Google has two display buying platforms: the Google Display Network and Display & Video 360. As a Google Marketing Platform Sales Partner, we use the latter as an enterprise solution for businesses looking to scale their operations with more advanced targeting options.

Google’s display buying platforms

Display can be used throughout the entire marketing funnel: from high-impact video ads reaching a wide audience and spreading your brand’s message to personalised retargeting ads reminding users to make that all important conversion.

Display through Google Ads makes use of Google’s internal data, smart-bidding technology, and targeting across the Google Display Network. It’s a great platform for getting started with Display, and yields particularly high results for performance campaigns.

However, if you’re looking to scale your display activity, we would recommend moving towards Google’s more robust DSP offering.

Display & Video 360

Display & Video 360 is a demand-side platform that allows advertisers to buy online advertising across ad exchanges on an impression-by-impression basis in real time. The solution is used for setting up Display targeting, building out campaigns, setting budgets and bids, optimising, and reporting on performance.

It has many features that ease workflow, and allows traders to make the most of the platform’s full potential, from the audience module for advanced audience management to in-platform custom reporting dashboards.

Aside from access to Google Display Network, Display & Video 360 has a reach across 80+ non-Google ad exchanges from 3rd parties and over 800 million websites, with both direct buys through Programmatic Guaranteed and Private Marketplace deals.

It allows for both 1st and 3rd party audience targeting, provides full transparency across your activity, and is fully integrated with Google Marketing Platform. It has greater brand safety control thanks to enhanced platform features and full integration with 3rd party providers like DoubleVerify.

Display & Video 360 has unparalleled access to a range of inventory allowing for huge potential with creative assets beyond YouTube and banner ads: Rich Media creatives, High Impact formats, Native, Programmatic Video, Audio, sophisticated Dynamic Creative Optimisation, and sequential messaging.

Targeting using Google data

Google has a lot of data at its disposal, and there’s no other DSP that gives you access to its lists for targeting purposes. You can use in-market and affinity lists to find users interested in your product, create custom lists that target users looking up specific Search terms, and target contextually with hundreds of page categories.

Aside from being incredibly extensive, this data isn’t as reliant on cookies as 3rd-party lists or retargeting, which is proving to be an increasingly difficult issue as privacy regulations impact the viability of cookie data.

Advertising on Youtube

Google Ads and Display and Video 360 are the only platforms through which you can purchase Youtube ad inventory. By running through Display and Video 360, you can easily consolidate your Youtube with the rest of your Display marketing.

Automated bidding

The automated bidding algorithms available through Display and Video 360 are some of the best in the game, altering bids according to your business goals in real time.

The platform will also soon release custom bidding algorithms, which will give more freedom and flexibility to optimise towards your KPIs like micro-conversions and higher value conversions, rather than optimising for generic CPM or CPA goals.

Granular reporting

Reporting in Display and Video 360 allows you to see the performance of your campaigns all the way from Advertiser level to individual placements, creatives and audience lists. You can easily report against all available targeting, with the granularity needed for detailed optimisation.

Google Marketing Platform integration

Display & Video 360 integrates with the entire Google Marketing Platform and supports floodlight tracking, which you can set up in Campaign Manager. Campaign Manager is also used for trafficking creatives, building retargeting audiences, reporting on cross-channel performance, and basic attribution.

If you’re interested in more information about Display & Video 360 or Google Marketing Platform, get in touch!