Module II: Display & Video 360 (DV360) & Search Ads 360 (SA360)

Display & Video 360 (DV360)

1. DV360 Hierarchy: DV360 is organized as a multi-tier structure. At the top is the Partner (agency)
account, which can contain multiple Advertisers (each representing a business or brand). Under each
advertiser are Campaigns, which group related advertising efforts by goal. Each campaign contains
one or more Insertion Orders (IOs) to manage budgets, flight dates, and pacing. Within an IO are
Line Items, where all targeting, bidding strategy, and creative assignments are set. Finally, Creatives
(Ads) are attached to line items and define what is served to users. (For YouTube/TrueView
campaigns, there is an extra “Ad Group” layer under line items.)

 Partner: Top-level DV360 account for an agency or large advertiser; manages billing and user
permissions.

 Advertiser: Sub-account representing a specific brand or business. Houses creatives,

Floodlight tags, audience lists, and integrations (e.g. with YouTube, GA360).

 Campaign: Groups insertion orders by objective. Sets default targeting (e.g. geo, time),
frequency caps, and shared settings.

 Insertion Order (IO): Allocates budget and flight dates. Controls overall pacing and may set
budget/pacing at daily or lifetime level. Each IO can target different channels or audiences.

 Line Item: The execution layer. Here you define ad formats, audience targeting, bid strategy,
and frequency caps. Line items draw from the IO’s budget. For example, separate line items
can target different demographics or inventory sources.

 Ad Group (YouTube only): Within YouTube line items, you can use ad groups (similar to line
items) to set targeting and bids for specific videos or audiences.

 Creative (Ad): The actual ad unit served. Images, HTML5 banners, or videos are uploaded as
creatives and attached to line items (or ad groups) to be delivered to users.

2. RTB Workflow: Real-Time Bidding (RTB) is the instantaneous auction process where ad inventory
is bought and sold. As Google’s help explains, “RTB is the process in which digital advertising
inventory is bought and sold. This process occurs in less than a second”. In practice: when a user
loads a webpage or app with ad space, the publisher’s SSP (Supply-Side Platform)/ad exchange
immediately sends a bid request to multiple DSPs (including DV360). This request contains user data
(cookies, location), site/app context, and ad slot info. Each DSP evaluates whether the impression
matches its line item targeting and calculates a bid. DV360’s bidding algorithms then submit a bid
(CPM and creative) for each eligible impression. The ad exchange runs an auction – typically a first-
price auction in Google’s case – and the highest bid wins. The winning advertiser’s ad creative is then
delivered to the user’s browser. For example, Mountain.com notes: “the SSP sends an ad request to
multiple DSPs and ad exchanges. Advertisers’ DSPs then bid on the impression… The SSP chooses the
highest bid”. This whole cycle (request, bid, win, serve) happens in ~100ms or less.

3. Linking DV360 with Campaign Manager 360 (CM360): To coordinate campaign tracking and
attribution, DV360 must be linked to Google Campaign Manager (CM360). Instead of a one-click link,
you share the Floodlight configuration from CM360 to DV360. In practice, an admin in CM360
“shares” their Floodlight group with the DV360 partner account. Then in DV360 you create a new
Advertiser and select Campaign Manager 360 as the ad server, choosing the shared Floodlight group
for attribution. You also decide whether to sync an existing CM360 “site” or auto-create one, so that
placements and creatives from CM360 flow into DV360. Once linked (which can take ~24 hours),
audience lists, creatives, placements and tracking from CM360 are visible in DV360. (Note: linking is
permanent and all audience lists sync automatically.) This integration enables consistent Floodlight
tracking and unified reporting across DV360 and CM360.

4. Auction Types: DV360 supports several buying methods:

 Open Auction (Real-Time Bidding): The default programmatic auction open to all buyers.
Publishers put inventory up for bid (often with a floor price), and any DSP can bid. The
highest bid wins. In Google’s system this is typically a first-price auction. As one source notes,
“Open auction… is when a publisher offers their inventory at a specific minimum price while
advertisers bid… with the highest bid winning”.

 Private Auction: Also called a Private Marketplace (PMP). This is an invite-only auction where
the publisher makes a portion of inventory available to select buyers at a negotiated CPM
floor. Buyers bid as usual and the highest bid above the floor wins the impression. It gives
publishers more control and gives invited buyers priority access at agreed floors.

