In an increasingly fragmented media landscape, making good use of your ad dollars is a tall order. Using a siloed strategy means you’re at risk of unintentionally reaching the same people more often than desired. This can lead to an ineffective use of your budget and poor user experience.

For years, we’ve seen leading brands improve the efficiency of their ad operations and media using Display & Video 360 as a way to unify their campaigns across inventory sources, devices and markets. Today, we’ll share these marketers’ three best practices with some of their latest success stories highlighting key features to unify their media. Display & Video 360 continues to future-proof these tools using a combination of advanced machine learning technology, first-party data signals and privacy-preserving APIs.

Plan and forecast reach in one place

This is where it all begins. Plans that take your entire media mix into account are inherently more accurate. And planning solutions that are tightly connected to your media buying platform can let you more accurately and quickly assess the potential reach of your plans. Display & Video 360 planning tools let you estimate the reach of your campaign across any type of environment or inventory source — including web, audio, connected TV (CTV) and even linear TV.

Reckitt is a global brand that found success optimizing its budget allocation for Airborne campaigns using Display & Video 360’s reach planning capabilities. Reckitt decided to diversify its media mix beyond traditional TV ads to boost its presence on CTV. So, it started looking for a planning tool that could account for CTV streamers. Harnessing Display & Video 360 forecasting solutions, the company estimated how much incremental reach could be gained by bringing together all its CTV deals — YouTube, Disney, The CW and Discovery — in the same campaign. The tool let them create accurate, custom media plans. By pulling insights like optimal spend and reach, Reckitt could compare the effectiveness of different campaign types. Armed with these insights, the company reached over 11 million CTV households within their core audience while keeping its spend under control. Reckitt also ensured these viewers weren’t duplicative with their traditional TV audience, generating 18% more viewers by adding CTV ads to their TV mix.

Combine various inventory sources in one place

I remember days when programmatic buying was just about serving standard display ads on the web. We’ve come a long way since then. Over the years, we’ve added access to thousands of publishers and all sorts of new inventory sources in Display & Video 360. For example, using digital out-of-home, brands can now reach people out in the real-world with the efficiency of programmatic technology. Today Display & Video 360 already partners with exchanges Hivestack, Magnite, Place Exchange, Ströer SSP, VIOOH and Vistar Media. These exchanges give access to large media owners around the world like Clear Channel Outdoor, Intersection, JCDecaux, Lamar and Ströer.

With more top media companies like Disney making their inventory available programmatically, connected TV advertising gives brands another exciting terrain to engage with their customers. Today 93% of ad-supported connected TV households in the U.S. can be reached with Display & Video 360, according to comScore.[caf5bd]We’re also continuing to unlock top CTV inventory around the world. For example, you can now reach people watching Peacock, NBCUniversal’s ad-supported streaming service in the U.S. or Channel 4's programming in the U.K. And all these top CTV placements can be purchased alongside other programmatic ads in a consolidated CTV workflow featuring parameters applicable to any source of CTV inventory — whether it’s Hulu, YouTube, Paramount or any other publisher. This TV-specific insertion order makes it easier to optimize for common goals or control ad frequency across your entire CTV media mix.

Manage frequency in one place

With Display & Video 360, you can manage ad exposure across media buys while respecting user privacy, even when third-party cookies and identifiers are not present. Frequency can be managed across any type of device and transaction type including CTV and Programmatic Guaranteed deals across a variety of exchanges.

And you can get a tailored assessment of the impact of cross-channel frequency management solutions: Display & Video 360’s self-service data visualization shows how much reach was gained due to effective frequency management at the campaign level.

This is how Audi turbocharged its incremental reach. To launch its all-new Q4 e-tron electric model in Germany, the automaker needed a cost-efficient way of reaching as many cord-cutters as possible with a new video campaign. The brand decided to use frequency management across a mix of standard in-stream video formats and exclusive Programmatic Guaranteed deals from Sky, DAZN and other well-known publishers in Germany. Having a real-time view of reach gains gave the brand and its media agency more precision in evaluating campaign performance. During the six-week campaign, Audi assessed that managing programmatic campaigns across channels in a consolidated way allowed the brand to reach 1.2 million additional unique users — or a 13% rise in incremental reach — without bumping up budgets.

With a similar approach, L’Oréal Germany was able to increase the reach of its Garnier Greentalk campaign by 16% at no extra cost.

Looking forward, we’ll ensure these media unification capabilities remain accessible to all Display & Video 360 users while respecting people's privacy online. In fact, we’ve already started enhancing these solutions using a combination of machine learning techniques and first-party data signals so they keep working in the future. For example, Unique Reach metrics already go beyond basic cookie measurement to help you understand how many times people were shown your ad across different devices, formats and networks. And Display & Video 360 already uses modeled frequency management in situations with limited user signals.

