Demand Gen campaigns can trip up beginner and advanced Google Ads practitioners alike, because they work so differently than Search.
For example, in Search campaigns, a good text ad can run effectively for years. But in visual campaigns like Demand Gen, your creative has a shelf life. Eventually, your audience has seen that image of the living room carpet one too many times, which means they stop "seeing" it altogether. This is also known as "ad fatigue." But how do you know when it's time to switch up your creative?
I recently had a Google Ads coaching call with Brooklyn and John, two agency marketers and longtime clients. They were managing a Demand Gen campaign for a local carpet and flooring company. The campaign had been live for a long time, targeting a narrow audience, and they suspected they were hitting the same people again and again.
They wanted to refresh the creatives but weren't sure what to keep and what to kill.
We did a "Live Audit" together, and we found some massive opportunities for improvement that you can apply to your own account right now...
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Start by checking your assets report
To find your assets report, go to "Ads," and click on "View Asset Details" under the ad you want to evaluate. This will show you metrics for your headlines, long headlines, descriptions, images, videos and more.
I recommend filtering by "Asset type" so you can assess each asset separately. That's what we did, what we found, and how I advised Brooklyn and John to fix it.
1. The "Boring" Headline Problem
We filtered by "Headlines" and looked at the Click-Through Rate (CTR).
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The Losers: Generic headlines like "Carpet Replacement" or "Carpet Installation."
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The Winners: Benefit-rich headlines like "Award-Winning Installation" or "High-Quality Carpets."
The Fix: I advised my clients to remove the generic headlines, and give people a reason to click, not just a description of what you do. This isn't search! They weren't searching for a carpet right now. Entice them into exploring a new one.
2. The Missing Asset Opportunity
When we looked at the images, Brooklyn and John had plenty of Horizontal and Square images. But when we looked for Vertical (4:5 ratio) images? Zero.
That means they were completely missing out on certain placements because they didn't have the right asset size.
The Fix: They updated their agency SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for launching a new Demand Gen campaign to 5x5x5: Always upload 5 Horizontal, 5 Square, and 5 Vertical images. This leaves an additional 5 "floater" assets to test later, once you've seen how your initial 15 perform.
3. The Human Element
The client sold carpets and flooring, so the images were... carpets. Just swatches and empty rooms. However, Google's own cross-industry research shows that imagery with humans performs much better than imagery of just products.
The Fix: I advised them to swap in photos of people: happy homeowners, installers at work, or even a pet relaxing on the rug. People connect with people, not just fabric. Just ensure that you don't go too far; the photo should still highlight the carpet or flooring.
4. The Landing Page Preview
We also spotted a weird image asset that looked like a bad screenshot of the website. It turns out that they had left the box checked that lets Google show a screenshot of your landing page as an asset. This might make sense for some businesses, but it's not what we wanted for this business!
The Fix: We went into the Ad settings and unchecked the creation box for this asset.
Here's how you can get the most out of your Demand Gen creative, like Brooklyn and John:
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Start with the 5x5x5 Rule: For Demand Gen, aim for 5 Horizontal, 5 Square, and 5 Vertical (4:5) images. This maximizes your placement eligibility. You can also add Vertical (9:16) images that show on Shorts, but I usually leave these out for an image-only campaign.
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Wait for data before your judge: Don't judge an asset's CTR until it has at least 100 clicks. If you're judging Conversion Rate, wait for 50 conversions (or about 90 days of data). If an asset only has 19 clicks, its CTR is not going to be statistically significant, and you could "kill" or over-prioritize assets that aren't actually under-/over-performing if you analyze them too soon.
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Audit Regularly: Go to "View Asset Details" at least once a quarter. If you're investing 5 figures a month in Demand Gen, do it at least monthly. Replace your low performers with new variations of your top performers to fight ad fatigue.
Want my eyes and expertise on your Google Ads account? Book a call with me and we'll fix your campaigns together.
