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In May 2023, at Google Marketing Live 2023, Google officially announced its plans to change and improve Google Ads in the upcoming year. This plan consists of over 20 announcements on how Google will enhance its ads, including new search experiences, AI features, measurement, and ad creatives. Among all these announcements, one that stood out the most was the official transition of Discovery Ads to Demand Generation Campaigns.
And that’s exactly what we will talk about in this article. So, if you’re interested in learning more about all the features and benefits that new Google Demand Gen Ads can have for your SaaS business and how you can make the most of them, keep reading.
What Changes With the Upgrade of Your Discovery Ads to Demand Gen Campaigns
Based on a survey conducted by Google and Ipsos, one out of three consumers are immediately ready to purchase products that appear on their Google Feeds, such as Discover and Gmail, even if they were not initially looking for them. Additionally, 86% of Gen Z users express YouTube assists them in discovering new products they're interested in.
And this is how the whole Demand Gen Campaigns story came into play.
Discovery Ads help you reach people who are already prepared to engage with your brand. However, the new Demand Gen Ads take it a step further by enabling you to reach them even before they actively start searching for you.
The Demand Gen Ads powered by AI are mainly designed to drive demand from customers within the mid-funnel. More specifically, these Demand Gen Ads will help your B2B company generate more conversions, website traffic, and actions.
Simply put, the main goal of new Ads is to assist you in reaching a broader audience across various social platforms. By leveraging visual platforms such as YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Discover, and Gmail, you can employ captivating and engaging ad formats to attract and engage new users.
These AI-powered campaigns aim to enhance creativity and drive demand by delivering visually engaging and relevant creatives that capture consumers' attention and encourage them to take action, such as booking a demo or signing up for services.
This means with the ability to reach a wider audience across various social platforms, Demand Gen Ads can help your company get in front of potential customers before they even start actively searching for your product. This is especially important for SaaS and tech companies, as they’ll be able to easily capture the attention of their prospects by creating visually engaging and relevant ads and encouraging them to take further action.
Starting in October 2023, Discovery ads will become eligible for upgrading to Demand Generation Ads. So make your SaaS company ready by signing up for the beta program. If you're currently running an active Discovery campaign, it will be automatically upgraded to Demand Gen cam with no disruptions.
Benefits and Features of Demand Gen Ads
Demand Gen Ads and Discovery ads share many similarities. Both aim to reach new audiences through platforms like Gmail, YouTube, and the Google Discovery Feed. They both showcase visually appealing ads that resemble popular social ad formats, with swiping capabilities, appearance, and behavior.
While these similarities remain the same, the new features of Demand Gen Ads bring additional benefits that will help your company ads perform even better.
Expand the Impact of Your Visual Ads
With Demand Gen, you can reach a massive audience of 3 billion active monthly users. Thanks to the new Google AI feature your company can now help you create visually stunning and effective ads that are tailored to your target audience.
These ads are strategically placed to encourage more people to use the "pay now" button. You will also have a chance to preview your top-performing video and image ads across both Google and YouTube to ensure they tell the right story and resonate with your audience.
Beyond previews, you can conduct A/B experiments, testing different image and video creatives within your Demand Gen Ads. This feature empowers you to optimize your strategies by understanding which assets resonate most effectively with your target audiences, similar to the A/B experiments commonly used in search ads, ultimately enhancing campaign performance and results.
Wider Reach on YouTube
While Google Discovery Ads are effective in reaching users across the Discovery Feed, Gmail, and parts of YouTube, such as the Home Page and YouTube Feed, they are missing the biggest opportunity on YouTube: its massive video content.
In contrast to Discovery Ads, Demand Gen campaigns combine Google Discovery Ads with YouTube In-Stream and Shorts, offering a complete solution that expands the campaign's reach across the YouTube platform.
The ability to include YouTube Shorts and Ongoing Videos in the same campaign is a recent development, previously limited to the Performance Max format, eliminating the need to run video ads separately alongside Discovery ads.