These are just a few examples of the benefits of consolidating media. We also see advertisers who take a unified approach to media buying enjoy unified reporting, rationalized budgeting, and streamlined billing. As we move forward, we’ll keep adding more functionality to advertisers’ and media agencies’ toolbox to help them get better return from their unified media budgets.

Successful businesses are leaning into existing customer relationships and the information they agree to share in order to enable improved experiences. This information, known as first-party data, can be the basis for privacy-preserving, future-proof ways to connect with customers. That's why we're creating a new way for advertisers to power their advertising using first-party data in Display & Video 360.

Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation, or PAIR, is a new solution that gives publishers and advertisers the option to securely and privately reconcile their first-party data for audiences who have visited both an advertiser’s and a publisher’s site. Advertisers and publishers will be able to activate encrypted first-party information that is unique to their sites via aggregation. This process ensures no user-level data is ever shared between parties and the aggregated data is only readable and meaningful in the limited context of their direct relationship.

PAIR gives advertisers the ability to more closely connect with their known audiences, while avoiding tracking individuals across the web. As a result, advertisers can show relevant ads to some of their highest-intent audiences, helping to increase advertising performance and hit marketing objectives, while respecting people’s privacy expectations.

Connect with your most engaged customers with personalized ads

Consumers prefer relevant ads, but they don’t want them to come at the cost of their privacy. With PAIR, advertisers will be able to run relevant ads to their first-party audiences — like past purchasers and people on their loyalty lists — without relying on third-party cookies. PAIR can be used to engage with existing customers or cart-abandoners, and prevent consumers from seeing ads for a product they already purchased.

For example, imagine you’re a shoe retailer and a group of people have signed up to your store’s mailing list. Separately, these same people on your list have also shared their email addresses with a publisher when browsing content online. With PAIR, you will be able to reach these people with relevant ads on that publisher’s website, because they have an existing relationship with you and with the publisher.

We’ve heard positive feedback from advertisers and agencies alike. Like Annalect, many of them are looking forward to testing PAIR.

“It’s important for us to find new ways to help advertisers connect with their audiences without replicating third-party cookies’ pitfalls. PAIR will allow us to create more personalized ad campaigns for advertisers by harnessing their first-party data in a way that is secure and protects users’ trust in their brand. We’re excited to begin using PAIR and to continue engaging with customers in meaningful ways.”
— Adam Gitlin, President, Annalect

PAIR is designed for execution across all transaction types, and publishers will have the option to use their supply side platform of choice. Publishers like Grupo Prisa have already started using PAIR, saying:

"PAIR will be part of our cookieless strategy enabling us to deliver more relevant ads to our logged-in users and improve the performance of our advertising partners."
— Manuel Castro, Transformation and Client Solutions Director, PRISA Media

Reconcile first-party data in a secure and privacy-preserving way

Seventy-six percent of advertisers and agencies find the usage of IDs based on pooled data concerning from a regulatory standpoint.[74bad1]That’s why PAIR is different: it doesn’t require pooling of audience data. Instead, each advertiser and publisher will maintain ownership and control of its data.

PAIR will protect trust in your brand because it doesn’t allow for tracking people across the web, which we don’t believe meets user’s privacy expectations. Instead, users will only be shown ads from the advertisers and publishers with whom they have direct relationships, giving them more control of the ads they see.

PAIR also protects advertisers and publishers from data leaks by encrypting their first-party data three times with three different keys: an advertiser key, a publisher key and a key shared between the two parties. These keys are unique for every advertiser-publisher relationship and ensure there is no way for any one party to reverse-encrypt or identify users. After encryption and reconciliation, the advertiser and the publisher both receive the percentage match rate of their respective first-party audience lists, but no user-level matches or Personally Identifiable Information (PII) will be sent back. Similarly, no PII will be shared with either the supply side platform or with Display & Video 360.

Pick the partners that work for you

To connect the data, advertisers and publishers can use clean rooms. Clean rooms ensure any data shared by advertisers and publishers stays secure, and only their encrypted data gets shared with Display & Video 360 for reconciliation. Additionally, clean rooms help manage the data upload and encryption process, so advertisers and publishers don’t have to manage these on their own. This gives advertisers and publishers additional privacy technical guarantees and reduces the amount of data access needed by Display & Video 360.

We have already begun partnering with three clean-room providers, Habu, InfoSum and LiveRamp, with plans to integrate with Ads Data Hub (ADH). As we work to onboard more clean rooms, partners will have more choices.

