In today's digital landscape, capturing attention and driving sales requires a strategic approach. Traditional marketing methods can struggle to keep pace with evolving consumer behaviours. That's where artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Demand Gen comes in.
Demand Gen campaigns in Google Ads focuses on attracting and nurturing potential customers throughout the buying journey. It's about building brand awareness, sparking interest, and ultimately converting leads into paying customers.
This article is based on our recently launched machine-powered PPC playbook. If you’d like to explore more on how to use AI assisted tools in Google Ads to optimise your paid search campaigns, check out the playbook here. We’ve also taken a deep-dive into Performance Max (PMax), sharing our best strategies and top tips to bring your campaigns to the next level.
What is Demand Gen?
This innovative campaign type caters specifically to social platform advertisers, empowering them to reach and convert prospects with captivating, data-driven visuals that resonate deeply at crucial moments.
Demand Gen uses AI to supercharge ad creation and targeting, saving time and maximising impact for better results. It does this in various ways:
Video content: AI analyses video content and automatically creates variations specifically for short-form formats. This is particularly important given the rising popularity and effectiveness of short-form videos. These videos capture attention and spark interest, while AI personalises the message and ensures it reaches the most receptive audience.
Creative optimisation: From your assets, AI automatically crafts dynamic, attention-grabbing combinations, finding the perfect mix for your audience.
Lookalike audience expansion: AI uses first-party data to target new prospects with similar traits to your existing customers. This helps to uncover qualified leads who are ready to connect.
Enhanced efficiency: Overall, AI features within Demand Gen will automate time-consuming tasks like ad creation and audience targeting, freeing up time and allowing you to focus on strategic planning and analysis.
How do we set up for success?
Whether your focus is on driving 'Website traffic' or enhancing 'Product & brand consideration,' leveraging AI can help you reach and engage with your audience more effectively.
To start, it's important to provide the AI with rich customer data, such as CRM and website interactions. The more data you provide, the more insightful and accurate the AI becomes. Additionally, having clearly defined goals, high-quality assets, and continually optimising are the cornerstones of success.
Here are some examples of SMART goals you can set for your Demand Gen campaign:
- Boost qualified leads: Leverage Demand Gen's AI targeting to significantly increase the number of qualified leads generated by your campaign. This ensures you reach users who are actively interested in your product or service.
- Leverage Smart Bidding: Utilise Google's Smart Bidding strategies to automate bidding decisions and optimise campaigns for achieving your SMART goals. Let AI handle the heavy lifting of analysing complex data and adjusting bids in real-time.
- Fuel lower-funnel activities: Demand Gen isn't a standalone solution. Set a goal to leverage the qualified leads it generates and seamlessly integrate them into your existing lower-funnel campaigns, like PMax, for a powerful conversion boost.
- Track & analyse performance: Regularly monitor campaign performance through key metrics like impressions, clicks, cost per click, cost per acquisition, and conversion. Use these insights to identify areas for improvement and make data-driven adjustments.
Croud's top tips
- Set clear conversion goals (e.g., website leads, demos, purchases) and utilise Google's Smart Bidding strategies to optimise campaigns for achieving those goals.
- Consider firmographics and behavioural data to create truly targeted Demand Gen campaigns. Analyse website behaviour, purchase history, and social media engagement to paint a complete picture of the ideal customer.
- Segment your audience based on where they are in the buyer's journey. Use AI to tailor messaging and visuals to resonate with each stage, whether it's awareness, consideration, or decision.
- Don't just rely on static images. Make use of all three ad formats - video, single image and carousel - to capture attention and drive engagement.
- Continually A/B test different ad variations (copy, visuals, CTAs) to optimise for best performance.
- Use attribution modelling to understand the impact of different touchpoints across the customer journey for better budget allocation.
- Leverage Google’s Lookalike audiences feature to target users with similar characteristics to your existing high-performing customers.
To conclude
Don't settle for outdated marketing methods that struggle to keep pace. Embrace AI-powered Demand Gen and unlock a world of data-driven visuals, targeted campaigns, and automated efficiency. By focusing on strategic planning, analysis, and ongoing optimization, you can capture attention, drive sales, and achieve your marketing goals faster than ever before.
Ready to unleash the power of AI for your advertising? Download our machine-powered PPC playbook today and see how AI can supercharge your campaigns!
