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This October, Google Ads is set to release its AI-driven Demand Gen campaigns to all advertisers. This new campaign type will be replacing Discovery Ads (first introduced in 2019) and all Discovery campaigns will be automatically upgraded to Demand Gen by early 2024.
What is Demand Gen Beta?
Demand Gen campaigns combine image and video ads in one place, enabling advertisers to drive conversions, website visits, and other actions. It will be available on YouTube Home, Search, Watch Next, Discover, Gmail, YouTube Shorts, and YouTube in-stream.
A Google spokesperson stated that Demand Gen was “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.
New Features of Demand Gen Beta
After enrolling in the Demand Gen beta program, you’ll gain access to a range of exciting new features:
- Diverse Ad Formats in a Single Campaign: You’ll have the flexibility to experiment with a variety of ad formats, such as short-form videos, carousels, portraits, and square images, allowing you to engage your audience in more creative ways.
- Lookalike Segments: This feature assists you in identifying customers who resemble those already engaged with your brand, using a specially curated Seed list. The option to test from a Narrow to Broad audience spectrum provides control over your reach.
- Customized Goals: Similar to Discovery ads, Demand Gen allows you to tailor your campaign goals, optimizing for conversions or utilizing value-based bidding strategies to achieve your desired outcomes.
- Maximize Clicks Bidding: Harness this tool to maximize site visits and actions, effectively driving high-value customers to your website.
- Ad Previews: Get a sneak peek of how your creatives will appear on various surfaces, ensuring your visuals are well-suited for different platforms.
- A/B Experimentation: Employ this feature to fine-tune ad placements and discover the ideal mix for your campaigns, ensuring optimal performance.
Who Should Try Demand Gen?
Throughout the years, we’ve seen many new campaign types introduced to Google Ads (Discovery, Smart Campaigns, Local Campaigns and Performance Max to name a few). Not every new campaign type is the right fit for all advertisers, and there are inevitably some businesses that will benefit more from Demand Gen than others.
Business that would be a good fit for the Demand Gen Beta include those who have:
- A unique product or service that people may not be searching for
- High-quality image and video assets
- Robust customer data for generating lookalike segments
- A flexible marketing budget
- A Google Ads specialist to monitor and optimize campaign performance
Final Thoughts
While we aren’t necessarily surprised to see Discovery Ads go away (RIP), we are very interested to see improvements in Google’s AI-driven advertising campaigns. We’re particularly looking forward to the ability to see how our ad creative will look across Demand Gen placements as well as the ability to experiment with a variety of ad formats.
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