Inside Google Ads podcast: Episode 120 - Video vs. Demand Gen

Google Ads is no longer just about Search. 

And I know you may be thinking, “I'm never going to run YouTube Ads, this episode isn't for me.” 

Hold your horses right there!

Search Ads are amazing. Magical, in fact. A marketer's dream, truly. But remember, in order for a Search ad to appear, a user has to actively type a matching query into Google. If your Search campaigns are already dominating your core keywords and achieving a high impression share, then simply adding more budget will only inflate your costs. 

Visual campaigns like Demand Gen and YouTube allow you to break past the ceiling and proactively reach new audiences who maybe aren't actively searching right in this moment, but are still highly likely to be your ideal customers. And given how twisty, turny, and convoluted user journeys have become, a visual-first strategy is required if you want to grow your business through Google Ads.

So how do you do that exactly? 

Well, although both Video campaigns and Demand Gen campaigns allow you to run Video ads on YouTube, they are fundamentally different tools in your Google Ads toolkit. 

In this episode, I'm going to break down the exact differences in bidding, targeting, creative settings, metrics and optimization between Video campaigns and Demand Gen campaigns so that you can pick the right one for your Google Ads goals. 

I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google, and now I work for you. 

This is Inside Google Ads: Episode 120, Video vs. Demand Gen. 

Let's start with bidding strategies because that's how you tell Google your goal. 

Video campaigns are focused on awareness and engagement on YouTube. So depending on which subtype you choose, your bidding options are Target CPV (cost per view), Target CPM (cost per mille, which is cost per thousand impressions) or Viewable CPM. So it's all view or impression based. 

Whereas, in Demand Gen, it's designed to drive action. It's designed to get people off of YouTube or whatever they're doing and onto your website. The bid strategy choices in Demand Gen are click or conversion based, including Maximize Clicks, Target CPC, Maximize conversions, Target CPA, Maximize Conversion Value or Target ROAS. 

Here are my bidding takeaways for you. 

In a Video campaign, start with a Video Views campaign with a Target CPV of about $0.10 or your local equivalent. Since this campaign is view-based, you can build a remarketing segment of people who view your YouTube ads. And this in turn opens up a variety of additional targeting tactics, which we'll get to next.

In Demand Gen, if you're targeting new audiences, I recommend Maximize Clicks or Maximize Conversions with a shallow micro-conversion, because remember, these are people who are not looking for you right now. So at least in the beginning, this will not convert the same way as Search. If you're targeting remarketing audiences, you can use Maximize Conversions before transitioning to Target CPA, or Max Conversion Value before transitioning to Target ROAS.

Now let's cover targeting in Video versus Demand Gen campaigns. 

Video campaigns let you use audience targeting and content targeting, who the person is versus what content they're engaging with. Whereas in Demand Gen we only have audience targeting, not content targeting. That means on YouTube, you can place your video ads on content from specific YouTube channels, even specific YouTube videos or on content that has to do with specific topics or keywords. 

In addition to all of your fabulous audience targeting capabilities, which of course I cover in detail in my bestselling book, Inside Google Ads, Everything You Need to Know About Audience Targeting, if I can leave you with one crucial targeting tip for each campaign type, let it be this.

In a Video campaign, if you use both audience targeting and content targeting, they have an and relationship, meaning the user must match at least one of the audiences you select and at least one of the content targeting options you select. And this can really narrow your reach, which in turn drives up your costs. I generally recommend having some audience targeted ad groups. And then if you're going to use content targeting, having separate content targeted ad groups rather than forcing the two together in the same ad group. 

My crucial Demand Gen targeting tip is to make sure you turn optimized targeting off in your ad  group settings. Optimized targeting is not bad. It's just not something you want when you get started. It's a great tool for scaling later. So please, please, please, it'll be on by default in Demand Gen or Display campaigns. Make sure you turn it off before your campaign goes live. Otherwise your audience targeting will be treated just like audience signals, and you're really defeating a lot of the purpose of choosing Demand Gen over something like PMax in the first place.

Now, let's cover the creative and ad format differences between Video campaigns and Demand Gen campaigns.

Video campaigns are for, you guessed it, video ads. They can run on YouTube as well as Video Partners. Turn Video Partners off, we don't want that. And the video format depends on the subtype you choose, but the main ones you'll come across are in-stream, in-feed, and Shorts. 

• In-stream means it is a skippable video ad. It plays in the video stream and that skip ad thing comes up at six seconds if it's skippable in-stream, or if it's non-skippable, then it's non-skippable. 

