Google's Demand Gen campaigns (formerly Discovery Ads) are Google's answer to Meta's top-of-funnel paid social — visual ads served across YouTube, Gmail, and Google Discover. For B2B SaaS, they're a relatively new channel that most teams either ignore or misuse. When they work, they extend your reach beyond search intent at a lower CPM than LinkedIn. When they don't, they spend budget on audiences that will never buy. Here's the honest assessment.
Cactus Take
We recommend Demand Gen to most B2B SaaS clients as their third or fourth channel — after Search and LinkedIn are performing. As a retargeting and brand reinforcement tool for warm audiences, it's underpriced relative to its reach. As a cold-traffic B2B acquisition channel, it rarely outperforms LinkedIn.
Demand Gen works best when you have a warm audience to retarget. Upload your customer list, website visitor list, and YouTube viewers. Demand Gen retargeting can reach these audiences on YouTube pre-roll and Gmail at CPMs of $3–$8 — dramatically cheaper than LinkedIn. For cold traffic, Demand Gen's targeting precision is significantly lower than LinkedIn, which limits its effectiveness for narrow B2B ICPs.
Demand Gen supports both image and video assets. Video (YouTube placement) delivers 3–5x more impressions per dollar than image-only campaigns on Demand Gen. For B2B, a 30-second explainer video or a customer testimonial clip works well. Don't invest in Demand Gen without video assets — you'll be competing at a creative disadvantage.
Demand Gen's most reliable B2B use case is lookalike targeting from your customer list. Upload 500+ customers and let Google build a similar audience. This is comparable to Facebook Lookalike Audiences and works reasonably well for B2B companies with a defined customer profile. Expect CPL 40–60% higher than LinkedIn matched audiences but with more scale at lower CPM.
Demand Gen's primary value is reach and awareness — not direct conversion. Most B2B SaaS products are not impulse purchases, and a Gmail ad is not the moment someone decides to buy a $20K/year SaaS tool. Set success metrics accordingly: track lift in branded search volume, increase in direct traffic, and assisted conversions — not direct CPL vs. LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms.
Within your Demand Gen strategy, test YouTube non-skippable 6-second bumper ads (true view) targeting competitor audiences and category interest audiences. CPMs of $4–$12 for highly targeted B2B YouTube placements are achievable. A tight 6-second bumper ('When your engineering team needs better sprint visibility — [Product]') planted before relevant SaaS/tech YouTube content can drive measurable branded search lift.
Cactus Marketing has run paid ad campaigns for 60+ B2B tech startups. Book a free 30-minute call and we'll tell you what's actually worth doing for your stage and budget.
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