The Swiss sports brand On also wanted to target potential buyers more effectively and drive qualified traffic to its own website – and was therefore one of the first advertisers in Switzerland to test the Demand Gen campaign format on YouTube. “We wanted to find out whether we could achieve more online sales, website visits and interactions among certain target groups,” says Ricardo De Fontes Avelar, who is responsible for paid display and video at On. “It was a small but important step in our strategy to make On visible and relevant to customers who may not yet be thinking about our products.”
Using a combination of high-quality videos and images, the brand promoted its product range in the US, UK and Germany on prominent advertising spaces on YouTube. AI-supported bidding strategies, especially conversion bidding in the product feed, made it possible to target the right audience and increase sales. Early in the test, it became clear that Demand Gen’s “Maximum Clicks” bidding strategy was particularly effective at targeting users in the middle of the sales funnel, the so-called consideration phase. In addition, the on-marketers found that results deteriorated when the ads were changed too frequently at the beginning. “To reach its full potential, a Demand Gen campaign needs to reach a certain size,” says Ricardo De Fontes Avelar. “It works best as part of a comprehensive full-funnel strategy. Demand Gen campaigns have helped us get the most out of our old Discovery campaigns and take them to the next level for our lower funnel audiences with high-quality traffic and more sales.”