"LiveRamp is excited to implement PAIR in Safe Haven and bring it to our 450+ marketers and 11,000+ publisher domains. Both marketers and publishers recognize there’s no silver bullet for the end of the cookie, and are seeking privacy-first solutions that enhance the customer experience."
— Scott Howe, CEO, LiveRamp

Building upon a first-party approach

If you’re a brand or publisher with first-party data, reach out to your Display & Video 360 team to learn more about how to start using PAIR.

PAIR is one of many ways we’re helping businesses run relevant ads in Display & Video 360 while respecting people’s privacy. We’re reimagining programmatic audience solutions using a multi-signal approach harnessing first-party data, machine learning and privacy-preserving APIs. This will give you the choice and resilience you need to build trust with your customers and meet their expectations for more personalized ad experiences.

As digital advertising changes, it's essential for advertisers to stay ahead of the curve while meeting people's expectations. Consumers want privacy but they also want relevant ads. In fact, 62% of consumers in the US consider it important to have a personalized experience with a brand.[96be74]We don’t believe this should be rocket science for programmatic advertisers. This is why we are building simple, off-the-shelf solutions in Display & Video 360 with first-party data and machine learning. We’re announcing two of these solutions today, optimized targeting and Exchange Provided Identifiers.

Optimized targeting helps advertisers expand reach across relevant audiences and increase return on investment with the touch of just a button. Exchange Provided Identifier, also known as EPID, provides Display & Video 360 with new signals which will be used to automatically future-proof frequency management tools. In the future, EPIDs will be powering a variety of other marketing use cases in Display & Video 360 with no action required by advertisers.

Programmatic buys automatically powered with publishers’ data

Advertisers increasingly rely on publishers' first-party data to enrich their marketing strategies. That’s why we’re evolving our programmatic technology to organically inform Display & Video 360 solutions with those valuable signals.

You may be familiar with Publisher Provided Identifiers, also known as PPIDs, which became available for publishers to use programmatically last year. PPID allows publishers to send Google Ad Manager a first-party identifier for marketing use-cases. EPID expands on this technology. It makes it available to more exchanges, publishers, or vendors looking to share their first-party identifiers with Display & Video 360’s backend to improve the quality of programmatic ads served on their respective properties. EPIDs from a given exchange or publisher cannot be used to inform marketing strategies outside of that publisher’s inventory. This protects people from being tracked across the web.

Earlier this year, we started testing this feature and receiving EPIDs from several publishers and exchanges, including Magnite. Based on partner feedback, we began improving this feature. We’re excited to grow our list of partners and progressively enhance advertisers’ programmatic campaigns with these new durable signals.

In the coming months, EPID will be used to inform Display & Video 360 users’ frequency management solutions. This will ensure brands can continue avoiding ad repetition while maximizing reach efficiency even when third-party cookies go away. Advertisers won’t have to make any changes in their account since EPIDs will be organically embedded in Display & Video’s technology. Brands and agencies will automatically benefit from EPID when setting frequency goals.

In the near future, EPID will be used as a signal for building Google audience segments in Display & Video 360. This will give advertisers a chance to deliver more personalized ads on publishers’ sites for which EPIDs are received. Down the line, EPID will also help brands unlock other core advertising functionalities, like cross-device reach on a domain by domain basis, and invalid traffic prevention in a privacy-safe way.

Expand reach across audiences more easily

Reaching the right people with a message is one thing. But to be successful, advertisers have to reach enough of these people and scale their audience strategy. This is where machine learning and optimized targeting come in.

Optimized targeting lets advertisers find new and relevant customers likely to convert within their campaign goals. Campaign settings, such as manually-selected audiences including first-party data and Google audiences, influence the machine learning algorithm. Optimized targeting then uses machine learning to expand reach across other relevant groups without relying on third-party cookies.

Because it uses the same goals as our automated and custom bidding solutions, optimized targeting reaches people most likely to drive impressions, clicks, or conversions as defined and customized by the advertiser to drive business outcomes. This ultimately leads to better performance and increased conversions. In our early tests, we found that advertisers who use optimized targeting in Display & Video 360 can see, on average, a 25% improvement in their campaign objectives when using Google audiences and can see, on average, a 55% improvement when using first-party data.[4f8fcc]

In Display & Video 360, optimized targeting is currently available for YouTube Video Action campaigns and will expand beyond YouTube to all display and video campaigns in the coming months. Once launched, new eligible display and video campaigns will be opted into optimized targeting with the ability to opt out.

We are continuing to create Display & Video 360 solutions that will allow marketers to successfully reach and influence their most relevant audiences, while ensuring consumers feel safe online. EPID and optimized targeting are two of many new audience tools and features we are building for programmatic buyers.

