Announced during Google Marketing Live 2023, the new Demand Gen (or “Demand Generation”) campaigns from Google Ads could quickly establish themselves as an essential part of a complete digital strategy. Although this new feature is currently in beta, seo services for ecommerce seo services for ecommerce Google has already announced that it will soon replace the current Discovery campaigns launched in 2019.
Let’s see together what differentiates the two types of campaign and the next steps announced by Google.
Demand Gen: an improved version of Discovery
As with Discovery, Demand Gen campaigns are intended to be a business accelerator generating interest in a brand among relevant audiences. All while using the formats and codes of social networks. The distribution platforms will remain the three major ones in the Google sphere used in Discovery: YouTube, Discover and Gmail.
But Demand Gen represents a new way to target consumers. Combining videos and images in a single campaign gives advertisers the power to gain in conversions, site visits, and actions like signups and adds to cart. It is in particular the video part which is developing to be as close as possible to the latest consumption habits in terms of social networks. To do this, Google adds 2 advertising locations:
- YouTube Shorts
- YouTube in-stream.
In addition to the diversity of formats offered, Demand Gen also allows you to benefit from additional features:
- Lookalike Audiences: A “new” system (as Google ended old Lookalike Audiences this year) for reaching users similar to those in your selected audiences, with some control over the level of match you want.
- Bidding strategies: in addition to objectives related to conversions or conversion value, Demand Gen campaigns can be configured to maximize clicks.
- Measuring results: for ads broadcast on YouTube, it will be possible to carry out “Brand lift” and “Search lift” studies in order to measure the incrementalism brought to brand awareness.
Google also wants to provide transparency and control to advertisers. You will be able to see in advance what your ads will look like on the different platforms and optimize your campaigns using the A/B test functionality.
Prepare for the end of Discovery campaigns!
As with each new campaign, Google has a well-defined roadmap in order to gradually drive adoption of the product. Here are the main steps communicated for the coming months:
- Sign up for the beta today: If you want to preview the new Demand Gen campaigns, your first step will be to apply to join the beta as soon as possible. This is the case for many advertisers that Yamens has been able to integrate into the program and whose first tests are underway. Note, however, that if you are currently using Discovery campaigns, they will automatically be transformed into Demand Gen book marketing services campaigns when your request is accepted. Which represents an advantage in terms of history retention and initial performance.
- Widespread availability of Demand Gen starting in October: All advertisers on Google Ads will be able to access Demand Gen. Discovery campaigns will then be eligible to upgrade to Demand Gen, with the first automatic upgrades planned for November.
- Continuation of automatic upgrades starting in early 2024: Between January and March 2024, all remaining Discovery campaigns will be converted to Demand Gen campaigns.
In short!
To conclude, we can say that more than a revolution, these new Demand Gen campaigns seem to constitute more of an improvement of the Discovery system, as well as a clarification of the objective by its name. Let us note, however, that it brings interesting new targeting, distribution and measurement possibilities. Although currently in beta, the roadmap defined by Google will quickly make it the replacement for Discovery campaigns.
If you want to benefit from it before anyone else, Yamens, as a Partner Premier agency, can help you with our exclusive access to Google Ads betas!
