Google has released a fresh wave of updates to its Demand Gen campaigns, expanding the toolbox for performance marketers testing this campaign type. This drop includes goodies for smarter acquisition, enhanced cross-platform connectivity, and new AI capabilities that aim to improve both efficiency and scale.
Here’s a breakdown of what’s new and what it means for advertisers.
What’s New in Google’s Demand Gen Toolkit
- New-Customer-Only Mode
This mode targets net-new users, helping brands avoid redundant exposure to existing customers. In early tests, advertisers saw an 11.5% increase in new customer acquisition ratio, along with a 3% decrease in acquisition costs.
Why it matters: This is especially valuable for B2B accounts and big-ticket, one-time-purchase eCommerce accounts where repeat users don’t represent incremental growth.
- Web to App Connect for iOS
Bridging the gap between mobile web ads and iOS apps, this feature enables seamless ad-to-app journeys, a significant improvement for app-based businesses.
- Target CPC Bidding
Google has introduced target cost-per-click bidding to more platforms, offering more control over spend efficiency and performance across placements.
- AI-Generated Video Assets
Advertisers can now generate video creatives using AI, speeding up iteration cycles and enabling more comprehensive testing without heavy production lift.
- Product Feed Integration for tROAS
Integrating product feeds directly into Demand Gen campaigns has shown to drive 20% more conversions when paired with target ROAS bidding strategies, which offer an extra layer of control beyond tCPA bidding.
What We’re Most Excited About
New-Customer-Only Mode stands out as particularly valuable. For performance marketers focused on first-touch acquisition, being able to filter out repeat users from early-stage campaigns adds clarity and precision. Especially when paired with offline conversion tracking, this unlocks better control over lead quality.
Why These Updates Matter
Collectively, these updates boost Demand Gen’s potential as a mid-to-upper funnel acquisition engine, bringing together smarter bidding, app connectivity, and creative automation. While traditionally seen as more of a reach tool, Demand Gen is increasingly capable of driving efficient, high-quality growth across channels.
Demand Gen Attribution: Still a Challenge
One of the biggest hurdles with Demand Gen is attribution. Like YouTube, much of its impact is distributed across devices, sessions, and conversion paths. That makes it harder to quantify value using platform attribution alone.
Best Practices:
- Use brand lift studies or post-purchase surveys to quantify Demand Gen’s influence.
- Pull in offline conversions and CRM matchbacks where possible.
- Layer campaigns with other lower-funnel tactics to validate intent.
Demand Gen lives in the middle of the funnel, which means a lot of its value won’t show up in last-click reports. But that doesn’t mean it’s not working.
Is This Enough to Recommend Demand Gen?
Yes, but with qualifiers.
These updates push Demand Gen in the right direction. However, its effectiveness still depends heavily on how well offline conversion tracking is set up. Without OCT, it’s easy to over-index on low-quality traffic or vanity metrics. Like with any smart campaign, advertisers will need to keep a close eye on manual levers, creative segmentation, and audience inputs to ensure optimal outcomes.
What Comes Next? Our Wishlist
If Demand Gen is to perform at the level we’d like, there are a few critical features still on our wishlist:
- Creative-Level Reporting & Optimization: Granular insights by asset type would allow for smarter creative iteration.
- First-Party Audience Expansion Controls: A Meta-style 1–10% lookalike slider would give advertisers more precision when scaling.
- AI-Powered Creative Insights: Recommendations like “Your top videos share XYZ traits; make more like these” could accelerate high-performance content development.
- Funnel-Aware Optimization Modes: Integrating distinct options for awareness, mid-funnel engagement, and bottom-funnel conversions would make it easier to align bidding and creative to campaign goals.
Google’s Q4 Demand Gen updates are a clear signal that the product is maturing into a more performance-friendly format. While attribution and creative controls still lag behind Meta’s stack, the improvements to bidding, app linking, and customer acquisition targeting make this a much more compelling channel to test.
For brands looking to diversify spend and capture early-stage demand, especially in B2B and high-consideration categories, now is a good time to revisit Demand Gen.
