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Recognised as a global advertising giant, Google Ads has a considerable advantage over many of its competitors. Thanks in particular to Search and Shopping, advertisers on the platform can promote their products and services to an audience that has shown explicit intent, particularly through the search engine. And while this is its strength, the American giant is not content to offer an approach based solely on the end of the conversion funnel. At the beginning of this year, Google Ads announced several updates to its Demand Gen campaigns, which allow advertisers to explore a whole new audience.
Google Ads launched this type of campaign in 2023 to replace Google Discovery. Demand Gen campaigns are designed to generate demand and capture the attention of users on various Google platforms, such as YouTube, Gmail, Discover and Display, without them necessarily having searched for the brand name or its products.
For example, a brand of smartwatches designed for sports can target users who have recently viewed articles about running, watched YouTube videos on the subject, or visited a competitor’s website. Once targeted, users could see an advert for the smartwatch on Shorts, an advert integrated into the Discover feed, or a promotional message offering a special deal in their Gmail inbox. It is also possible to use Demand Gen campaigns for retargeting, by retargeting users who have already interacted with the brand in the past.
Demand Gen campaigns have obvious potential, particularly as they compete with Meta Ads campaigns through their ability to reach users at the top and middle of the conversion funnel. However, these campaigns, launched in 2023, do not seem to be meeting with the expected success among advertisers at this stage. In an attempt to change this, Google recently unveiled new features.
In future, advertisers will have greater control over the channels used by their Demand Gen campaigns. Although still optimised by artificial intelligence, these campaigns can now be limited to certain channels in Google’s inventory. In addition, the American giant has announced the addition of Google Display to this, allowing advertisers to also broadcast this immersive content on numerous websites and applications.
Recognising the importance of assets in driving campaign performance, Google Ads now offers several new tools to facilitate the creation of engaging visual content. In particular, the platform has opened up the field to 9:16 vertical image ads on Shorts and announced the arrival of a new feature that allows users to create shorter versions from longer videos.
Not only will advertisers now be able to use the most effective formats to generate demand and capture new leads, but it will also be more convenient and intuitive to analyse the performance of these campaigns. Google Ads has introduced new reporting columns to help advertisers make the best decisions about budget allocation.
These new features demonstrate Google Ads’ desire to encourage advertisers to invest in this type of campaign. This is especially true given that these campaigns are particularly compatible with Performance Max, which Google has been promoting since its launch in late 2021.
Demand Gen campaigns attract new prospects and raise awareness of an offer, while Performance Max campaigns capture purchase intent and drive conversions. Demand Gen campaigns reach users at the top and middle of the conversion funnel to feed remarketing audiences, while Performance Max campaigns capture them and push them to take action. This complementarity is also useful for limiting advertising expenditure, with lower-cost lead generation on Demand Gen, followed by maximising conversions from these prospects using Performance Max.
Would you like to learn more about Demand Gen campaigns and integrate them into your strategy? Feel free to contact our Google Ads agency.
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Pierre Blarre