Google Demand Gen: from discovery to predicting user intent

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• What are Demand Gen campaigns?

• Key features of Demand Gen campaigns

• Demand Gen vs. Lead Gen

• The power of Demand Gen campaigns

• Best practices for Demand Gen campaigns in Google Ads

• Impactful success stories

What Are Demand Gen Campaigns?

In 2019, Google made a significant mark in advertising by launching Discovery Ads. This revolutionary approach allowed brands to engage with consumers through a visually appealing, personalized, and immersive experience.

Demand Gen campaigns are designed to spark interest in products or services before the user actively searches for them. Where will you see them in action? On high-impact visual properties such as:

• YouTube (and Shorts)
• Google Discover
• Gmail

The core of these tools is to facilitate direct connections with consumers and stimulate demand from the mid-funnel stage through to conversion. This concept mirrors the principles of Performance Max campaigns—but with a twist. While Performance Max targets the lower funnel, where users are ready to take action on a website, Demand Gen campaigns focus on the mid-funnel. That means reaching users who are interested but not yet actively searching. By placing ads strategically within organic content, these campaigns leverage push marketing by subtly showing ads as users browse digital content.

These campaigns are powered by machine learning and draw from the same intent insights that Google has perfected in Search and Performance Max campaigns—but applied in a more visual and emotional context.

In short: Demand Gen = Enhanced Discovery + YouTube + AI + Multi-format visual creatives.

Key Features of Demand Gen Campaigns

1. Massive and Segmented Reach

With access to more than 3 billion monthly active users across properties like YouTube and Discover, Demand Gen allows you to speak to your audience where they're already spending time.

2. Visual Formats That Capture Attention

Personalized ad experiences: Unlike traditional Discovery ads, Demand Gen campaigns integrate both image and video formats into a single campaign. Advertisers can preview their creatives across different surfaces and run A/B creative experiments to optimize impact. Perfect for categories like fashion, lifestyle, travel, or automotive.

3. Intent-Based Targeting

Thanks to Google’s ecosystem, you can combine custom audiences, customer lists, interests, and behaviors with recent browsing signals. Basically, Google knows when someone is almost ready to fall in love with your brand.

Advertisers can experiment with a variety of formats—short-form videos, carousels, portrait, and square images—to maximize engagement.

Demand Gen campaigns also leverage lookalike segments to effectively reach Google audiences, enhancing both reach and relevance.

AI That Does the Dirty Work

Automation takes care of finding the best combinations of bids, placements, and creatives. You just bring a good visual story, and Google handles the rest.

Flexible Bidding Options

Demand Gen campaigns are built on a range of dynamic bidding strategies, revolutionizing the art of campaign optimization. These strategies, powered by Google’s AI, are designed to align with your specific business goals.

• Maximize Clicks: If you want to drive valuable traffic to your site, this strategy prioritizes high-quality user engagement within your budget. Whether you use image or video ads, this approach improves web traffic without needing conversion tracking—a simplified method for impactful results.
• Conversion-Based Bidding: This strategy aligns your bids with the conversions that offer optimal profitability or total conversion count. Whether targeting a specific CPA or simply maximizing conversions, this approach is all about conversion excellence.

• Value-Based Bidding: This approach is ideal for businesses seeking higher-value conversions. It focuses on achieving a target ROAS by bidding on conversions that represent substantial value—perfect for maximizing your return on investment.

Advanced Measurement

Advanced reporting and measurement: New features include brand lift and search lift metrics for YouTube across both image and video ad formats.

Demand Gen vs. Lead Gen

Although they sound similar, Demand Gen and Lead Gen play in very different leagues. Here's a quick comparison:

The ideal strategy? Combine them. Demand Gen creates the desire; Lead Gen captures it.

The Power of Demand Gen Campaigns

Best Practices for Google Demand Gen Campaigns

To succeed with Google Demand Gen campaigns, it's essential to follow strategic best practices. These will help you fine-tune your campaigns to achieve maximum impact and efficiency across different marketing stages.

Let’s dive into the key recommendations that can elevate your Demand Gen efforts to the next level.

1. Get ready to make a visual impact

Create assets tailored to each channel (short videos for Shorts, carousels for Discover). Ensure brand consistency across visuals. Keep your call-to-action (CTA) prominent in visuals, voiceovers, and graphics. Prioritize creatives that have shown strong performance across placements. Keep ad copy concise, with less than 20% text overlay on images. Run A/B tests to optimize creatives for specific audience segments.

2. Activate Google’s intelligence

Use “Maximize Conversions” or “Maximize Conversion Value” if you have enough data. Let the algorithm work its magic.

Advanced advertisers can start with tCPA or tROAS bids depending on their familiarity and goals. If you're new to Demand Gen or lack specific tCPA targets, launch with Max Conversions and switch to tCPA after hitting 50 conversions. To drive relevant traffic, Max Clicks is effective and doesn’t require conversion tracking. Use Bid Strategy Reports to understand performance.

3. Create and test multiple creatives
Mix formats, messages, and styles. Variety fuels the algorithm.

Ensure campaign stability early on by avoiding major changes during the first two weeks. Once you have at least 50 conversions per ad group, consider restructuring. Adjust tCPA bids within a ±20% range to fine-tune results.

Group audience themes within the same ad group to aid learning and simplify targeting. Use the Asset Report to identify top-performing creatives and ensure your content follows best practices. Adapt your strategy based on whether you’re using a Google Merchant Center feed—consider Dynamic Product Ads or sitelinks as needed.

4. Target with intent

Use custom audiences, customer lists, and remarketing. Segments familiar with your brand tend to perform better.

Enable Optimized Targeting from the start to boost efficiency and scalability. Use both online and offline data to reach current customers and high-intent audiences. Upload Customer Match lists with a good match rate and key identifiers to improve targeting precision. Keep data fresh and include at least one campaign targeting in-market audiences actively searching for your offerings.

5. Budget setup

Set a recommended daily budget of $100–$500 per ad group to achieve meaningful results. Ad groups with 50+ conversions usually perform better. Aim for daily budgets that are at least 15x your tCPA or expected CPA. Use the budget simulator in the UI to explore Max Conversions simulations.

6. Don’t expect instant sales—measure the full impact

Use incrementality tests, view-through conversions, and consideration metrics. Demand Gen is a strategic play, not a tactical one.

Impactful Success Stories

One clear example: Trendy Shop, a digital fashion brand, partnered with Adsmurai to launch their new collection through Demand Gen. The goal: boost brand awareness and drive qualified traffic to their website.

The challenge

Trendy Shop needed to promote a new product collection in record time, targeting new users specifically.

The strategy

• Eye-catching visuals (videos + images).
• Advanced targeting with lookalikes and interest in women's fashion.
• Activation across YouTube Shorts, Discover, and Gmail.
• Automated bidding focused on conversions.

🏆 Results

• +80% increase in website sessions.
• +4 points in brand consideration uplift.
• +30% ROAS compared to previous Discovery campaigns.

View the full case study here

This case proves that a visually engaging, well-targeted, and AI-powered campaign can generate real demand with tangible returns, even in competitive industries.

If you don’t generate demand, someone else will

User attention is a finite resource. If you don’t inspire them, another brand will. Demand Gen campaigns are the perfect tool to claim that emotional space before intent even forms.

At Adsmurai, we combine the power of Demand Gen with dynamic creativity, product feeds, AI, and proprietary audiences to help you build campaigns that don’t just look good, but actually perform.

Ready to put your brand in discovery mode?