 Preferred Deal: A one-to-one (advertiser-to-publisher) deal with a fixed CPM. The advertiser
has first-look at the specified inventory at the agreed price. If the line item targets the deal
and meets the fixed CPM, the impression goes to that buyer. If not, it falls back to the open
or private auction. Preferred deals guarantee inventory at a set price but without impression
guarantees. One explanation says Preferred deals “provide first-look access to custom…
inventory at a fixed CPM”.

 Programmatic Guaranteed (PG): A fully guaranteed contract where both price and
impression volume are agreed in advance. DV360 sets up a direct insertion order with
reserved inventory (e.g. banner placements or video). These deals are “automated but
reserved”: no auction is run and the agreed number of impressions are delivered.
Programmatic Guaranteed deals “provide an automated buying solution with… advanced
targeting” and “guarantee that you will see a particular volume of impressions or clicks”. All
trafficking is tagless, and there is little flexibility to change targeting or pacing after setup.

 YouTube-Specific Deals: For YouTube inventory, DV360 supports additional deals. For
example, YouTube Programmatic Guaranteed (Instant Deal) allows advertisers to reserve a
fixed number of YouTube/Google TV impressions at a fixed CPM immediately (without
negotiation). Bumper and masthead reservations are also managed via guaranteed deals.
(Essentially, YouTube PG deals extend the above PG concept to video.)

5. Brand Safety Targeting: DV360 provides robust brand-safety controls to avoid inappropriate
content. Key features include:

 Digital Content Labels: Predefined content tiers (like IAB’s categories). For instance, DL-G is
general-audience safe, up to DL-MA (mature audience only). You can target only (or exclude)
content at certain label levels when setting brand safety.

 Sensitive Category Filtering: You can block content by category (e.g. violence, adult, hate).
Google’s proprietary classifiers tag pages by sensitive categories, and you can exclude
categories like “Adult,” “Alcohol & Drugs,” etc.. This uses Google’s analysis of page content to
filter out unsuitable adjacencies.
  Advertiser-Level Exclusions: Brand-safety settings (labels and categories) can be applied at
the advertiser level, enforcing them across all line items by default. This ensures a base layer
of brand-safe targeting for an entire advertiser.

 Authorized Sellers (ads.txt/app-ads.txt) Targeting: DV360 can enforce ads.txt rules. In

targeting settings (Media Quality), you can require that inventory comes from
publishers/resellers declared in ads.txt. DV360’s “Authorized Direct Sellers and Resellers”
option ensures you only buy from sources that a publisher has authorized. This protects
against fraudulent resellers.

 Third-Party Verification: DV360 integrates with verification vendors (DoubleVerify, IAS,

Scope3, etc.). These can enforce brand-safety criteria in real time. For example, DV360’s
Media Quality options can use IAS/DV categories to block content segments (e.g. Adult,
Discriminatory, Violent). DV360 can also filter out fraud/invalid traffic. In practice, you’d
enable verification and select the unwanted categories from the partner’s taxonomy.

6. Bid Strategies (DV360): DV360 offers several automated bid strategies to match different
campaign goals:

 Maximize Conversions: Sets bids to get the highest possible number of conversions within
the budget. Use when your goal is total conversions.

 Target CPA: Optimizes bids to achieve an average cost per action (CPA) that you specify. Ideal
if you have a clear CPA goal and sufficient conversion history. DV360 will raise bids on likely
converters and lower others to meet the CPA.

 Target vCPM (Viewable CPM): Focuses on maximizing viewable impressions. DV360 bids to
win the impressions most likely to be seen (per Google’s Active View standard). Good for
awareness – you pay per thousand viewable impressions.

 Maximize Lift: Used for video campaigns aiming to increase brand metrics (e.g. purchase
intent). Bids are tuned to maximize lift (audience awareness/intent) rather than direct
conversions.

 Target CPM: Aims to maximize total impressions for a given CPM goal. DV360 sets bids to
spend budget on as many impressions as possible. You can choose sub-types (e.g. only
viewable, or audible completed video impressions).

Besides these, you can also use manual fixed CPM or fixed maximum bids in DV360. But automated
strategies are recommended for efficiency when enough data is available.

