Elevate Your Advertising With CTV and YouTube Using DV360

With so many media platforms around, how can you choose which is best for you or your clients? Adswerve is here to help. We’ll highlight the main reasons why Google’s Display & Video 360 (DV360) is a robust choice for advertisers, given its unique access to inventory and data, especially for Connected TV (CTV). 

Connected TV Is the Future… and the Now

Mobile was the main focus for about a decade, and now it’s CTV’s turn. Linear TV fell below 50% viewing share for the first time ever in July 2023. As media buyers, we now feel even more compelled to incorporate CTV in our media plans. 

The next step is deciding how and where to buy it. There are many types of CTV inventory and purchase methods, but only DV360 is home to 93% reach of CTV households. From Hulu and Peacock to Magnite and Xandr exchange inventory, DV360 has it all. Plus, you can:

• Target, suppress and expand on GA4 audiences
• Target on publisher data, 3p data or 1p data, and free Google audiences (yes, even Custom Google audiences)
• Implement frequency caps 
  • Including at the campaign level for maximum reach and media efficiency.
• Specify the video player size and content length
• And more!

Additionally, you have the freedom to select open auctions, private deals and programmatic guaranteed inventory to diversify your buys and ensure you’re buying everything under one frequency-capped roof, no matter the inventory. The full-stack Google Marketing Platform (GMP) can lead to a 13-25% increase in unique reach for CTV and a 20% lower cost per reach due to these freedoms and inventory opportunities.

From a reporting and optimization standpoint, CTV can leverage Google’s custom bidding algorithms, which optimize toward important awareness metrics or opt into 2023 betas that track cross-device CTV conversions and measure brand lift from third-party CTV.

US CTV ad spending rose by 21% in 2023 versus the year prior, so the iron is hot and DV360 is ready to help you to straighten out your media plans and strut your stuff.

YouTube Is More than Just “YouTube”

YouTube is a platform of many media plan allocations: Social, Video, Google Ads and least commonly chosen, CTV. However, YouTube is number one in reach among all ad-supported over-the-top (OTT) and CTV services, so you shouldn’t discount it. 

YouTube, as a user-generated streaming platform, is crucial for achieving maximum reach on CTV campaigns, and DV360 is the only demand-side platform (DSP) with access to this inventory. Using it, advertisers can:

• Serve on 30-second and 60-second non-skippables for more inventory choices
• Target, suppress and expand on Google Analytics 4 (GA4) audiences
• Run free Brand Lift Studies across online video and YouTube
• Frequency cap across YouTube and other media formats
  • This is not available anywhere else.
• Target Video Music and Video Podcasts through Placements
• Gain access to YouTube Select opportunities 
• Implement targeting expansion for lookalike outreach
• Leverage Campaign Manager 360 (CM360) 1x1s for holistic attribution
• Set line-item-level budgets
• Get a YouTube Programmatic Guaranteed report with “Daily Reach”
• And more! 

YouTube Select

YouTube Select takes YouTube a step further as it’s Google’s reservation hub to buy YouTube TV (including the NFL Sunday Ticket) and YouTube-specific lineups and programs. DV360 even has the opportunity to reserve YouTube Select on an independent basis, which allows all buyers to reserve it without the need for Google support.

Automated optimizations

From an optimization standpoint. YouTube has its own unique format, so it deserves its own unique automation opportunities. DV360 buyers have new options for automated optimizations: Value-Based Bidding beta and Scibids Custom Algorithms. 

YouTube’s Value-Based Bidding beta allows buyers to enable DV360 to automatically bid to revenue conversion values or assign weights or values to conversions for return on ad spend (ROAS) bidding. 

Scibids, which was recently acquired by DoubleVerify, integrates with all YouTube line items in DV360 and builds hourly, geo-predictive impression models, then updates bids every three hours. 

YouTube now goes beyond just “TrueView” and is capable of important new ventures like CTV, YouTube TV, 3p bidding integrations and cross-format consolidation and measurement — and DV360 is the home to this innovation. You can buy YouTube on many platforms, but only DV360 has the ability to stretch the inventory, targeting, and measurement boundaries. 

Consolidation Is Queen

Many media buying platforms have the inventory, data and targeting available to enter the conversation. However, only DV360 can support a consolidated media buying journey that encourages attribution, advancement and future-proofing, all while also allowing for robust inventory, data and targeting. We briefly covered how you can consolidate YouTube and CTV into DV360 and incorporate overarching frequency capping, but keep reading for more important callouts showcasing how you can consolidate your media into DV360.

The best of both worlds

DV360 is an integral part of the GMP, so it gets the best of both worlds: Google and third party. It has access to Display, Mobile, Video (OLV and YouTube), Native, Audio, CTV, Newsletters and Digital Out of Home. So, buyers can activate all of the important Google O&O inventory as well as invaluable 3p inventory like Magnite, Xandr, Sharethrough, AdsWizz, LiveIntent, Vistar, Oracle, Adobe and more. Plus, in many scenarios, they can combine the two for maximum unique opportunities.

Reporting tools you need

DV360 has reporting tools to break open the “black box” and find out how successful your consolidated campaigns are. Some relevant, exciting reports are “Unique Reach” and “Programmatic Guaranteed Savings.” The latter report is helpful when you’re running a programmatic guaranteed deal and also has a campaign-level frequency cap, as it highlights how many impressions and bids were passed due to your set frequency caps and the savings as a result of frequency management. Don’t worry, though; the frequency caps won’t hinder programmatic guaranteed delivery.

Integrations that empower you

From an integration standpoint, Google is hooked up. CM360, the industry’s leading ad server, is the perfect sister platform to DV360. We’ve previously covered how the two work together, but it’s worth mentioning again how CM360 empowers DV360 to surpass competition through workplace efficiencies, data aggregation and GMP advancement opportunities. GA4 directly connects to CM360, SA360 and DV360 for unique bidding and audience opportunities that will revolutionize how agencies and marketers pave the way to achieve real business outcomes from paid media. 

DV360 is the ultimate consolidation platform to suit your programmatic media needs. It provides what you need now and in the future so you can rest easy. If you have any additional questions or would like to chat with us about the power of DV360, please contact us today!