Demand generation, or “Demand Gen,” is primarily designed for e-commerce stores who wish to advertise YouTube and related platforms. It allows businesses to feed their Google Merchant Centre and leverage Google’s AI to place ads on YouTube Shorts, in-Stream, Discover, and Gmail. These ads are displayed based on the target audience selection, making it especially beneficial for those already running social media advertising campaigns and have a reasonable grasp of their target audience, Cost Per Conversion (CPC), and Cost Per Action (CPA).
To employ Demand Gen, businesses need to have a Google Merchant Center account and enable “shopping ads” as a destination. It’s essential to include at least four products for the campaign to work properly, with at least 50 approved Google Merchant Center (GMC) offers for optimal results.
Key Benefits of Demand Generation
- Simplicity: Connecting your Google Merchant Center feed to your Demand Gen campaigns simplifies the process. You can either select specific products or opt for your entire feed, allowing Google to choose the best-performing product for you.
- Flexibility: Demand Gen allows businesses to pair their products with specific audience segments.
Best Practices for Demand Generation
Consider the following best practices to optimize your Demand Gen campaigns effectively:
- Audience: Replicate your audience approach from comparable social or video action campaigns.
- Budget: For conversion-based bidding, set a daily budget equal to 15x your expected Cost Per Action. For value-based bidding, set a daily budget equal to 20x the expected average conversion value/ROAS.
- Creative: Both video and image creatives are required. Use your existing assets and ensure they are high-quality. The more images and videos you have, the lower the chances of advertising fatigue.
- Duration: A minimum of 4-6 weeks is recommended for testing campaigns.
- Evaluation benchmark: Assess your campaign’s performance against comparable social campaigns.
Creative Guidelines for Demand Generation
Follow these guidelines to ensure optimal ad placement and performance:
- Images: Google recommends using square images (1:1) for the best possible product ad coverage. Images with a 0.6-1.4 ratio will also receive sufficient coverage.
- Videos: Ensure your videos are longer than 10 seconds to serve across all YouTube surfaces.
- “Rule of 3”: Include all aspect ratios for images (portrait, square, landscape) and videos (square, landscape, vertical). Provide three descriptions and three headlines.
Google Demand Gen presents an effective solution for businesses looking to optimize their advertising strategies on YouTube and sell more products. E-commerce stores can enjoy the benefits of simplicity and flexibility in their ad campaigns.
