paths, those aiming to drive offline sales, or those simply seeking to promote more traffic to their website.

Enhanced Reporting Features

Demand Gen campaigns are inherently designed to stimulate direct action and conversions, but their capabilities extend beyond these primary objectives. Advertisers have consistently observed that launching ads to new audiences across Display, YouTube, or social platforms often leads to a noticeable uptick in searches and conversions originating from their brand campaigns. Recognizing this trend, Google has equipped its Demand Gen campaigns with more comprehensive insights into this uplift through its Brand Lift, Search Lift, and Conversion Lift reports.

New Audience Targeting Options

Google Ads recently retired its widely used Similar Audiences targeting feature across all campaign types. However, Demand Gen campaigns introduce a remarkably…similar alternative. Demand Gen campaigns will grant access to a specialized lookalike audience segment. Lookalike segments consist of audiences that share common characteristics and online behaviors with those found in your existing first-party audience segments, such as remarketing lists or customer lists. Advertisers can fine-tune these lookalike audiences to be:

• Narrow: This setting targets the 5% of users within your desired location who exhibit the strongest resemblance to your original seed list.
• Balanced: This default setting, unless manually adjusted, reaches the 5% of users in your target location who closely align with your initial seed list.
• Broad: This setting expands the reach to encompass the 10% of users in your chosen location who share similarities with your original seed audience. Google’s lookalike audiences are designed to feel familiar to those accustomed to audience features offered by other social advertising platforms. For instance, Facebook’s lookalike audiences similarly allow advertisers to customize their reach based on the degree of resemblance users share with their seed audience.

Transitioning from Discovery Ads to Demand Gen Campaigns: A Timeline

For those eager to harness the power of Demand Gen campaigns, the wait is over—you can sign up for early beta access here. Please note that it may take Google a few weeks to process your request and grant access within your account. Once enrolled in the beta program, any active Discovery campaigns you have running will automatically transition into Demand Gen campaigns. Rest assured, this transition will not result in any loss of historical data or valuable learnings. However, you will no longer have the ability to manage your Discovery Ads in the same way as before. Google has announced that, starting in October 2023, all advertisers will gain the ability to create new Demand Gen campaigns directly. Moreover, advertisers will also have the option to proactively upgrade their existing Discovery campaigns to Demand Gen campaigns at their convenience. Subsequently, in January 2024, all remaining Discovery campaigns will be automatically upgraded to Demand Gen campaigns. By the end of March 2024, the expectation is that all Discovery campaigns will have been seamlessly transitioned to Demand Gen campaigns. This automated process requires no action on the part of the advertiser, and campaigns will continue to run uninterrupted, preserving all historical data and accumulated insights.

Best Practices for Maximizing Google Demand Gen Campaigns

To help you navigate this transition smoothly and capitalize on the full potential of Demand Gen campaigns, we’ve compiled a list of actionable tips to guide you through the sunsetting of Discovery campaigns:

1. Plan Your Migration Strategically

It’s important to note that Google will automatically upgrade any active Discovery campaigns you have, regardless of whether you take any manual action. While this automatic upgrade is unlikely to disrupt your ad delivery or negatively affect performance, remaining passive means missing out on the enhanced features and benefits that Demand Gen campaigns offer. A proactive approach is recommended: dedicate some time to strategically plan and execute the upgrade of your Discovery campaigns. By doing so, you can immediately tap into the expanded reach across YouTube and leverage the ability to upload new video formats, gaining a significant edge over competitors who choose to wait until the automatic migration in early 2024. Here, Google showcased businesses that have participated in the beta version of Demand Generation campaigns early on:

2. Refresh and Optimize Your Ad Creatives

Demand Gen campaigns are designed to showcase your ads within highly visual, scroll-driven, and immersive environments such as YouTube, Gmail, and Discover. To ensure your brand makes the right impression, it’s crucial to provide a diverse range of compelling contrasting images and videos. Google recommends repurposing high-quality image and video creatives from your existing email and social campaigns to maintain brand consistency and enhance recognition across these new placements. For your video assets, prioritize capturing the audience’s attention within the first 5 seconds. This is critical because a significant portion of users tend to skip In-Stream ads or YouTube Shorts within the first few seconds. By prominently featuring your solution, brand name, or problem statement early on, you increase the likelihood of leaving a lasting impression.

3. Prioritize Building Robust Audiences

While Google’s lookalike segments hold immense potential for these new Demand Gen campaigns, they require a solid foundation of first-party data to function effectively. Begin by building your initial seed audiences using your own valuable data sources, such as remarketing audiences or customer lists. A key point to remember is that first-party data encompasses any information that your organization directly owns:

To utilize an audience for targeting purposes or to generate a lookalike audience, it must contain a minimum of 1,000 unique matched users. This requirement means that smaller businesses might need to engage in some preparatory work to build up their lists in advance. For example, it might be necessary to shift focus toward increasing traffic to your website as an initial step. This influx of traffic allows for the collection of sufficient data to construct a robust list suitable for creating a lookalike audience. Finally, keep in mind that once your list meets the size requirement, it can take a few days for lookalike audiences to populate.

4. Review and Fine-Tune Conversion Tracking

Especially in light of the recent transition to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), it’s highly advisable to thoroughly review your conversion tracking setup to ensure it’s firing accurately and capturing all necessary data. This is particularly important because Demand Gen campaigns are inherently geared toward targeting potential customers who might be less familiar with your brand or solutions. They are typically further up in the marketing funnel—“mid-funnel”—compared to the audience you reach with your search campaigns. With this in mind, Google recommends optimizing for what they refer to as “lightweight conversion events.” These are actions like “add to cart” rather than focusing solely on more substantial events such as completing a large purchase or filling out a complex form. These smaller conversion actions provide valuable signals to Google’s bidding and targeting algorithms within these campaigns, allowing them to learn and optimize more effectively and efficiently.

5. Budget for Optimal Campaign Performance

While Google Demand Gen campaigns can technically be launched and run with a daily budget as low as $1, operating with such a limited budget can significantly prolong the optimization process, making it challenging to achieve desired results. For those leveraging Google’s smart bidding strategies, Google suggests setting a daily budget that is at least 15 times your target CPA. This recommended budget allocation provides ample room for your Demand Gen campaigns to scale effectively and undergo rapid optimization. While a smaller budget might still yield some results, it’s important to understand that reaching your overall campaign objectives will likely take considerably longer. That being said, advertisers working with tighter marketing budgets might find it beneficial to begin with the “Maximize Clicks” bidding strategy. This approach allows for rapid data accumulation in the initial stages of the campaign.

Embracing the Future: From Discovery Ads to Demand Gen Campaigns

Google Demand Gen campaigns have the potential to become a powerful tool in your advertising arsenal, seamlessly complementing your existing search and social media marketing efforts. By embracing an early migration strategy and taking full advantage of the expanded video ad inventory across platforms like YouTube, Discover, and Gmail, you position yourself for greater success. If you find that navigating the intricacies of Demand Gen campaigns still feels a bit overwhelming, exploring the support and solutions we offer can empower you to make the most out of these key campaign types and placements. As a helpful reminder, here’s a recap of our top recommendations for a seamless transition from Google Discovery Ads to Google Demand Gen campaigns:

1. Prioritize planning your migration in advance.
2. Take the time to refresh and optimize your creative assets for maximum impact.
3. Focus on building robust and well-defined audiences.
4. Conduct a thorough review of your conversion tracking setup.
5. Allocate an adequate budget to fuel campaign success.