Demand Gen Audit

Demand Gen Audit

A deep audit of your Demand Gen campaigns — Google's visual, social-style campaign type running across Discover, Gmail, YouTube feeds and Shorts. Demand Gen lives or dies on audiences and creative, so that's where this audit spends its time.

Requires: Cogny Agent subscription ($9/mo) — Sign up

Works with

Call list_integrations once. Everything beyond Google Ads is optional context.

Step 0: Cogny check

If no mcp__cogny__* tools exist (no list_integrations, no cogny_status), print this and stop:

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Demand Gen Audit needs your marketing data through Cogny's MCP gateway.

1. Sign up at https://cogny.com and connect Google Ads (plus Microsoft Ads, GA4 or Meta Ads
   if you use them).
2. Add Cogny to .mcp.json in your project:
   {"mcpServers": {"cogny": {"type": "http", "url": "https://app.cogny.com/mcp"}}}
3. Restart Claude Code; it opens a browser for the OAuth login on first use.

Nothing to run without Cogny.

If Cogny is connected but mcp__cogny__mcp__Google_Ads__tool_execute_gaql is missing, say "connect Google Ads in Cogny" (or "reconnect Google Ads in Cogny" if it's listed but unhealthy or a read returns 401/permission denied) and stop.

Usage

/demand-gen-audit — audit every Demand Gen campaign in the account /demand-gen-audit Prospecting - Q2 — audit one campaign by name or id

Why Demand Gen needs its own audit

Demand Gen has no keywords and no search intent. It's an interruption channel — you win by showing the right audience the right creative. The audit checks audience strategy, creative format spread, creative fatigue, and whether CPA is tracking toward goal.

Steps

Google Ads money fields are micros (divide by 1,000,000). An empty GAQL result (no rows, or the tool returns no output) means zero: no matching entities or no activity in the window. Report it as 0, not as an error.

1. Find the Demand Gen campaigns

sqlCopy code
SELECT campaign.id, campaign.name, campaign.status,
  campaign.bidding_strategy_type, campaign.target_cpa.target_cpa_micros,
  campaign_budget.amount_micros, metrics.cost_micros, metrics.conversions,
  metrics.conversions_value, metrics.clicks, metrics.impressions
FROM campaign
WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'DEMAND_GEN'
  AND segments.date DURING LAST_30_DAYS
ORDER BY metrics.cost_micros DESC

If this returns no rows, also check for paused or idle ones (same query without the date filter, campaign.status != 'REMOVED'). If there are still none, report "no Demand Gen campaigns in this account" and stop; suggest /google-ads-audit for the account as a whole.

Compute CPA and compare to the campaign's target CPA. Flag campaigns running >50% over target.

Microsoft Ads (if connected): tool_get_campaigns (account_id, campaign_types: ["Audience"]) and tool_get_report (account_id from tool_list_accounts, report_type: "campaign", campaign_ids). Show Microsoft Audience campaigns as their own row block with CPA in the account's currency.

2. Ad group & audience strategy

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SELECT ad_group.name, ad_group.status, campaign.name,
  metrics.cost_micros, metrics.conversions, metrics.clicks
FROM ad_group
WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'DEMAND_GEN'
  AND segments.date DURING LAST_30_DAYS

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SELECT ad_group.name, ad_group_criterion.type,
  ad_group_criterion.user_list.user_list,
  ad_group_criterion.audience.audience
FROM ad_group_criterion
WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'DEMAND_GEN'
  AND ad_group_criterion.status = 'ENABLED'

Flag:

• Ad groups with no audience attached (running fully broad — burns budget)
• Only broad/affinity audiences, no first-party signal (customer match, website visitors) and no lookalike segments
• Prospecting and remarketing audiences mixed in one ad group — they need different creative and different bids
• A single ad group per campaign (no audience testing)

3. Creative format diversity

sqlCopy code
SELECT ad_group.name, ad_group_ad.ad.id, ad_group_ad.ad.type,
  ad_group_ad.ad_strength, ad_group_ad.status,
  metrics.impressions, metrics.clicks, metrics.conversions
FROM ad_group_ad
WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'DEMAND_GEN'
  AND segments.date DURING LAST_30_DAYS

Demand Gen ad types: single image, carousel, and video responsive. Flag:

• Single-format ad groups — image-only campaigns miss YouTube/Shorts inventory; add video
• Ad strength POOR / AVERAGE
• Fewer than 2–3 ads per ad group (nothing to optimize between)
• Zero video creative when the budget is >$3K/mo

4. Creative fatigue

Pull each enabled ad for the last 30 days, then for the prior 30 (the 30 days before LAST_30_DAYS, as a BETWEEN range):

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SELECT campaign.name, ad_group.name, ad_group_ad.ad.id, ad_group_ad.ad.type,
  metrics.impressions, metrics.clicks, metrics.ctr, metrics.conversions
FROM ad_group_ad
WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'DEMAND_GEN'
  AND ad_group_ad.status = 'ENABLED'
  AND segments.date DURING LAST_30_DAYS

