One of the conference speakers was Maksym Shaparev, Google Marketing Platform Coordinator at the newage. agency. The expert explained how to optimise display campaigns even more effectively and gave a detailed overview of the differences between Display & Video 360 (DV360) and Google Ads.

Previously, placing an ad required a long process: contacting the publisher, negotiating the price, preparing the necessary materials, and so on. Now everything is automated thanks to programmatic platforms that bring together advertisers and publishers via DSP (Demand-Side Platforms) and SSP (Supply-Side Platforms).

DV360, as a DSP platform for digital marketing, provides a wide range of tools for optimising and analysing ad campaigns, enabling more precise audience targeting and improving return on ad spend. Let’s examine the advantages of this GMP tool.

Display advertising is a digital advertising format that utilizes visual and multimedia ads to enhance brand awareness, stimulate demand, and engage audiences at various stages of the sales funnel.

Display advertising encompasses banners, video, interactive, and rich-media formats displayed on websites, mobile apps, YouTube, smart TVs, and other digital platforms.

The main goal of display advertising is reach, awareness, and audience engagement, rather than immediate conversions like in search advertising.

Google Ads is Google’s advertising platform for launching search, display, video ads, and app advertising.

In the context of display advertising, Google Ads provides access to the Google Display Network (GDN) and YouTube.

The platform is suitable for:

• launching display and video ads with small to medium budgets;
• quick starts without complex setups;
• working with automated bidding strategies and standard Google audiences.

Google Ads is the optimal tool for businesses seeking simple management and quick results.

Display & Video 360 (DV360) is a programmatic DSP platform within the Google Marketing Platform, enabling automated media ad purchases through ad exchanges and private marketplace deals (PMP).

DV360 provides access to:

• premium inventory beyond GDN;
• advanced audience segments (1st party, 3rd party);
• display, video, CTV, and audio ad formats;
• flexible frequency control, brand safety, and attribution.

The platform targets mid-to-large businesses, brand campaigns, and comprehensive media strategies.

One of DV360’s key advantages is access to a vast inventory of ad placements. Unlike Google Ads, which is limited to YouTube and the Google Display Network, DV360 provides access to over 100 additional ad exchanges. This enables broader reach and finding users who more precisely match your target segments.

Besides traditional channels, DV360 offers access to many other ad inventories. In particular, the platform supports Digital Out Of Home (DOOH) format, enabling ad placements on outdoor media like billboards. While this format is not yet available in Ukraine, its potential for global campaigns is quite significant.

And finally, the private deals feature allows direct contact with website owners to negotiate special ad placement agreements. A specific example: Netflix. Soon, the platform will become available to Ukrainian users, opening new opportunities for advertisers. With DV360, it will be possible to directly approach Netflix publishers and place ads. To launch a campaign, simply specify the desired CPM price, number of impressions, target audience, and dates.

Additionally, DV360 offers audience targeting tools that allow the precise setup of ad campaigns for your business needs. While DV360’s targeting options largely overlap with Google Ads (Custom Intent, Custom Affinity, Remarketing), there is one major difference: the use of third-party data. This means access to audiences collected by Big Data providers that are unavailable in Google Ads. Such audiences can be more niche and relevant for business campaigns, though they usually involve extra costs. DV360 provides advanced tools for precise targeting, especially if you’re working in the B2B segment.

However, ad campaign effectiveness depends not only on who sees the ad, but also on whether users actually view it. That’s why DV360 allows viewability targeting setup. Viewability settings ensure the ad banner is displayed at least 50% in the visible screen area. This matters because impressions are sometimes counted and paid for, but the banner appears at the bottom of the landing page, where the user doesn’t scroll, thus not seeing it.

Key to successful campaigns — formats

DV360 offers greater flexibility in format selection. Besides standard banner ads and video ads on YouTube, the platform enables launching ads in integrated video players across various websites. This significantly expands experimentation opportunities and allows for finding the optimal format for each specific campaign, providing businesses with numerous options for effective advertising.

DV360 also enables the use of interactive Rich Media Ads formats. These dynamic banners offer various use cases, such as creating a banner with a 3D product that users can rotate from different angles. This is especially useful for e-commerce, as it lets users “spin” the product and make an informed purchase decision.

Thus, DV360 allows standing out among thousands of standard banners, while interactive formats like carousels boost click-through rates (CTR) and overall user engagement with the ad.

In addition to standard strategies like Maximize Clicks, Target Impression Share, and Maximize Conversions familiar from Google Ads, DV360 offers two extra options for video ads on third-party sites. This enables not just increasing clicks, but optimising campaigns for key metrics like video view duration. Thus, you can be confident that your ads are not just shown, but achieve their goals.

If your ad video contains a key message in the first 10 seconds, you can optimise the DV360 campaign specifically for this metric. This ensures your target audience immediately grasps the essence of your message. Additionally, the custom bidding feature allows creating personalised conversion funnels, providing extra opportunities for user interaction.

For example, for an online store, we can assign different values to actions like site visits, adding to cart, and purchases. This means the system prioritises users more likely to perform the highest-value action (purchase). If such users are unavailable, it targets those for upper-funnel conversions like adding to cart, and so on, down to the least important one. Thus, we capture all desired conversions while focusing on the most critical. Ultimately, we can optimise ad campaigns for specific business goals.

Campaign structure in DV360

While Google Ads campaigns can cover various ad formats (YouTube, banners, etc.), they don’t allow a single frequency cap across them; DV360 provides this capability.

Thanks to the superior campaign structure featuring insertion orders and line items, we can combine various ad formats under one campaign and set a single frequency cap. This ensures users don’t see our ads too frequently, which could otherwise negatively impact overall campaign performance.

DV360 offers a more detailed conversion analysis. Beyond standard metrics (impressions, clicks, post-click conversions), it tracks post-view conversions. This measures the impact on users who didn’t click but remembered it and converted later from another source. Additionally, DV360 provides precise audience reach measurement, which is especially useful for clients aiming to capture a specific market share.

The final point concerns Active View, a comprehensive set of metrics. It provides deep insights into how users interact with your video ads. By analysing metrics like view time, audio engagement, and full-screen mode, you can identify which video moments captivate the audience most and which provoke negative reactions.

Conclusion

“DV360 is about the additional reach you get from extra exchanges. It’s about frequency control so you don’t bombard users with millions of your creatives they’re not interested in. It’s about tracking post-view conversions and understanding whether your display advertising impacts overall conversions or not—and much more,” summarizes Maksym Shaparev.

FAQ: Display Advertising, Google Ads, and Display & Video 360

What is the main difference between Google Ads and Display & Video 360?

Google Ads suits simple, quick display ad launches with small budgets, while Display & Video 360 is a professional DSP platform for programmatic buying with advanced targeting and premium inventory.

Who should use display advertising in Google Ads?

Google Ads is optimal for small and medium businesses, e-commerce, and projects wanting to quickly test display or video ads without complex setups or high spending.

What tasks is Display & Video 360 best for?

Display & Video 360 is ideal for brand campaigns, large-scale reach, Smart TV (CTV) ads, and working with first- or third-party audience data.

Can Google Ads and Display & Video 360 be combined in one strategy?

Yes, combining platforms yields better results: DV360 excels at building reach and awareness, while Google Ads handles remarketing and brings users closer to conversion.

How to decide which platform fits my business?

The choice depends on budget, campaign goals, and business scale: Google Ads for quick starts, Display & Video 360 for comprehensive media strategies.