Google Demand Generation (Demand-Gen) campaigns enable businesses to reach potential customers across YouTube, Gmail, and Google Discover. By leveraging multiple touchpoints, these AI-supported campaigns help drive sales by delivering relevant ads to the right audiences, maximizing the impact of high-performing social media assets.
Demand-gen campaigns are designed to foster deeper customer engagement. They utilize Google AI and lookalike audiences to serve the most visually appealing creative content to the relevant audiences while optimizing bidding strategies across the entire marketing funnel.
The real strength of demand-gen lies in its ability to drive measurable results across platforms – like more qualified leads, broader reach, and higher conversion potential. By delivering tailored messaging across multiple digital channels, these campaigns not only strengthen brand visibility but also support long-term program growth through smarter, data-driven targeting. Google demand-gen campaigns are ideal for upper and mid-funnel goals, such as generating awareness and interest.
Quick Look at Program Results in Year 1
+21%
+78.3%
+18.2%
Web application submissions
+45.8%
“How Did You Hear About Us?” data mentioning digital ads
25,276,508
Campaign impressions
1.59%
Average click-through-rate
Challenge
The PPL WRAP program has historically faced challenges with limited customer awareness and low participation. Several factors contributing to low digital conversion rates include targeted outreach that lacks consistency and scale to generate meaningful engagement, as well as limited awareness and perceived complexity of participation within hard-to-reach audiences.
Lower than targeted conversion metrics directly and negatively impact the program’s ability to meet its energy saving goals. To make matters more challenging, the 900 energy assessment appointments targeted per month in 2024 needed to increase to 1,100 appointments monthly to meet the goal of 9 MW of verified energy savings.
Customer engagement and a low-friction customer journey are critical to achieving these program objectives. With the success of demand-gen campaigns, the goal is to increase digital conversions and drive inbound scheduling calls as a sign of growing awareness and stronger program momentum.
Solution
Unlike other tactics that rely heavily on direct response or retargeting, demand-gen helps us cast a wider, smarter net to reach new, qualified audiences who may not yet be familiar with the program through improved awareness campaigns. When paired with other Google marketing tactics, like Performance Max and paid search, awareness marketing is further amplified.
Key strategies in demand-gen campaigns include precise location targeting and demographic segmentation – such as audience affinities, household income levels, and age groups – to ensure we’re reaching the right people in the right places. We also use engaging, relevant, creative content to connect with customers across platforms, mirroring messaging and visuals on social media to boost recognition and consistency. Additionally, video formats have been incorporated to better capture attention and communicate the program’s value in a digestible and dynamic way. Together, these efforts create a more impactful and scalable approach to increase awareness and participation in the WRAP program.
Results
Since integrating demand-gen into our marketing mix in July 2024, we’ve seen steady improvements in both customer engagement and lead quality. Digital performance metrics have strengthened, with higher click-through rates, increased ad efficiency, and stronger scheduling volumes. The total number of scheduled WRAP assessments rose by 21% from July 2024 through June 2025 compared to the same period the previous year—highlighting how demand-gen is not only driving awareness but also effectively converting it into action.
While the total number of inbound calls decreased from the baseline year to the year when demand-gen was implemented by 5.87% (20,848 vs. 19,624), the percentage of those callers calling about scheduling increased 89.4% YOY (31.2% in the baseline year, vs. 60.4% in the demand-gen campaign year). Additionally, the total number of inbound calls scheduled increased by 78.3% YOY (6,642 to 11,844).
Together, these results indicate that better inbound traffic is being driven to the call center for appointment scheduling. On the self-service side, there was an 18.2% year-over-year increase in web application submissions, indicating growing customer initiative and confidence in using the online tools, empowering customers to take action independently — a positive sign that the program is reaching more people with fewer resource constraints.
This impact is especially evident in our spring 2025 campaign, which marked our highest-performing effort since introducing the channel —with an 8% click-through rate increase over our pilot campaign, and a 319% increase over the industry benchmark— contributing to one of our strongest quarters for scheduled assessments. These results show how demand-gen has enhanced overall campaign performance, helped fill funnel gaps, and expanded reach across priority audience segments.
Conclusion
Since being introduced in July 2024, demand-gen has proven to be a powerful addition to our overall marketing mix—helping us reach hard-to-engage audiences in more targeted and effective ways. While several new tactics were implemented during this period, early results suggest that incorporating demand-gen has contributed to increased impressions, stronger engagement, and improved conversion rates. By meeting customers where they are—across YouTube, Gmail, and Google Discover—we’re expanding reach and reinforcing program messaging in high-traffic, interest-based channels. Our “How Did You Hear About Us” data pertaining to digital advertising and online views increased by 45% from pre-demand-gen implementation. These results reinforce demand-gen’s role in driving meaningful participation and helping to move the program closer to its savings goals.
As a key component of our multi-channel strategy, demand-gen plays an essential role in reaching younger demographics, as well as income-qualified audiences who may not otherwise engage through traditional channels. By leveraging Google’s AI-powered precision targeting and dynamic placements, these campaigns enhance top-of-funnel activity and help convert interest into action. For programs looking to boost visibility, drive deeper engagement, and ultimately improve participation, demand-gen stands out as a smart, scalable solution that delivers long-term value through data-driven precision and adaptive reach.