Aaron Young explains how Google Ads is shifting from keyword bidding to audience targeting and video-first campaigns, especially through the new Demand Gen format. Success in 2025 requires video-rich creatives and precise audience targeting, mirroring Meta's approach, whether you're selling products or leads.
Google Ads is changing and it's what I'm calling the monetization of Google Ads. Ever since Google Ads was first introduced, it was built off this simple premise that as a business owner you would select the keywords that you want your ads to appear for, have the bid, people would click on the ad, they would go to your website and then you would get the sales or you would get the leads that your business needs. But that is all changing now. And the biggest driver of this change is the user search behavior. People are changing their way, they are searching. So Google is responding. One of the biggest introductions is the introduction of new campaign types, especially demand gen. And demand gen is actually not built off keyword targeting. And this is why I'm calling it the meta ts of Google Ads because it's closer to what you would see in a meta style campaign where it's built off audience targeting and also built off your creatives. So the take home message is if you want to see continued success with Google Ads and this doesn't matter if you're an E commerce brand or a lead generation business, you need to be incorporating video and creative ad aspects, really focus in on targeting the right audiences for continued success with Google Ads in 2025.