Various Types of Video Ad Formats
You can now expand your reach within YouTube's video content using the latest advancements in Demand Gen campaigns. By incorporating up to five videos into your campaigns, you can adapt to different screen sizes and maximize their impact.
Using Google's AI capabilities, you can tap into new audiences through lookalike segments and audience insights. Additionally, A/B testing proves useful for improving ad performance. These expanded video ad formats lead to deeper engagement and better results on Google's network.
Smarter Bidding Options
While Discovery campaigns are optimized for conversion tracking and offer smart-bidding options like "maximize conversions" and "maximize conversion value," where you can set specific goals for cost per acquisition or return on ad spend, Demand Gen offers the same smart-bidding options but includes an additional strategy called "maximize clicks." This strategy can be useful if you have longer or more complex conversion paths, are looking to drive offline sales, or simply want to increase website traffic.
Demand Gen campaigns aim to fuel the marketing funnel and measure their impact across the entire customer journey. They allow you to optimize for website traffic, convert high-value users, and bid against efficient metrics while using data-driven attribution to show the full value of a campaign in the Google ecosystem.
How Can Demand Gen Ads Help Set Your SaaS Apart From the Competition
Google's decision to transform the discovery ads to demand gen ads will also bring a lot of benefits to B2B SaaS and tech companies building their demand gen strategy.
Besides helping you reach target customers across various platforms, here is how you can take advantage of the different features and benefits of Demand Gen Ads that will help you differentiate your SaaS and set it apart from the competition.
1. Create Eye-Catching Ads
With Demand Gen Ads, you can create eye-catching advertisements that are tailored to your desired audience. If you have a SaaS product, like a project management tool, you can showcase ads that highlight the sleek interface and easy-to-use features of your software. This visual appeal is sure to grab the attention of potential users and encourage them to click on your ad to learn more about your product.
2. Reach a Broader Audience on YouTube
If your SaaS offers a video editing software Demand Gen Ads can help you reach a wider audience on YouTube. By combining Google Discovery Ads with YouTube In-Stream and Shorts, you can showcase how easy it is to edit videos with your software to users interested in video creation and editing.
3. Various Ad Video Campaigns:
Let's say your product is a cloud-based design tool. With Demand Gen Ads, you can incorporate up to five different videos into your campaigns. For instance, you can showcase how your software simplifies graphic design, animation, and 3D modeling, catering to various user needs. This versatility in ad formats allows you to engage a wider range of potential customers.
4. Smarter Bidding Options
Demand Gen Ads' smart bidding options can be useful if your tech solution has different pricing plans or subscription options. You can optimize for website traffic to attract trial users and simultaneously bid for conversions to target users who are more likely to subscribe. By using data-driven attribution, you can track the full value of your campaign and demonstrate the ROI of both free trial sign-ups and premium subscriptions.
Using Demand Gen Ads, you can make cool-looking advertisements, get more visibility on platforms like YouTube, try out different kinds of video ads, and use smart bidding strategies that match your business goals. All of these perks can help your SaaS bring in more users and grow, even in a very competitive market.
Get Ready for Your First Demand Gen Campaign
If you're looking to start using Demand Generation campaigns, start by signing up for the Demand Gen beta accesses. Once you're in the beta, you'll be able to create new Demand Gen campaigns and take advantage of the latest features.
If you already have an active Discovery campaign, it will be upgraded to Demand Gen and all your historical data and learnings will be carried over. Plus, you'll love the redesigned UI.
Starting this October, Demand Generation campaigns will be available to everyone, and your Discovery campaigns will be eligible for upgrades. If you have a Google account team, they can easily upgrade your Discovery campaigns. If not, don't worry!
Looking ahead to early 2024, automatic upgrades for all remaining Discovery campaigns will begin. From January to March 2024, all remaining Discovery campaigns will be automatically upgraded to Demand Gen while preserving your historical data and insights. Once the upgrade is complete, you can leverage new features in Demand Gen to optimize your campaigns.