7. Budget & Pacing: Budgets in DV360 are managed at the insertion order (IO) level, with line items
drawing from that budget. You can set either a lifetime budget or a daily budget on an IO. The IO
budget caps the aggregate spend of all its line items. For example, if an IO’s daily budget is $100 and
it has three line items each budgeted $50, DV360 will proportionally allocate the $100 across them. If
the combined line-item budgets exceed the IO budget, DV360 scales them down so total spend
equals the IO cap. Alternatively, individual line items can be given an “unlimited” budget flag; such
LIs will spend up to the remaining IO budget. (Important: actual spend can slightly exceed caps
during bidding because bids execute faster than spend is recorded, so account for a small overrun.)

For pacing, DV360 offers three modes:

  ASAP (Accelerated): Spend quickly as inventory allows (up to ~10× the daily target rate). This
is useful if you want to use budget early or if inventory is limited.

 Even (Standard): Spread spend evenly over the flight. DV360 will try to distribute spend
uniformly each day. (On uneven inventory days, spend may vary.)

 Ahead: Spend slightly faster to ensure full delivery. This allows up to 120% of the prorated
daily spend. It helps avoid underspending if inventory tightens later.

These pacing settings can be applied at the IO and/or line-item level. For example, an IO set to Even
pacing means its line items will pace to meet daily targets based on remaining budget.

8. Creatives (HTML5): DV360 supports rich HTML5 display ads (along with static images and video).
HTML5 creatives must be uploaded as a compressed ZIP file containing all assets (HTML/CSS/JS,
images, fonts). Key requirements include:

 Click Tags: Use the standard clickTag variable so DV360 can register clicks. The landing page
must open in a new tab/window. Don’t obfuscate the clickTag (no minification on that code).

 File Size: Total download size (sum of all files) must be ≤5 MB. Many publishers impose
150 KB–1 MB limits per ad, so keep it as small as possible.

 Resource Limits: ≤25 cookies and ≤100 external HTTP requests per ad, to ensure fast load.

 Animation & Video Rules: Animated ads can run up to 30 s. Video can autoplay but must
start muted; audio-on-load is disallowed. No pop-ups or surveys can be spawned from the
ad.

 Supported File Types: HTML5 ZIP may contain HTML/HTM, CSS, JS, images
(JPG/PNG/GIF/SVG), and web fonts. (DV360 can handle up to 100 files in the zip.)
These guidelines align with IAB standards for HTML5 ads. DV360 will validate uploaded
HTML5 creatives against these rules before accepting them.

9. TrueView Ad Formats: DV360 supports YouTube video ads via the TrueView ad formats:

 TrueView In-Stream (Skippable In-Stream): 6–infinite seconds long, plays

before/during/after videos. Viewers may skip after 5 seconds. You are charged per view (a
view is counted after 30 seconds watched or a click/interaction). These run on YouTube and
Google video partners.

 TrueView Discovery (In-Feed): Video ads shown in discovery placements (YouTube search
results, related videos, channel pages). They include a thumbnail, headline and description.
Viewers click to watch on YouTube. You pay per click or after ~10 seconds of play. Great for
promoting awareness via search results.

 Bumper Ads: 6-second unskippable videos. Shown before/during/after videos on YouTube

and partners. Ideal for broad, memorable reach. Bumpers use target CPM bidding (charged
per thousand impressions).

 Non-Skippable In-Stream: 6–15 second videos that viewers cannot skip. Shown similar to
skippable in-stream. These also use CPM bidding.
Each format has specific creative requirements (length, file type) and billing. In DV360 you select the
video format when creating a YouTube line item. For example, selecting “Skippable In-Stream” line
item yields TrueView ads, while “Bumper” yields 6s ads.

Search Ads 360 (SA360)

10. Introduction to SA360 and Bulksheets: Search Ads 360 is Google’s enterprise-level search
campaign management platform (formerly DoubleClick Search). It lets advertisers manage search
campaigns across multiple engines (Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Yahoo, etc.) in one interface.
SA360 provides real-time data, automated bidding, and unified reporting so you can “see the results
your Search ads are achieving across all channels”. It integrates with Analytics 360 and DV360,
enabling cross-channel insights (e.g. floodlight conversions in search, or audiences from display).