• In-feed means your video comes up as a suggestion of what the viewer should watch, either on the YouTube homepage or in search results or on watch next. 

• Shorts is the vertical Shorts feed similar to Instagram Reels or TikTok. 

It's really important to understand these different YouTube ad formats because your views and view rate will really vary by placement, or shall I say “TrueView views” because that's what Google calls it now. So be sure to segment your views and view rate columns by placement - in-stream, in-feed and shorts - to truly understand performance and optimize accordingly. 

Demand Gen campaigns, on the other hand, allow you to have Video ads and Image ads. So from a creative perspective, they can do everything Video campaigns can do, but you can also have single image ads, carousel ads, and even an optional Merchant Center Feed attached to your campaign to enable product-focused ads.

Big Demand Gen tip: be sure to analyze your Video ad performance separately from your Image ad performance, since they will likely have very different CTRs or view-through rates, and then segment by placement – YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Maps – so you can truly understand performance and optimize accordingly. A little later in this episode, I tell you exactly how to optimize both campaign types.

But before we get there, we are now going to talk about some specific campaign and ad group level settings that you need to be aware of when you're running Video and Demand Gen campaigns. 

First thing’s first, both of them now allow for campaign total budgets. This is really different from the average daily budget that we're used to in Google Ads. If you're planning to run this awareness or engagement-based campaign for a short period of time, you can set one total budget for the campaign start and end date, and then let Google flight it accordingly. That can be useful. I'll still say the majority of the time, I recommend using the usual average daily budget. 

Now here's one really important thing to be aware of in your campaign setup, and “Jyll’s 3 Golden Rules” for each campaign type. 

On Video, the thing to be aware of is you must select a Video campaign subtype when you're creating your Video campaign. You can't change this later and the subtypes are constantly changing. Long story short, the Video Views campaign is usually the right way to go. 

“Jyll’s 3 Golden Rules” for Video campaign settings.

1. Uncheck Video Partners. We just want to run ads on YouTube, not the Display Network. 

2. Content suitability. You're probably going to want to go to your content suitability settings, either in the account or the campaign or both, and exclude any kind of sensitive content you don't want to show ads on. Exclude kids or made-for-families content unless, of course, that's who you're trying to reach.

3. Don't use audience expansion. Thankfully, it's off by default, but just make sure you don't turn that on. You really don't need it. 

“Jyll’s 3 Golden Rules” on the Demand Gen side.

One key tip with setup is your channel selection. By default, at least for now, you'll be opted into all Google channels and not the Display Network, and that is the way I recommend starting.

1. Always uncheck the Display Network. For now it's off by default, but that can always change in the future. 

2. Always turn off optimized targeting. I’ve said it before, I'll say it again. This is on by default and it can be really hard to find that checkbox and turn it off because it's in your ad group settings, not your audience settings. 

3. If you are using a Merchant Center feed, I recommend only using this for remarketing audiences, not for prospecting. I may change my mind in the future as Demand Gen evolves, but at least for now, those product forward ads are very bare bones. They don't have headlines or any of the other creative that's going to contextualize the products and pricing you're putting in front of people. So I have not yet seen that work well for prospecting, but I have seen it absolutely work well for retargeting audiences. 

Now that we have bidding, targeting, creative, and settings covered for Video and Demand Gen campaigns, let's talk about how you're going to measure success with key metrics to focus on, and then how to actually optimize these campaign types, especially if you're someone who has only ever optimized Search and Shopping before. 

For Video campaigns, do not judge performance based on conversions or even clicks. Remember, people are there to watch videos. Your bid strategy will be optimizing for views or impressions. If you do get clicks or conversions from Video campaigns, it's a happy accident. It's not the objective.

Focus on view rate and cost per view. There's another column you can add that shows you video played to 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. So that can be helpful to see where your viewers are generally dropping off. 

And then keep an eye out for the new Attributed Branded Searches conversion action. This is still rolling out as of when I'm recording this. I have linked an article I wrote in the episode description for more about this since it's constantly changing. 

But in a nutshell, this is a new conversion metric that's going to show you how many people go search for your brand after viewing your Video campaign. And that's really helpful to look at because as I just said, Video campaigns, they're not trying to drive clicks or conversions, but of course you don't really want to just pay for views or impressions, you want results. And so this Branded Searches metric can tell you if people are taking an action, going to learn more about you after viewing your videos. Keep an eye out for that. It will be compatible with both Video and Demand Gen. 

On the Demand Gen side, you can evaluate similar metrics to what you're used to in non-brand Search campaigns. Clicks, CPC and CTR to start, and then conversions or CPA / ROAS as the campaign scales up, or if that's the bid strategy you're using.

