Demand Gen
campaigns

What Demand Gen campaigns are for

Search campaigns catch people who already know what they want. Demand Gen campaigns reach people earlier, while they scroll YouTube, watch Shorts, read their Discover feed or check Gmail. The ads look like the content around them: an image or short video, a headline and a button. The goal is to make someone interested enough to click, sign up or remember your name when they need you.

That makes Demand Gen useful for businesses with something to show: a finished kitchen, a before-and-after in a beauty studio, a dish, a course result, a product in use. For an emergency locksmith it's usually the wrong tool; people don't plan to need a locksmith.

Audiences: starting from your best customers

Demand Gen relies on Google's understanding of people's searches and viewing. I seed campaigns with your own data: website visitors, customer lists collected with consent, and people who engaged with your videos. From those seeds, lookalike segments find similar people, at a narrow, balanced or broad reach. I also build custom segments based on related searches, for example people who recently searched for “wedding venues Halifax” for a catering company.

For local businesses, location targeting stays tight. A bakery in Saskatoon has no use for viewers in Toronto, however cheap they are.

Creative written for a feed

Feed ads have to stop the scroll, which is a different skill from writing a search ad. I prepare:

• Images in square, landscape and vertical sizes, with the product or result clearly visible.
• Short videos for YouTube and Shorts, with the hook in the first two seconds.
• Headlines that tease a benefit rather than list keywords.
• Carousels for stores or services with several options.

Real photos usually beat stock. A cake photographed on the counter by the owner, with good light, often outperforms a perfect studio shot that looks like an ad.

How Demand Gen compares with Meta ads

Demand Gen is Google's answer to Facebook and Instagram advertising. For many local businesses in Canada, Meta ads still reach more people more cheaply, especially with lead forms. Demand Gen has an edge when your audience spends more time on YouTube than on Instagram, when you want to reuse YouTube video, or when you already have strong Google data to seed lookalikes. Some clients run both and compare cost per lead side by side.

Measuring results fairly

Feed ads sit higher in the funnel, so judging them only on last-click conversions undervalues them. I report direct conversions, view-through conversions with caution, and changes in branded search and returning visitors. If after a fair test the cost per customer doesn't fit your margins, I'll recommend moving the budget back to Search.

Common Demand Gen mistakes

Three mistakes come up again and again. Launching with one image and one headline gives the system nothing to choose from. Changing the budget every few days restarts learning before any pattern shows. And sending feed traffic to a homepage that doesn't mention the offer in the ad wastes the interest you just paid to create. I plan at least three creative angles, keep the budget steady for the test period and point each ad to a page that continues its story.

Where it fits

Demand Gen sits between YouTube ads and Display in Google's lineup. It's rarely the first campaign I launch for a small business, but it's often the second or third once Search has proven the offer. Setup costs $650 and management starts from $750 a month. For the full list of campaign types, see the Google Ads services page.