Not every customer starts their journey with a search query. In fact, most of your future customers are currently scrolling through YouTube Shorts or their Discovery feed, unaware that your solution even exists. As we navigate the era of third-party cookie deprecation, the way we find these audiences is changing. To stay ahead, businesses must shift from reactive searching to proactive reaching by implementing a robust first-party data strategy.
For years, digital marketing has leaned heavily on “hand-raisers”—those users who type exactly what they need into a search engine. But what happens when your potential audience doesn’t know what to ask for yet? Traditional Search ads only capture existing demand. To reach the “unaware” without wasting budget, you need a way to identify high-value prospects in a cookieless marketing environment.
The problem with traditional Search ads is that they only capture existing demand. If people aren’t searching for your specific product or service today, you’re missing out on the vast majority of the market. Historically, reaching these “unaware” audiences meant wasting budget on broad, untargeted awareness campaigns that felt more like shouting into a void than driving revenue.
By leveraging Google Demand Gen campaigns, businesses can finally bridge this gap. This AI-powered tool allows you to combine the visual power of social-style creative with Google’s unparalleled intent-based data to spark new interest and fill the top of your sales funnel.
Demand Gen vs Discovery Ads
If you previously used Google Discovery ads, you’ve likely seen the transition to Demand Gen. But this isn’t just a rebrand; it’s a fundamental shift in how Google helps brands find new customers. Demand Gen is Google’s “creative-first” campaign type, specifically designed for high-engagement, visually immersive platforms.
The most exciting technical update in Demand Gen is the return of Lookalike segments. Because we are facing the end of traditional tracking, many advertisers are asking what to use instead of third-party cookies. The answer lies in your own data. By building a first-party data strategy, you can upload customer lists to find “lookalike” users who share behaviors with your best buyers, allowing for surgical precision in your prospecting.
The Platforms Where You’ll Win
Demand Gen ads don’t just sit on a results page. They live where users go to be entertained and inspired:
- YouTube Shorts: The fastest-growing surface on Google, perfect for snappy, vertical storytelling.
- YouTube Home and Watch Next: Capturing users while they are in a “discovery” mindset.
- Google Discover: The personalized feed used by hundreds of millions to stay up-to-date on their interests.
- Gmail: Reaching users in a high-focus environment through the Promotions and Social tabs.
To ensure this data reaches these platforms accurately, many advanced advertisers are moving toward server-side tagging for marketing. This ensures your conversion data remains crisp and reliable, even as browser-based tracking becomes less effective.
The Return of Lookalike Segments
Perhaps the most exciting technical update in Demand Gen is the return of Lookalike segments. While Google removed similar audiences from other campaign types to focus on privacy-centric signals, Demand Gen allows you to upload your first-party data (like a customer list) to find “lookalike” users who share similar behaviors and interests. This allows for surgical precision in your prospecting.
A Focus on Visual Impact
Unlike the text-heavy nature of Search, Demand Gen is image and video-heavy. According to Google Ads Help, these campaigns are built to “stop the scroll.” By using a mix of horizontal and vertical video alongside high-quality imagery, you can meet users in a way that feels native to the platform they are using.
Creative Strategy: The Heart of Demand Gen
In the Demand Gen era, the creative does the heavy lifting. You aren’t bidding on keywords; you are bidding on attention. In a Search campaign, the user provides the intent; in a Demand Gen campaign, your creative is the intent. If your visual assets don’t resonate within the first two seconds, the most sophisticated AI in the world won’t save your ROI.
At Gravitate One, we’ve found that the shift from “text-heavy” to “visual-first” is where most businesses struggle. Success requires moving away from static, corporate imagery toward dynamic storytelling that fits natively into a user’s social feed.
Short-Form Video is Non-Negotiable
With the explosion of mobile-first content, using YouTube Shorts for lead generation has become a primary driver of engagement, boasting billions of views daily. For Demand Gen success, you must produce content in a 9:16 aspect ratio.
However, the “vibe” of the video matters as much as the dimensions. These shouldn’t be high-production, glossy TV commercials that feel out of place on a mobile device. Instead, they should:
- Feel Authentic: Use “lo-fi” production styles, similar to User-Generated Content (UGC), which tends to have higher trust ratings among younger demographics.
- Front-Load the Value: Put your strongest hook in the first 3 seconds.
- Design for Sound-Off: Many users scroll in public places; ensure your message is clear through captions and on-screen text.
Tailored Messaging for the Journey
One of the biggest mistakes in top-of-funnel marketing is treating everyone the same. Your creative should reflect where the user is in their relationship with your brand. Demand Gen allows for sophisticated segmentation:
- Cold Audiences (Prospecting): Focus on “How-to” videos, “Did you know?” hooks, or problem-solving content. The goal here isn’t a hard sell; it’s to demonstrate that you understand their pain point.
- Warm Audiences (Lookalikes & Engagement): These users have shown similar behaviors to your customers. Use social proof, such as customer testimonials, case study highlights, or “behind-the-scenes” footage to build brand authority and trust.
- Retail/E-commerce Integration: Use Google Merchant Center product feeds to transform your ads into a virtual storefront. Demand Gen can dynamically pull products into your video and image ads, showing specific items based on a user’s past browsing behavior.
The “Rule of Three” and AI-Driven A/B Testing
Google’s machine learning is powerful, but it needs variety to learn what works. Google recommends the “Rule of Three”—including at least three high-quality images or videos in each of the three major aspect ratios within each ad group:
- Vertical (9:16): For Shorts and mobile-first discovery.