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SELECT campaign.name, ad_group.name, ad_group_ad.ad.id, ad_group_ad.ad.type,
  metrics.impressions, metrics.clicks, metrics.ctr, metrics.conversions
FROM ad_group_ad
WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'DEMAND_GEN'
  AND ad_group_ad.status = 'ENABLED'
  AND segments.date BETWEEN 'YYYY-MM-DD' AND 'YYYY-MM-DD'

Join on ad_group_ad.ad.id. An ad present in the prior window was already live 30+ days ago; compare CTR and conversion rate between the windows (ignore ads under ~1,000 impressions in either window). Flag:

• Ads live >60 days with a falling CTR (classic fatigue)
• Ad groups where every ad launched the same day and none has refreshed since

5. Placement & exclusions

Spend by surface:

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SELECT campaign.name, segments.ad_network_type, metrics.impressions, metrics.clicks,
  metrics.cost_micros, metrics.conversions
FROM campaign
WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'DEMAND_GEN'
  AND segments.date DURING LAST_30_DAYS

Top placements, where Google reports them:

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SELECT campaign.name, detail_placement_view.display_name,
  detail_placement_view.placement_type, detail_placement_view.target_url,
  metrics.impressions, metrics.clicks, metrics.cost_micros, metrics.conversions
FROM detail_placement_view
WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'DEMAND_GEN'
  AND segments.date DURING LAST_30_DAYS
ORDER BY metrics.cost_micros DESC
LIMIT 50

Google exposes little placement detail for Demand Gen, so this second query is often empty even when the campaign served. Then judge from the surface split above, and mark the exclusion check manual: "Check Tools → Content suitability and the campaign's placement report in the Google Ads UI." Don't claim exclusions are missing from an empty result.

Flag:

• No content/placement exclusions — Demand Gen can serve next to anything
• Conversions concentrated in one surface while budget spreads evenly (consider surface-specific campaigns)

6. Conversion goal alignment

Demand Gen is upper/mid funnel. Flag campaigns optimizing to a hard bottom-funnel action (purchase) with too few conversions to learn — a softer goal (lead, signup, add-to-cart) often suits the funnel stage better.

6b. Enhanced when connected: post-click quality and benchmark

• GA4: tool_list_account_summaries for the property, then tool_run_report (property_id, date_ranges, dimensions: ["sessionGoogleAdsCampaignName"], metrics: ["sessions", "engagementRate", "keyEvents"]). A Demand Gen campaign with cheap clicks but an engagement rate far below the site's paid-search average is buying accidental taps (often Shorts/Discover placements); that supports a placement finding.
• Meta Ads: tool_list_ad_accounts, then tool_get_insights (ad_account_id, level: "campaign", time_range_since, time_range_until) for prospecting campaigns. Put the Meta prospecting CPA next to Demand Gen's as context for budget decisions. Different conversion definitions: label both, don't declare a winner on CPA alone.

7. Score and report

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Demand Gen Audit — [Account Name]
Demand Gen Score: X/100  ·  30-day spend: [X]  ·  Conv: [X]  ·  CPA vs target: [X]

| Campaign | Ad groups | Audiences | Formats | Avg ad strength | CPA |
|----------|-----------|-----------|---------|-----------------|-----|

🔴 Critical   — no audiences, no conversions, CPA far over target
🟡 Important  — single-format creative, fatigue, no first-party signal
🟢 Optimization — add lookalikes, placement exclusions, creative refresh

Top 3 Actions:
1. [Highest $ impact]
2. ...
3. ...

8. Record findings

jsonCopy code
{
  "title": "Demand Gen 'Prospecting - Q2' runs image-only — missing YouTube & Shorts",
  "body": "All 4 ads in the campaign are single-image. Demand Gen serves video inventory on YouTube feed and Shorts that image ads can't reach. The campaign spends $110/day. Add 2-3 vertical video creatives to open that inventory.",
  "action_type": "creative_refresh",
  "expected_outcome": "Access to video inventory; lower CPM and broader reach",
  "estimated_impact_usd": 900,
  "priority": "medium"
}

Cloud uses create_ticket with the same content, fields mapped per section 2 of the routing guide.

Action types: creative_refresh, audience_refinement, campaign_optimization, bidding_strategy, placement_exclusion.

Recording findings

Use create_ticket when the workspace has it (Cloud) and create_finding otherwise (Solo). The fields differ; see section 2 of ../marketing-engineer/references/mcp-routing.md.

Critical rules

1. Audiences and creative are the whole game. Demand Gen has no keyword lever — spend the audit there.
2. Always check for video. Image-only Demand Gen leaves the best inventory unused.
3. Quote real numbers: format counts, audience types, CPA vs target.
4. Read-only. Recommend audience and creative changes; never make them. Write tools (tool_add_audience_to_ad_group, tool_update_ad_status) are used only on the user's request, and the skill asks first.
5. Cross-platform numbers are context, not totals. Each in its own currency and definition.