Public demand: Google’s new AI-driven campaign – preliminary results

What are Google Discovery Ads again? Discovery campaign ads can be found in your Google Discover feed, YouTube homepage, and Gmail. Discovery Ads uses images and your logo. You can add five descriptions and five titles for Google to test. This is one of Google’s new “dynamic” smart campaigns; The algorithm automatically finds the right ad formats in the right place for target groups that might convert.

What changes to Google Demand Gen campaigns?

Google positions Demand Gen Campaigns as Google’s answer and/or add-on to social advertising. The innovation lies mainly in the addition of video and targeting methods. This allows you as an advertiser to reach your target group with your best visuals and videos at more “visual and entertainment touchpoints.” In short: Reach your potential customers early in the customer journey with all the benefits of advertising on the Google Network. Ads in these campaigns can now also be found in short videos and in-stream videos on YouTube, for example. We’re already signed up for beta, but the new campaign type will be rolled out to all advertisers this quarter. Just in time for Black Friday and the holidays.

first results

Setting up a Demand Gen campaign isn’t much different than setting up a “legacy” Discovery campaign in Google Ads. Our initial results are very positive! Although we haven’t collected a lot of data yet, we can already say that it is remarkable that in addition to reach, video also directly leads to conversions. We also note that the cost per click is fairly low and that the new carousel ad has the lowest performance yet.

It’s also interesting that you can use similar target groups based on first-party data (e.g. customer match list, website interactions, etc.). Now, since there are no comparable target groups, this is a good way to reach a new target group that is similar to your current target group.

Should I also start Demand Gen campaigns?

It looks like Google has launched an additional ad format with Demand Gen Ads to give marketers more options to achieve their brand goals. And using an additional or alternative channel in addition to other social media channels. This probably makes a lot of sense, but with the addition of YouTube Shorts and in-stream videos, the reach of Google Ads has suddenly become (even) greater.

So Demand Gen is especially suitable if you want to increase your reach. It’s a very visual campaign, so it’s important to have good content to share. By combining video, image, and carousel ads, you can also test a lot and see what works best for you.

The results of general on-demand advertising have surprised us just as positively as they did when discovery campaigns were launched. If you want to get the most out of your social advertising budget, Google Demand Gen is definitely worth checking out.