Google rebranded Discovery Ads to Demand Gen in 2023 - but does it deliver real value, and should it have a place on your brand's media plan?

Over the last decade, paid search has become synonymous with performance. Attribution models, last-click conversions, and ROAS have dominated the conversation. As a result, branding has often taken a back seat, sidelined by the pursuit of measurable outcomes. But this shift has come at a cost - many brands are now seeing a decline in brand search interest.

Some argue this is due to changing consumer behaviour, less brand loyalty, more price sensitivity. But as advertisers, we have a responsibility to respond. We believe Demand Gen could be part of the solution.

Isn’t Demand Gen just PMAX with a new face?

It’s a fair question. PMAX already includes YouTube, Discover, and Gmail placements - so why bother with Demand Gen too?

Here’s the difference, Demand Gen is built for engagement and brand awareness, not just conversion. It also unlocks the ability to target lookalike audiences, a feature missing from both PMAX and Search. These segments, available in narrow, balanced, and broad tiers, are based on your first-party data and help you reach users who have similar characteristics to your customers. That means higher relevance, better engagement, and stronger conversion potential.

More importantly, Demand Gen offers audience level reporting, so you can see which segments are driving performance, giving you the transparency to test, learn, and optimise, something PMAX also still lacks. Demand Gen also gives you the ability to remove certain channels if they’re not working well, meaning it’s less of a black box than PMAX.

Feature	PMAX	Demand Gen
Audience targeting	Remarketing, first party data, affinity and in-market	The same but can also include lookalikes
Creative control	Limited	High
Channel transparency	Reporting available	None
Audience reporting	No	Yes
Channel exclusion	No	Yes
Best use case	Conversion-focused campaigns	Engagement + upper funnel

How to build a Demand Gen campaign that actually works

A successful Demand Gen campaign starts with a solid audience structure. We recommend splitting campaigns into:

• Prospecting: Using lookalikes, in-market, and affinity audiences
• Retargeting: Leveraging first party data and remarketing lists

This separation gives you control over performance and budget. Group audiences where the same creative applies to ensure the algorithm has enough data to optimise effectively.

Creative is king - but only if you feed the algorithm correctly

Creative is the engine of Demand Gen, but too often search teams underestimate the power of good creative. The algorithm learns by testing, so the more creative variety you provide, the better it gets at matching the right message to the right person.

To maximise ad strength, you should:

• Upload 20 images, five headlines, and five descriptions
• Use horizontal and square formats for variety
• Include video assets – they typically drive the majority of volume with 50% of traffic and conversions

Start by testing what resonates on social but remember, copy variation plays a crucial role.

We’ve seen lifestyle imagery perform well for fashion brands, where styling and scale are key. In contrast, jewellery tends to benefit from product-led visuals that highlight intricate detail. This highlights the importance of testing what works for your brand, there’s no one size fits all approach.

Performance vs. branding? Why not both?

Demand Gen isn’t just a branding tool; it can deliver success for performance too. While it excels at upper and mid-funnel engagement, we’ve seen it:

• Deliver incremental conversions at an effective ROAS or CPA, showing it’s not just upper funnel
• Compete with or beat generic search on a CPA basis, highlighting its efficiency (25% more efficient for one of our travel clients)
• Drive an uplift in brand search demand, proving it drives success for search too (brand lift study and causality impact shows a 9% uplift in brand demand for one of our clients)

It’s closest in function to social display, but with the added benefit of Google’s intent signals and first party data integration. When used strategically, it can warm up audiences and improve the efficiency of your lower-funnel search campaigns.

But what if I only have a small budget?

You don’t need a massive budget to make Demand Gen work. Here’s how to stay efficient:

• Focus on retargeting and hyper-focused lookalikes so your campaigns are super targeted (ROAS can be up to 30% stronger for retargeting)
• Use ad scheduling to run only during peak hours. e.g. one client saw just 3.8% of spend between 8–11pm, and introducing ad scheduling improved efficiency during their top converting hours immediately
• Start campaigns two weeks before key periods (such as sale or promotion periods) to allow learning and to feed the funnel
• Tweak targets (tCPA/tROAS) so you’re less limited by performance, not budget
• Exclude video, as this can typically have the higher CPA (35% higher than images)
• If you’ve run PMAX before, look at your channel report and exclude placements which are more expensive such as Google Discover and Google Mail

So, what’s the catch?

The biggest challenge with Demand Gen is measurement. It’s not built for last-click attribution. View-through conversions can be over-attributed, and conversion lag is typically longer.

Search teams need to shift their mindset; Demand Gen is about awareness, not just conversion.

There are several ways that Demand Gen can be measured:

• Search Lift studies (short-term brand interest)
• Brand Lift studies (consideration, awareness and recall - though harder to execute and arguably less reliable)
• Engagement metrics (bounce rate, time on site)
• Softer conversions
• Manual holdouts (geo testing, GA4 comparisons)

If you can’t measure it, can you still prove it?

Google provides a range of insights to help demonstrate the broader value of Demand Gen - beyond direct conversions.

This includes causality impact, geo-lift tests, and brand and search uplift metrics. You can also leverage tools like GA4, Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM), and DV360 to quantify long-term impact.

To truly capture the value, we need to shift our mindset away from traditional search KPIs and rethink how we define and measure success.

Not just a tactic, a correction

Demand Gen isn’t just another campaign type. It’s a correction to the over-indexing on performance at the expense of brand. It helps rebuild brand equity, reach new audiences, and balance the funnel – all within the Google Ads ecosystem.

It’s not perfect. But when used with intention, it’s powerful.

A strong Demand Gen strategy is built on:

• An always-on approach to allow for testing and learning
• Thoughtful audience segmentation
• Rigorous creative testing
• KPIs that go beyond last click

It’s a reminder that people don’t always start their journey with keywords. We’ve spent a decade proving paid search works. Now it’s time to remember why brand matters too.

Ready to rebalance your funnel?

Demand Gen isn’t just a new ad format; it’s a smarter way to connect with future customers. Start small, test smart, and let the data guide you.

Curious how Demand Gen could work for your brand? Contact us to explore how to build a test-and-learn strategy that blends brand engagement with measurable performance.