Our February Demand Gen Drop has more ways to unlock high-performing Demand Gen campaigns.

Summary

Demand Gen campaigns can achieve over 40% more conversions when advertisers follow at least 3 of 4 best practices: applying optimized targeting and new customer acquisition goals, using tCPA/tROAS bidding with adequate budgets set via Performance Planner, achieving excellent ad strength to generate high-quality creative assets, and ensuring proper data setup through sitewide tagging and offline data connection. For example, Cropp saw a 50% ROAS uplift by using excellent ad strength and recommended audience solutions.

Analyst Note

What's notable here is the implicit signal that Google is formalizing a set of non-negotiable best practices for Demand Gen campaigns, with a clear performance delta—40% more conversions—for advertisers who adopt at least three of the four pillars. For UA and monetization teams, this represents a shift from optional optimization to near-mandatory compliance, as platform algorithms increasingly prioritize campaigns that align with these frameworks. The emphasis on 'Excellent' Ad Strength and Google AI–driven asset generation highlights a broader industry trend: creative and audience targeting are being absorbed into automated, signal-based systems, reducing the need for manual segmentation but raising the bar for asset quality and tagging infrastructure.

The Cropp result—50% ROAS uplift through ad strength and audience solutions—provides a concrete benchmark that competitive teams will use to pressure internal adoption. At the same time, the call for sitewide tagging and offline data connection reflects the post-privacy reality where first-party data and accurate measurement are prerequisites for AI effectiveness. For ad ops professionals, the key implication is that failing to operationalize these best practices now risks falling behind not just in performance, but in how the platform's machine learning models prioritize spend.

The article assumes readers already understand tCPA/tROAS, Performance Planner, and lookalike audiences; its value lies in validating that these tactics must be executed collectively, not in isolation, to unlock the AI-driven efficiency Google is baking into its ad products.