Remember, Demand Gen can take a lot longer to learn than you're used to. It's not uncommon to see a Demand Gen campaign peter along, trying on different channels and audiences for weeks until it lands on what works. And of course, what works can always change. This campaign type is a priority for Google's product leaders, so it is constantly changing and improving. But do keep that longer time horizon in mind. 

Now let's talk about optimization. How do you optimize a video campaign?

As I mentioned earlier, look at your view rate, or your TrueView view rate as it's currently called, by placement. My metrics are about 35% to 40% for in-stream, 1% to 2% view rate for in-feed and 8% to 10% view rate for Shorts.

A low view rate is usually more about your creative than the targeting. So if your view rate for in-stream or Shorts is low, focus on your hooks, the opening of your videos. And if your view rate on in-feed is low, focus on your thumbnail and headline since that's what people see when they decide whether or not to view your in-feed video. 

This is a good time to tell you, or perhaps remind you, that:

• A view for in-stream means they watched at least 30 seconds of the video, or the end, whichever comes first. This is very different from platforms like Meta or TikTok where a view usually just means 2 to 3 seconds.

• A view for Shorts means they watched at least 10 seconds, or the end of your video, whichever came first.

• A view for in-feed means they clicked on the thumbnail and chose to watch your video and it loaded for their browser, or that when they hovered over your in-feed thumbnail and it started autoplaying, they watched the autoplay for at least 10 seconds.

And if the user clicks on the call to action button from your Video ad, regardless of placement, that also counts as a view. So a view or a “TrueView view” has eight different definitions of a view. But the thing they all have in common is it's truly an engaged action. 

One more video optimization tip is be sure to check your “where ads showed” report. You can see the exact channels and videos your ads ran on and ad exclusions if you need to. 

Now, how do we optimize a Demand Gen campaign? 

First, I want you to take your hands, put them under your butt… and sit on them. Demand Gen can ramp up erratically and it needs time to learn. Don't start optimizing before you actually have data to optimize!

Segment by network to see how your creative performs in various channels and analyze the performance of image and video creative separately. 

My general rule of thumb for Demand Gen optimization, and this actually applies to all Image and Video ad optimization regardless of campaign type, is don't judge a single asset's performance unless it has at least 100 clicks for image, or at least 100 views for video. 

I dive into more detail about Demand Gen creative optimization in my newsletter, The Insider, what I call my 5x5x5 Rule. I’ll link to that in the episode description so that we can keep going and wrap up for today. 

When in doubt, when you're optimizing your visual campaigns, focus more on your creative than the targeting. If you have excellent creative and totally open broad targeting, you can drive excellent results. But if you have the perfect targeting and poor quality creative? You will not be able to drive any results. Creative trumps targeting. 

So how should you choose whether to run a Video campaign or a Demand Gen campaign? 

I will generally recommend a Video campaign:

• if you have a very small budget, like $5 to $10 a day.

• If your primary goal is brand awareness or reaching a massive audience cheaply. 

• If you specifically wanna do content targeting, like putting your ads on competitors' YouTube channels, or

• if you want to build a highly engaged YouTube remarketing list to use in your Search campaigns later via RLSA. 

For more on RLSA, I've linked an article I wrote about that topic in the episode description as well. 

You should choose a Demand Gen campaign:

• if your goal is website traffic, lead generation, or online or in-store sales; if you want the person to take action beyond just seeing or viewing a video.

• You should also choose Demand Gen if you have great image assets but don't have any videos to use.

• And you should choose Demand Gen if you're used to running Meta ads or social ads and want similar structure and capabilities on Google platforms. 

If you're still not sure, I'd say about 90% of the time Demand Gen is the right choice. So when in doubt, choose Demand Gen. It is the future of where Google Ads is going alongside of course, Search and Shopping. 

To wrap up, Search-based ads are not going anywhere, but visual campaigns like Demand Gen and Video are your growth engine for the future. Picking the right campaign type for your creative can make all the difference between success and failure. 

Now, I'm at Brandcast today, an invite-only event in New York City where Google is sharing all the latest YouTube innovations with advertisers and creators.

Be sure you're following me on LinkedIn as that's where I'll be sharing the latest updates coming out of Brandcast. 

And before you go, I will also be at Google Marketing Live at Google's global headquarters in Mountain View next week. 

So our next Inside Google Ads episode will be full of the news you need to know about what's coming for Google Ads in 2026, 2027 and beyond with of course, my opinions and analysis and prioritization of what actually matters for you.

I’m Jyll Saskin Gales, and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.