Google Ads Enhances CTV Advertising

Google’s Display & Video 360 (DV360) platform has added new features that help advertisers better plan, buy, and measure their connected TV (CTV) campaigns. With the shift to streaming over the last few years, an increasing number of advertisers have prioritized building connected TV (CTV) campaigns into their media strategies. As more advertisers focus on CTV, the platform’s new features aim to improve the targeting, forecasting, and measurement of CTV campaigns.

Let’s take a look into some new features in Display & Video 360 that advertisers use to plan, buy and measure CTV campaigns.

Plan: Reach Planner

Reach Planner in Display & Video 360 is a tool to accurately forecast the reach and expected performance of CTV campaigns. It helps advertisers discover new publishers and CTV inventory and drive more efficient budget allocation decisions.

TV functionality feature in Reach Planner enables advertisers to evaluate the unique and incremental reach of streaming publishers such as YouTube, Hulu, and Roku, as well as linear TV. This information helps advertisers make more informed decisions when it comes to budget allocation and discovering new CTV inventory.

The Reach Planner update is currently available to advertisers in the US, Japan, Vietnam, France, and Germany. Advertisers in the US can also use TV consumption data from the top 150 local Comscore markets to narrow their target audience further.

Another new feature is Deal ID forecasting, which allows advertisers to understand how a Preferred Deal or Programmatic Guaranteed deal might perform before running. This is particularly helpful for CTV campaigns since much of the valuable inventory is sold through deals, especially during significant events like the World Cup or Super Bowl.

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Buy: Premium placements

YouTube CTV (Connected TV) inventory refers to the ad space available on YouTube that can be accessed by viewers through a TV device that is connected to the internet. Advertisers who want to access this inventory can do so through Instant Reserve, which is a feature that enables them to easily book premium placements on YouTube CTV. Instant Reserve also unlocks audience targeting capabilities that were previously only available for open auction buys.

Instant Reserve offers curated packages that include YouTube TV and other YouTube Select lineups. These packages allow advertisers to reach their target audience more effectively by selecting placements that align with their specific goals and objectives.

Besides Instant Reserve, another way to secure premium CTV inventory is by creating deals or activating inventory packages in the TV section of Display & Video 360’s Marketplace. This means that advertisers can access premium CTV inventory and secure it in advance of their campaign launch, giving them greater control and certainty over their campaign performance.

In addition to the Marketplace, Display & Video 360 also recently launched CTV audience features that allow advertisers to reach audiences wherever they stream connected TV content. Advertisers can use their first-party audience lists to connect with people they already have relationships with, and then expand the reach of their CTV campaigns to reach larger groups like “sports enthusiasts” through Google audiences. This helps advertisers to increase their campaign reach and effectiveness by targeting specific groups of people who are more likely to be interested in their products or services.

Measure: Ad Frequency and Reporting

Display & Video 360 can help advertisers manage ad frequency on CTV devices. Advertisers can manage ad frequency by tracking how many times an ad has been shown to a viewer and using this information to adjust the delivery of ads accordingly. It also provides insights into which publishers and strategies are driving the greatest incremental reach, which enables advertisers to optimize their campaigns and improve their overall performance.

 They also released a Unique Reach Overlap report that helps advertisers identify duplicate reach across publishers, campaigns, and devices. The report provides information that can be used to determine campaign-level frequency caps, which helps minimize overlap and reduce media waste. This feature is available globally for all Display & Video 360 accounts and Campaign Manager 360. Advertisers can use this report to make data-driven decisions and optimize their campaigns for better performance.

Google’s Display & Video 360 platform has introduced new features to help advertisers plan, purchase, and measure their CTV campaigns, indicating the platform’s responsiveness to the increasing demand for CTV advertising.

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