Auto buyers researching vehicles on Google use it for more than search. The search giant recognises this and operates multiple ad formats for different search needs.
That's where Demand Gen steps in.
What are Google Demand Gen campaigns?
Google Demand Gen campaigns are ideal for serving multi-format ads.
They're designed to capture buyer intent, engagement and action across the search giant's high-impact touchpoints. These touchpoints include YouTube (in-stream and in-feed), Shorts, Gmail and Discover.
Demand Gen ads are immersive, relevant and visually appealing to audiences. They're also purpose-built and AI-powered to drive actions, conversions and site visits for you.
Examples of automotive Demand Gen on Google
Audi uses multiple demand gen ad formats with creatives to push its latest or most popular models.
Source: Google Ads Library
Source: Google Ads Library
Tesla leverages vertical video (such as YouTube Shorts) by focusing on its unique solutions.
For example, the ad below features Model Y's Trip Planner–a feature used to find charging stations and check the time until full charge.
Source: Google Ads Library
Why use Demand Gen for automotive lead generation
Demand Gen has continually gained momentum since its introduction in 2023.
Here's why you should explore them, too:
- Given Google's vast reach, Demand Gen can reach up to 3 billion monthly active users.
- 1 in 3 consumers have purchased something on Google feeds which they didn't intend to buy before.
- 63% of consumers find new brands and products on Google's feed, and 91% of them take action on seeing these brands and products immediately.
- Instead of relying solely on keywords, Demand Gen targets users based on their search behaviour. It leverages audience insights and signals to engage with leads where they're most receptive to your ad.
- It also helps you capture competitor interest by targeting audiences searching for your key competitors and their models.
- Demand Gen offers granular targeting where you can use postcodes to serve highly targeted ads near dealership locations.
- Smart bidding is available with Demand Gen. You can place bids for lead-driven ads and maximise clicks, conversions or conversion value.
How to create Google Demand Gen campaigns
Here's a quick guide to creating a Demand Gen campaign on Google:
- Create a campaign
Login to your Google Ads account. On the Overview page, click +New Campaign.
Select your Campaign Objectives under which Demand Gen is available–Sales, Leads, Website Traffic or Create a campaign without a goal's guidance.
Next, choose Demand Gen as the Campaign Type.
Enter the Campaign name and select your Campaign goal–Conversions, Clicks or Conversion value.
- Build the campaign
Add the Locations and Languages you want to target. The languages must be aligned to your ad language.
Next, you can add the Bid strategy and Budget.
Under your Bid strategy, you can choose to Maximise conversion value, Target return on ad spend (ROAS), Maximise conversions, Maximise clicks or Target cost per action (CPA).
💡 Hot Tip: If you don't know your Target CPA, go with your average CPA/ROAS optimised towards similar conversion goals over the last 30 days.
You could also run a 'maximise conversion' campaign for 30 days to learn your CPA and set it for future campaigns.
Add the Daily or Total budget and set the Start and end dates for when you want to run the ad.
- Build the audience
You can build your ad audience from existing custom segments, your own audience data or lookalike segments. Or select specific interests and demographics.
Using the audience builder, you can also create a New audience at the ad group level.
If optimised targeting is enabled, Google will target beyond your selected demographic signals to improve the overall campaign performance. You can deselect this if needed.
- Create an ad
At the ad group level, click on New ad.
You can choose which format to use within the ad–Video ad, Single image ad or Carousel image ad (with multiple images).
Once you've chosen the format, you can complete the rest of the details, which include:
- Ad name
- Select or add media
- Up to 5 logos
- Text assets
Use the ad strength rules to see how you can improve your ad for better performance.
Since Google updates its campaigns and ad inventories regularly, a lead form extension should typically be available.
If it's available, add the lead form extension. And if it isn't, you can use Driftrock's Landing Page forms.
Review the campaign and if everything is in order, you're ready to Publish.
Best practices for Google Demand Gen
These best practices will help you level up your Demand Gen campaigns for your automotive business:
- Make the most of creative formats
Play to each creative format's strengths to engage with leads and leave a lasting impression.
For example, carousels can tell a story through multiple images in a flow.
On the other hand, use videos to grab attention through moving visuals. Include your key proposition, problem statement and solution within the first 5 seconds.
Also, display your brand name in these initial seconds so viewers register it to a greater degree.
