6 min read
Reading the Demand Gen Asset Report
What the Demand Gen asset report shows, what its numbers can and cannot support, and how to turn it into add, replace or investigate decisions.
A Demand Gen asset report can show that one video dominates delivery without proving that it caused a rise in lead costs. That distinction is the starting point for a useful creative review: inspect what people actually see, use the report to find missing or unused assets, and judge business results with the campaign figures and your own sales data.
What the report shows
Open the campaign's Ads view and choose View asset details for the ad you want to inspect. Google's Demand Gen-specific documentation lists clicks, CTR, impressions and All conv. value as default columns. That last column includes value excluded from Conv. value; do not silently substitute one for the other. For a cross-campaign view, filter Assets to Demand Gen. Its data refreshes daily and excludes dynamic product ad assets.
Read a performance label alongside the asset type and the explanation shown in your report. Google advises comparing like with like: a low-rated headline and a low-rated video are different creative decisions. A label helps you choose what to investigate, not what to delete automatically.
Google's asset-level metrics guidance explains why totals can mislead: an ad serves combinations, and each asset instance receives metrics. Adding those rows can count the same ad exposure more than once. Asset-level CTR, CPC, CPA and ROAS are directional, not isolated estimates of an asset's effect. Use campaign totals for the overall result.
Questions the report can answer
Ad Strength can help identify missing formats or insufficient variety. Its requirements differ for image, video and carousel ads; use the recommendations for the ad you are editing. A better coverage rating is useful, but it does not establish that the offer is persuasive. Three nearly identical images may satisfy a production brief while giving customers little meaningful variety.
Look at delivery, not only ratings. Which version has customers actually seen? Is the product visible at the size of a phone screen? Does the headline make sense with each image it accompanies? An asset with no impressions for several weeks is a candidate Google suggests replacing; a heavily served asset deserves close inspection because mistakes there affect more exposures.
Check accuracy as soon as an ad appears. A cropped price qualifier, an expired offer or a misleading generated scene needs attention regardless of how well the ad is performing.
Did the campaign's results change, and why? That is read at campaign level, with the Days to conversion segment marking the days that are still incomplete, and with the other explanations in view. A hypothetical: a campaign spends $6,800 in a week, one vertical video appears in most served impressions, and the campaign's cost per conversion has moved from $41 to $49 over two weeks while a CRM export shows more unqualified leads. The report shows the video is what most people saw. It does not show that the video caused the change; a budget change, a shift in optimized targeting, a new offer or the incomplete recent days could each account for part of it. The investigation goes to Change history, the audience settings, the offer and the conversion delay before anything is paused.
Asset report for one Demand Gen campaign
- Campaigns
- Demand Gen campaign
- Ads
- View asset details
Timing, and Google's guidance on changes
Google's creative guidance recommends adding replacements before removing low performers and allowing about 14 days for a new asset to ramp before judging performance. That advice is not a requirement to leave a misleading ad running.
Choose the evaluation window around the decision. For a seasonal offer ending tomorrow, a four-week creative test cannot answer the immediate question. For a service with a long sales cycle, yesterday's cost per form submission cannot tell you whether a new video brings better customers. State which outcome you can assess now and which one still needs time.
Add, replace, or investigate
Suppose a video opens with a product close-up but never explains who it is for. A new opening that shows the problem being solved is a specific creative hypothesis. 'Make more vertical videos' is only a production instruction. The review should give the creative team enough context to make something meaningfully different.
An addition, replacement or investigation should follow that reasoning. Keep useful coverage while testing a better idea; remove inaccurate material promptly; and do not discard a sound ad simply because a short, noisy reporting window looks worse.
Questions and answers
Can I rank Demand Gen assets by cost per conversion?
You can sort by it, but Google says asset-level metrics are counted per instance and ratio metrics are directional, and it suggests judging performance at campaign or asset group level. Use the report for coverage, serving and Google's rating, and the campaign figures for results.
When should a Demand Gen asset be paused?
Immediately if it is inaccurate or breaks a policy. On performance grounds, Google's guidance is to add before removing and to give a low performer time to ramp, which it puts at 14 days, and to consider replacing an asset with no impressions for several weeks.
What does the performance rating mean?
Treat it as Google's assessment in the report, comparing assets of the same type. Read the report's explanation and do not treat the label as an isolated causal measure of sales or lead quality.