 Bulksheets: SA360 features an embedded Google Sheets–style Bulksheet editor for mass
edits. This allows you to add, edit or delete keywords and ads in a pre-filled spreadsheet
view directly in the UI. You can insert or remove columns/rows, paste data, and use standard
sheet functions. A preview highlights errors in-line before you apply changes. Unlike external
uploads, the bulksheet combines editing and validation in one place. Bulksheets currently
support the Keywords and Ads levels, streamlining bulk updates without leaving SA360.

11. Rules and Inventory Management:

 Automated Rules: SA360 lets you define rules – conditions that trigger automated actions.
For example, you can create a rule to pause low-performing ads or increase bids at certain
times. Rules can update campaign/ad/keyword status, budgets, bids, URLs, device
adjustments, labels, etc.. They can run on schedules (hourly, daily, weekly) to automate
routine tasks, saving manual effort. Common uses include scheduling promotions, adjusting
bids by time of day, and pausing items with high CPA. For instance, a rule could raise bids for
top-converting keywords every morning. Rules can also be “notify-only” (send email alerts)
when conditions are met. Manager accounts and sub-managers can own rules, which then
apply across clients under them.

 Inventory Management (Product Feed Campaigns): SA360 can automate search campaigns
from product feeds. By linking a Google Merchant Center (Shopping) feed, you can use
Inventory Management templates and rules to auto-generate Shopping campaigns, ad
groups, keywords, and ads. For large catalogs, this is powerful: SA360 will build campaigns
for millions of products in minutes based on feed attributes. For example, you create a
template combining product attributes (like Category, Brand) to form keywords. SA360 then
generates keyword/ad lines for each product. It also respects attributes like stock status: you
can set rules so that if a product goes out of stock in the feed, SA360 will pause or remove
the related ads/ad groups. This ensures you only advertise in-stock items. Other benefits:
new products in the feed automatically generate new search ads (ensuring always covering
your catalog) and sale attributes can trigger sale-themed ad copy. Inventory management
greatly speeds up large-scale campaign builds and keeps them in sync with your product
feed.

12. Bid Strategies (SA360): SA360 uses portfolio bid strategies across campaigns and engines. You
define a business goal (e.g. target CPA or ROAS), and SA360’s algorithms set and adjust bids for all
included campaigns in real time. Supported platforms include Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising,
Yahoo! JAPAN, Baidu, and even Google Performance Max within the same strategy. For example, a
Target CPA portfolio sets one CPA goal for multiple campaigns. SA360 will automatically raise bids on
well-performing campaigns and lower bids on weaker ones so that overall the portfolio meets the
target CPA. As Google’s help explains, if one campaign converts well and another poorly, SA360 will
push spend to the high-performer and reduce it on the other, balancing to the average goal. In
essence, portfolio bidding “optimizes overall campaign performance” by allocating budget where it
drives the most ROI. Other strategies include Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions, etc. These run
continuously, learning from incoming performance data to hit the defined goal across all channels.

13. Executive Reports: In SA360 you can generate custom performance reports to share with
stakeholders. In the legacy SA360 interface, this was done via Executive Reports: multi-page, PDF-like
reports with tables and charts. In the new SA360, legacy Executive Reports do not carry over.
Instead, reporting is done via Dashboards and the Report Editor. The Dashboards tool lets you place
multiple charts on one screen to visualize campaign metrics, while the Report Editor builds detailed
spreadsheets or charts. You can also connect SA360 data to Looker Studio (Data Studio) for advanced
cross-channel dashboards. (Note: old Executive Reports can still be downloaded from the previous
interface for archival purposes.) In practice, to get an “executive” summary you’d create a Dashboard
with key charts (CPC, spend, conversions trends) and then export or schedule it.

14. Remarketing: SA360 supports remarketing lists for search (RLSA). By linking Google Ads or
Analytics, you can import audience lists of past site visitors and apply them in search campaigns. For
example, bid higher or show special ads to users who visited your cart page before. Manager
accounts can share remarketing lists they own with their linked client accounts. In SA360’s
“Targeting” settings, you simply target or bid-adjust against the imported audiences as you would in
Google Ads. (Note: sharing of video or third-party lists is not supported yet, and Analytics lists have
special sharing rules.) In essence, SA360 lets you incorporate any search audience lists available in
Google Ads/GA. This enables tactics like pausing search keywords for returning visitors or increasing
bids for high-intent remarketing audiences, aligning search strategy with your broader remarketing
efforts.