What Are the Best SaaS Practices for the New Demand Gen Campaigns Using Google’s New AI-Powered Ad Solutions
Creating effective Demand Gen campaigns using Google's new AI-powered Ad Solutions requires careful planning and execution. Here are some best practices to help you get started:
Start Early
If you have active Discovery campaigns on Google, it's important to plan your migration early. Yes, Google will automatically upgrade any discovery campaigns you have even if you don't take any action, but while this may not affect your ad performance, you could be missing out on the best features of Demand Gen campaigns.
To take full advantage of the extra reach across YouTube and upload new video formats, it's best to upgrade your Discovery campaigns ahead of time. Advertisers have a big advantage to access all this new reach at a discounted rate before others make the migration in early 2024.
Put Together Your Visual Creatives
As we mentioned before, your ads will be displayed in visually captivating environments on platforms such as YouTube, Gmail, and Discover in Demand Gen campaigns. To maximize the effectiveness of these ad placements, Google recommends using various compelling images and videos. You can repurpose high-quality creatives from your email and social campaigns for this purpose.
Regarding video assets, capturing your audience's attention within the first 5 seconds is crucial. Most users have a tendency to skip In-Stream ads or YouTube shorts within this timeframe. Therefore, it's important to include your solution, brand name, or problem statement early to make a lasting impression on your viewers.
Build Your Audience
To run successful Demand Gen campaigns using Google's lookalike segments, you must first create your own seed audiences using first-party data like a customer list or remarketing audience. It's important to understand that first-party data is any information your organization owns.
Keep in mind that an audience needs to have a minimum of 1,000 unique matched users to be used for targeting or generating a lookalike audience. If you have a small business, you may need to focus on increasing traffic to your website to gather enough data to build up your lists.
Once you've built your list, it may take a few days for lookalike audiences to populate. So, be patient and continue to monitor the progress of your campaigns.
Prepare Your Budget for Success
When aiming for success with Google Demand Gen campaigns, you have to start with the budget. While it is possible to create and run campaigns with as little as $1 per day, lower budgets can make it more challenging to optimize your results.
According to Google's recommendation, advertisers using smart bidding should set their budget at least 15 times their target CPA. This allows the campaign to grow and optimize quickly. If you have a smaller budget, employing the maximize clicks bidding strategy can help gather data. But remember that a lower budget may result in a longer timeframe to achieve your overall goals.
Why Are Demand Gen Ads Important for Your SaaS Demand Generation Strategy
Demand Generation Strategy is a go-to marketing strategy for any SaaS or tech company, no matter its industry. It is all about building awareness, generating interest, and capturing demand to help companies build long-term relationships with their customers and ultimately speed up the sale cycle.
Google's decision to transition the Discovery Ads to Demand Gen Ads will be a significant attribution to the Demand Generation Strategy. It will help build brand awareness a lot easier, which is the main aim of demand generation strategy: reaching the desired prospects before they even actively start searching for you.
Demand Gen Ads have all the desired features every Demand Generation Strategy is looking for:
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Reach a wider audience
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Create visually appealing ads
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Optimize bidding strategies
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Gain a competitive edge in the market
By embracing these features and best practices, SaaS businesses can effectively capture demand and accelerate growth.
Conclusion
With Discovery Ads being replaced by Demand Generation Campaigns, there are many new features and benefits that can be a game-changer for your advertising strategy. Demand Gen campaigns are a powerful tool for businesses looking to better target their audiences and optimize their ad spend. Utilizing first-party data, setting a proper budget, and focusing on long-term objectives are key to making the most of your campaign.
Remember that optimization is a continuous process, so don't forget to keep in mind optimizing your campaigns as you go along. With regular monitoring and tweaking, you can maximize the potential of your Demand Gen campaigns. By embracing Demand Gen Ads and using AI to your advantage, you can reach a wider audience, better connect with customers, and drive growth for your business. So, don't wait and start early to maximize the benefits!
