Display & Video 360 vs. Google Ads. What to choose?
What are Google Ads and Display & Video 360? What is the difference?
- Google Display Ads is a Google Advertising Network that is accessed through Ads. With Google Ads, you can place ads on the Google Display Network, which includes more than two million websites that reach over 90% of Internet users around the world.
- Display & Video 360 is a platform that allows advertisers to launch campaigns on sites inaccessible to Google Ads advertisers, among which you can find many premium sites that give a larger conversion.
There is high competition in Ads, that is why ads can be shown in less visible places, while the Display allows allocating creatives in better places, gives the opportunity to use Marketplace and buy impressions on premium sites if needed.
Display & Video 360 is a more advanced alternative to Google Display Ads. This is a demand side-platform (DSP), which allows the programmatic buying of advertising with a wider variety of settings, selection of sites, placements, and ad formats. It exists within the framework of an entire ecosystem of integrated Google Marketing Platform services, so you can easily plan, create and analyze campaigns.
The comparison of Google Display Network and Display & Video 360.
Display & Video 360 is a GMP affiliation and convenient integration with Campaign Manager in which you can manage, track and analyze campaigns. The structure of the site is a plus as well, and if you use it correctly, it will become the strength of the service.
Inventory and exchanges
In addition to the Google exchange, companies can use new exchanges, which means it will be easier to find new users and minimize the intersection with other tools.
Both Google Display Network and Display & Video 360 access the Google Exchange. The majority of Google Ads inventory is only Google Ad Exchange, while DV360 can access Google AdX and other non-Google exchanges such as AppNexus or OpenX. By using DV360 and having access to more inventory you get better performance.
In Google Display Network you buy ad space through the open auction, while Display & Video 360 allows advertisers to have direct deals bought programmatically as preferred deals. Such deals that DV360 offers, are a good option, as they give access to premium content and automate the process through using the private marketplace interface.
Formats and Creatives.
Display & Video 360 has many types of campaigns with different technical requirements, and everything is individual, so you use those that are interesting to you. While Google Display Network has such creative formats as text, video, image, and rich media, DV360 is surpassing as it has more formats including Native and Data-Driven creatives or Emerging Media such as audio ads.
If you are not good at design or don’t have a lot of time to do it, DV360 has a special service connected to the platform. There you will find templates, among which you can choose creatives for both the mobile and computer, or even use an audio mixer.
Targeting Audiences
Both Google Display Ads and Display & Video 360 have audience and content targeting capabilities. Meanwhile, DV360 has additional targeting capabilities such as markets, specific ads devices, or operating system targeting.
Both platforms also allow the use of first-party data to create audience lists. However, DV360 makes it possible to reach out to a more specific target audience based on information from third parties with different multiple data partners on the DSP. It means that you can get a paid ready-made segmented audience given by data providers. That’s why audience and targeting in DV360 are working at a completely different level.
There is a wide range of creatives available in DV360 and flexibility in how they can be customized. Due to highly customizable targeting, integration with the GMP, and access to Google third-party data, you can build highly relevant audiences. With more targeting options, there are more chances to reach the exact target audience who will respond to your marketing efforts.
Moreover, audiences in DV360 are also a great example of cooperation processes that allow us to share data across the platforms, Google Ads, Google Ad Manager, Google Analytics 360, Campaign Manager, and Display & Video 360.
Media planning
Display & Video 360 also has a unique Plans Tab that is responsible for planning campaigns and allows to take into account:
- Basic campaign settings.
- Targeting, budget, bid, dates, inventory type (formats and creatives).
- Forecasting of indicators. Impressions, Reach (unique cookies), CPM.
- Estimation of purchase volumes. It’s possible to track the relationship between the budget and resources related to targeting.
- Reflection of trends in the advertising market. It uses the latest data for the last period of time.
It’s also possible to do predictive analytics and see what results are obtained taking into account certain settings. As DV360 has direct transactions, you can buy traffic from the site directly. Most platforms for direct transactions provide:
- Information about the demographic composition of users.
- Geography of the audience.
- Themes related to the site and audience.
- Inventory (formats and sizes of videos and banners).
Who can use Display & Video 360?
Most advertisers can’t access the platform directly from Google, so they turn to certified Display & Video 360 providers. There are very few companies in the world that have managed to pass Google certification and get the status of a certified partner.
Moreover, there isn’t much information about the platform and most of it is available in the Help tab, so it may not be clear to beginners in the field of advertising, and you will have to spend a lot of time parsing and analyzing the product.
Conclusions
Display & Video 360 is a comprehensive, smart tool that deserves attention. It is quite complex, multi-layered, and includes tracking capabilities in conjunction with other services.
Display & Video 360 can be used as an alternative to Google Ads, as it has more options and opportunities for creating campaigns. If Google Ads meets your needs, you can choose DV360 as an additional tool and get good opportunities to expand optimization purposes, creativity, flexibility, and frequency of campaigns.
If you have the expertise in-house or an agency partner, then it’s better to use DV360. It’s a more powerful platform equipped with more levers and having the access to premium inventory to truly push your programmatic goals to the limit.