- Square (1:1): For Discover and Gmail feeds.
- Landscape (16:9): For YouTube “Watch Next” and desktop placements.
By providing these “Lego blocks,” you allow Google’s AI to mix and match headlines, descriptions, and visuals to build the perfect ad for every individual user. At Gravitate One, we don’t just “set it and forget it.” We engage in continuous testing, swapping out the bottom 20% of underperforming assets every month to ensure your click-through rates (CTR) remain high and your costs stay low.
Optimization for Performance
Beyond the visuals, your Call to Action (CTA) must be clear. Whether it’s “Shop Now,” “Learn More,” or “Get a Quote,” the button should stand out against the creative. According to research on visual storytelling, a strong visual narrative combined with a clear directive can increase brand recall by over 30%. By aligning your creative strategy with Google’s technical capabilities, you turn passive scrollers into active leads.
How Demand Gen Complements Your PMax and Search Strategy
A common question we hear is: “If I’m already running Performance Max, do I need Demand Gen?” The answer is yes. Demand Gen feeds your funnel, while PMax closes the deal. To make them work together, you should focus on how to use first-party data for PMax and Demand Gen simultaneously.
The “Assisted” Conversion and the Multi-Touch Journey
In the modern buyer’s journey—what Google researchers call the “Messy Middle”—the path from “Who are you?” to “Take my money” is rarely a straight line. Users are constantly looping between exploration and evaluation.
Imagine a potential customer:
- Morning: They see a stunning, high-energy Demand Gen ad on YouTube Shorts while drinking their coffee. They don’t click, but the brand’s unique value proposition is planted in their subconscious.
- Afternoon: That same user sees a visually rich product image in their Google Discover feed. Now, they recognize the brand.
- Evening: They finally have a moment to sit down and actually search for your product category on Google. Because of the previous two “touches,” they look specifically for your brand name or click your Search Ad over a competitor’s because you’ve already built familiarity.
Without Demand Gen, that initial spark would never have happened. Your Search campaigns would have stayed quiet because the user didn’t know you existed, and therefore, never thought to search for you. Demand Gen effectively lowers the “friction” of your bottom-of-funnel ads.
Mapping the Full Funnel for Scale
To scale a business effectively, you cannot rely solely on the people who are ready to buy right now. You must build a pipeline. A sophisticated Google Ads account should follow this structured flow:
- Demand Gen (Top of Funnel Marketing Strategy – Awareness & Interest): This is where you find new audiences. You use video and images to generate curiosity and drive high-quality site traffic.
- Search (Middle of Funnel – Consideration & Intent): This captures the demand you’ve created. When those users return to Google to research solutions, your Search ads are there to provide the specific answers and “hand-holding” they need.
- Performance Max (Bottom of Funnel – Conversion & Re-engagement): This is where you utilize PMax audience signals—using your customer lists to tell Google’s AI exactly what a “converter” looks like. It uses automated bidding across all of Google’s channels to find the most likely converters and bring them across the finish line, often through dynamic remarketing.
Budget Allocation: The “Test and Learn” Framework
Moving the budget away from “guaranteed” Search conversions can feel risky. That’s why we recommend a data-driven “test and learn” approach.
For most businesses looking to expand, we suggest allocating roughly 10-20% of your total Google Ads spend specifically to Demand Gen. This budget acts as your “R&D” wing—it allows you to generate enough data for Google’s AI to optimize and identify winning creative assets without stripping budget from your proven, high-converting Search or PMax campaigns. Over time, as you see your “Brand Search” volume increase (a key indicator that Demand Gen is working), you can scale this percentage upward to drive even more growth.
Using Cross-Channel Attribution
To truly see the value of this strategy, you must look beyond “Last Click” attribution. By using Data-Driven Attribution, you can see exactly how much credit your YouTube and Discover ads deserve for the sales that eventually close on Search. At Gravitate One, we help our clients navigate these reports to prove the “halo effect” that Demand Gen has on the rest of their marketing spend.
The Gravitate One Advantage
At Gravitate One, we know that a first-party data strategy is the only way to future-proof your ROI. Many agencies treat PPC as a purely technical exercise, ignoring the importance of creative and data privacy.
Our Integrated Process
We bridge the gap between technical PPC management and high-impact creative production. We don’t guess audience intent; we analyze your existing Search and PMax data to see which messages are already driving sales. We then use those insights to build the scripts, visual hooks, and calls-to-action for your Demand Gen campaigns.
Why It Works
This integrated approach ensures your brand message remains consistent across the entire Google ecosystem. When your YouTube Shorts look and feel like your website, and your Search ads echo the promises made in your videos, brand recall skyrockets. The result? Higher engagement, better-qualified leads, and lower customer acquisition costs (CAC).
Stop Waiting and Start Generating
Demand Gen is the missing link for many modern advertisers. It’s a way to find new customers exactly where they spend their time—on video and in feeds—using the most sophisticated AI-driven targeting Google has ever offered.
Stop Waiting and Start Generating. When you stop waiting for people to search for you and start generating demand yourself, you scale faster. By building a first-party data strategy, you reach the 90% of your market that your competitors are completely missing.
Ready to expand your reach beyond the search bar? Contact Gravitate One today for a custom Demand Gen strategy session, and let’s start filling your funnel from the top down.