Running Ads Is Not Demand Gen

Demand gen is heavily misconceived.

I recently watched a keynote by @David Sacks on SAAStr about organizational structures for Series A, B, and C companies.

He mentioned that for a Series A company, the marketing team should have a head of marketing and 2 demand marketers who are "data-driven people running ads."

Now, David Sachs is a prolific investor in the SAAS space, not a marketer. But this still highlights the misconception that people have about demand gen:

Demand gen is not just about running ads, data centricity, or the channels you use. It's about the intention that you apply when you're running campaigns.

For instance, I could run ads with ebooks to get emails and sell to those people. But that doesn't have anything to do with demand creation but demand capture.

Demand creation (or Demand gen) is the step that comes before. It creates advocacy and evangelism around your category and product.

The intention is to increase the pool of people who believe your particular solution or category is a good idea and something they should explore.

➡️ Demand gen is not just about running ads. It's the intention behind the campaigns which defines them.