- Leverage Google's powerful audience insights
Google is well known for offering one of the best and most extensive targeting options.
Move beyond demographics and explore audience interests, life events, purchase intent, in-market signals and more.
You can choose to exclude audiences that are irrelevant to your brand, campaign or ad.
Use Google's targeting to maximise impressions on high-intent leads.
- Use Lookalike segments to expand your audience
Google can build on your existing 'seed list' of audience data to create Lookalike segments. It chooses audiences with similar attributes to your seed list who will most likely interact with your ads.
You may use first-party data to build lookalike audiences. Alternatively, you can reach people who have previously interacted with your ad, website, or social accounts.
When using lookalike audiences on Google, you may optimise between reach and similarity by selecting narrow, broad or balanced segments.
- Focus on continuous improvements
Analyse your campaign performance regularly.
Track conversions and adjust your targeting to improve ROI. You may also test a mix of different ad formats, creative formats and ad copy.
Refreshing your campaigns with the latest content and visuals reduces ad fatigue as audiences don't keep seeing the same or old images, videos and ad copy across Google.
How Driftrock helps you drive more vehicle sales from Google Demand Gen
With Google Ads, higher conversions have positive implications. You receive a higher ad rank, which may lower your cost per click (CPC) and lead to a higher ROI.
Driftrock's platform is geared towards automotive-specific solutions. It helps increase lead quality and volume, reduce cost per lead (CPL) and improve conversion rates.
The combined result? Better ROI and more vehicle sales.
Here's how Driftrock works with Google Demand Gen:
- Mehr Leads generieren
Our integrations, custom-built and tested for automotive lead generation, help you drive more leads and reduce the CPL by up to 50%.
Driftrock's central model tree and location lookup further streamline the integration process.
- Qualität der Leads erhöhen
You can use Driftrock to connect, validate, qualify and deduplicate leads into your CRM.
Plus, you can increase lead quality with automated lead quality controls that transform, map and enrich lead data.
To ensure that only valid and qualified leads enter your CRM, we let you set custom qualification rules for lead acceptance and segmentation. For example, if a lead wants to buy in 3 or 6 months, you can set this qualification rule using Driftrock.
- Simplify CAPI setup
Building a conversion API (CAPI) manually could be time-consuming, challenging, and expensive.
Instead, Driftrock simplifies the CAPI setup for website, lead and CRM. You can use it to track your leads, enable measurement and optimise leads for conversion.
- Leverage Smart Bidding and conversion tracking
Driftrock's automotive marketing platform lets you leverage click, lead conversion and CRM conversion management for smart bidding and measurement on Google.
You can optimise vehicle purchase campaigns with keyword and ad-level website lead tracking. Plus, our advanced downstream tracking helps you understand the return on ad spend (ROAS) and optimise the campaign budget.
- Lebenszyklus-Marketing nutzen
"Avoid looking at channels in isolation. For example, you can build a high-intent audience on Google and use this to improve the quality of Meta. The reach will likely be small, but the quality will be very high. You can also build lookalikes of these custom audiences to broaden the reach." – Noreen Abdallah, Paid Media Senior Account Manager, Driftrock
Sync CRM and lead segments with Google Customer Match using Driftrock. You can leverage your first-party lead data, standardise it, and integrate it with multiple lead sources.
Our platform lets you optimise campaigns for quality to identify which audiences, ads and forms drive the best quality leads. You can use these insights for future lead gen campaigns.
Here's how to get started with Driftrock for Google Demand Gen
- Login to Driftrock.
- Click on Setup New Capture on your dashboard.
- Or, click on Lead Capture Library and select 'Google Discovery Lead Form Ads'.
- Folgen Sie dem Setup-Widget für die nächsten Schritte zur Synchronisierung der Lead-Erfassung.
- Vergewissern Sie sich, dass Sie alle wichtigen Lead-Details angeben, die Sie an Ihr CRM-System senden möchten.
- Hit Finish.
You can also generate leads from Google through other campaign types. Find out more about:
Driftrock's automotive marketing platform has driven over £360 million in Vehicle Sales across 15 markets globally in the last 12 months.
We've generated more than 400,000 automotive leads for over 60% of auto brands. Our clients have also experienced, on average, a 15% increase in automotive market share for New Car Sales.
To learn more, get in touch with an automotive marketing expert.
