Is Demand Gen Good for Leads? How 3 Businesses Found Success

By: Jyll Saskin Gales, Google Ads Coach

Have you launched a Google Ads Demand Gen campaign, only to watch it fall flat and turn it off in frustration? You’re not alone. Demand Gen is one of Google's newest campaign types, and it's widely misunderstood. Many advertisers write it off as a waste of money when it doesn't immediately deliver the same results as their Search campaigns.

But what if you could make it work? What if Demand Gen could become a powerful tool for filling your pipeline with high-quality leads, sometimes at a lower cost than you thought possible? The truth is, it can work - if you build it on the right foundation. It’s not about just flipping a switch; it’s about a deliberate strategy involving your audience, your creative, and your offer.

This post will show you how 3 real Google Ads practitioners are finding success with Demand Gen for B2B and lead generation.

Here’s what you can expect to learn:

• How a university used Demand Gen to lower its cost-per-acquisition by over 60% and attract students from new regions.
• The simple targeting tweak a home services business made to dramatically improve lead quality during its slow season.
• A creative B2B strategy that used a quiz to generate high-quality leads for less than the cost of a single click on a Search ad.
• Key takeaways on creative, targeting, and landing pages that you can apply to your own campaigns.

Case Study 1: Expanding Reach for an Educational Institution

First, let's look at how Heather Brousell, founder of Antares Digital Marketing, used Demand Gen for a prominent university client.

The Goal: The university needed to increase brand awareness while also hitting specific student enrollment numbers. The primary measure of success was form fills, which were passed directly to the admissions department.

The Strategy:

Heather’s approach was a smart blend of audience targeting and creative messaging.

• Audience Targeting: Instead of starting from scratch, the team repurposed audience lists from successful social media campaigns to create Lookalike audiences in Google Ads. They discovered that engagement was even higher on Google's platforms. They also segmented their targeting into two distinct groups: prospective students and their parents, tailoring the creative to each.
• Creative Approach: Videos targeting students showcased fun, on-campus activities, capturing the vibrant student life. In contrast, videos aimed at parents offered a behind-the-scenes look at the school's programs and value, speaking directly to their desire to see a return on their child's educational investment. All the videos featured actual students, making the messaging feel authentic and relatable.
• Bidding and Budget: The campaign was optimized for conversions using a Target CPA bid strategy. To give the campaign enough data to learn, the daily budget was set to roughly 15 times the Target CPA.

The Results:

Initially, the Cost Per Acquisition from Demand Gen was around $50-$60. Heather and her team noticed a crucial pattern: users who watched at least 20-25% of a video were the ones most likely to convert. By analyzing these "video played" metrics, they were able to pause the under-performing ads and double down on what was working.

This single optimization drove the CPA down to an impressive $21. Not only was the client thrilled with the cost savings, but they also saw a significant spike in enrollments. The campaign successfully expanded their reach beyond their home state of Texas, attracting new students from the Northeast, Oregon, and Colorado - areas they had previously struggled to penetrate.

Case Study 2: Beating the Slow Season for a Home Services Business

Next, Austin Lindquist, Director of PPC at Ring Ring Marketing, shares how he helped a window and door dealer use Demand Gen to generate business during their typically quiet months.

The Goal: The client wanted to build a top-of-funnel audience and generate leads to supplement their existing Search campaigns, particularly during the off-season.

The Strategy:

• Audience Targeting: The team focused on a Lookalike audience built from their website remarketing list, ensuring they were reaching people with similar characteristics to their past site visitors. When the campaign first launched with "optimized targeting" and the Display Network enabled, it generated a high volume of low-quality, spammy leads. This is a common pitfall. By simply turning off optimized targeting and the Display Network, the number of leads dropped from 65 to 30, but the quality skyrocketed. The 30 leads were genuine, interested customers.
• Creative Mix: They tested a combination of image and video ads. The image ads included powerful before-and-after photos of their work, supplemented by AI-generated images to overcome the common challenge of getting high-quality photos from installers in the field. They also repurposed a successful YouTube video ad for the campaign.

The Results:

The client was extremely happy with the high-quality leads Demand Gen delivered. Austin emphasizes that Search is still "king" for immediate, high-intent leads. However, running Demand Gen in tandem with Search, especially during the slow season, proved to be one of the most effective strategies they’ve implemented. It keeps the lead pipeline full when search volume naturally dips.

Case Study 3: Finding Niche B2B Leads with a Creative Offer

Finally, let's explore how Jack Hepp, Founder of Industrious Marketing, used Demand Gen for a managed IT and cybersecurity client targeting small businesses.

The Goal: The client operated in a niche with very limited search volume, making traditional Search campaigns difficult. They needed a way to reach businesses that were aware of cybersecurity risks but might not be actively looking for a solution.

The Strategy:

This campaign's success hinged on a sophisticated audience strategy and a brilliant landing page offer.

• Audience Targeting: After finding little success with Google's default audiences, Jack built a highly specific Custom Segment. This segment included:
  • Top-performing keywords from their previous Search attempts.
  • Industry websites where business owners might research cybersecurity.
  • Competitor websites. This created a well-rounded profile of their ideal customer. They also added demographic restrictions to filter out irrelevant age groups.
• Creative and Messaging: The creative focused on the audience's pain points. They knew their targets were "problem-aware" but not "solution-aware." Ad copy like "Protecting your business from cyber attacks" resonated far more than ads listing features or statistics.
• The Landing Page Offer: This was the game-changer. Instead of asking for a demo right away, a high-commitment ask for this audience, they created a quiz on the landing page. The quiz walked users through questions about their current IT setup, offering immediate value and information. This lower-lift conversion point was far more effective at capturing interest.

The Results:

The results were phenomenal. Over three months, they achieved a $10.24 cost per lead for users who completed the quiz. Even better, these marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) converted into sales-qualified leads (SQLs) at an incredible 40% rate.

To put that in perspective, clicks on their Search campaigns cost between $10 and $20. With Demand Gen, they were generating a qualified lead, someone who completed an entire quiz, for the same price as a single click from a Search ad. It proved to be a far more efficient way to fill their sales funnel.

Your Keys to Demand Gen Success

These three stories highlight several common themes for making Demand Gen work for lead generation:

1. Creative is Paramount: You can have the perfect audience, but if your images and videos don't grab attention and speak directly to that audience, your campaign will fail. Focus on pain points and authentic messaging.
2. Targeting Needs to Be Deliberate: Don't just rely on Google's default settings. Use your existing data to build Lookalike or Custom Segments. Think like Jack and build an audience based on the keywords, websites, and competitors relevant to your ideal customer.
3. Rethink Your Conversion Goal: Demand Gen reaches people earlier in their journey. Asking for a sale or demo immediately can be too much, too soon. Think like Jack's team and offer something of value, like a quiz, checklist, or guide, to capture interest and qualify leads.
4. The Landing Page Is Half the Battle: Your ad gets the click, but your landing page secures the lead. Ensure the user experience is seamless and that your offer is compelling enough to make someone hand over their information.

Demand Gen is a nuanced campaign type, but it isn’t a mystery box. As these examples show, with the right strategy, it can be an incredibly effective and efficient tool for lead generation.