As digital advertising changes, it's essential for advertisers to stay ahead of the curve while meeting people's expectations. Consumers want privacy but they also want relevant ads. In fact, 62% of consumers in the US consider it important to have a personalized experience with a brand.[96be74]We don’t believe this should be rocket science for programmatic advertisers. This is why we are building simple, off-the-shelf solutions in Display & Video 360 with first-party data and machine learning. We’re announcing two of these solutions today, optimized targeting and Exchange Provided Identifiers.

Optimized targeting helps advertisers expand reach across relevant audiences and increase return on investment with the touch of just a button. Exchange Provided Identifier, also known as EPID, provides Display & Video 360 with new signals which will be used to automatically future-proof frequency management tools. In the future, EPIDs will be powering a variety of other marketing use cases in Display & Video 360 with no action required by advertisers.

Programmatic buys automatically powered with publishers’ data

Advertisers increasingly rely on publishers' first-party data to enrich their marketing strategies. That’s why we’re evolving our programmatic technology to organically inform Display & Video 360 solutions with those valuable signals.

You may be familiar with Publisher Provided Identifiers, also known as PPIDs, which became available for publishers to use programmatically last year. PPID allows publishers to send Google Ad Manager a first-party identifier for marketing use-cases. EPID expands on this technology. It makes it available to more exchanges, publishers, or vendors looking to share their first-party identifiers with Display & Video 360’s backend to improve the quality of programmatic ads served on their respective properties. EPIDs from a given exchange or publisher cannot be used to inform marketing strategies outside of that publisher’s inventory. This protects people from being tracked across the web.

Earlier this year, we started testing this feature and receiving EPIDs from several publishers and exchanges, including Magnite. Based on partner feedback, we began improving this feature. We’re excited to grow our list of partners and progressively enhance advertisers’ programmatic campaigns with these new durable signals.

In the coming months, EPID will be used to inform Display & Video 360 users’ frequency management solutions. This will ensure brands can continue avoiding ad repetition while maximizing reach efficiency even when third-party cookies go away. Advertisers won’t have to make any changes in their account since EPIDs will be organically embedded in Display & Video’s technology. Brands and agencies will automatically benefit from EPID when setting frequency goals.

In the near future, EPID will be used as a signal for building Google audience segments in Display & Video 360. This will give advertisers a chance to deliver more personalized ads on publishers’ sites for which EPIDs are received. Down the line, EPID will also help brands unlock other core advertising functionalities, like cross-device reach on a domain by domain basis, and invalid traffic prevention in a privacy-safe way.

Expand reach across audiences more easily

Reaching the right people with a message is one thing. But to be successful, advertisers have to reach enough of these people and scale their audience strategy. This is where machine learning and optimized targeting come in.

Optimized targeting lets advertisers find new and relevant customers likely to convert within their campaign goals. Campaign settings, such as manually-selected audiences including first-party data and Google audiences, influence the machine learning algorithm. Optimized targeting then uses machine learning to expand reach across other relevant groups without relying on third-party cookies.

Because it uses the same goals as our automated and custom bidding solutions, optimized targeting reaches people most likely to drive impressions, clicks, or conversions as defined and customized by the advertiser to drive business outcomes. This ultimately leads to better performance and increased conversions. In our early tests, we found that advertisers who use optimized targeting in Display & Video 360 can see, on average, a 25% improvement in their campaign objectives when using Google audiences and can see, on average, a 55% improvement when using first-party data.[4f8fcc]

In Display & Video 360, optimized targeting is currently available for YouTube Video Action campaigns and will expand beyond YouTube to all display and video campaigns in the coming months. Once launched, new eligible display and video campaigns will be opted into optimized targeting with the ability to opt out.

We are continuing to create Display & Video 360 solutions that will allow marketers to successfully reach and influence their most relevant audiences, while ensuring consumers feel safe online. EPID and optimized targeting are two of many new audience tools and features we are building for programmatic buyers.

Today’s customer journey is rarely a straight line. Consumers are constantly moving between touchpoints and channels, and brands need the right tools to keep up. Digital out-of-home is an increasingly popular option that brings the best of digital technology to a traditional advertising medium. It helps brands engage shoppers at moments when they make key decisions or take certain actions such as walking in a shopping mall or lining up at the grocery store checkout.

Today, we’re making digital out-of-home ads available to all Display & Video 360 users so that they can reach people out in their real-world journey with the efficiency of programmatic technology. This includes screens in public places such as stadiums, airports, bus stops, shopping centers, elevators, taxis and more.

The best of out-of-home and digital combined

With digital out-of-home ads in Display & Video 360, brands can combine the emotional power and captivating formats of traditional out-of-home advertising with the efficiency of other digital channels. With a single plan, they can reach people on screens of all shapes and sizes. And, it can be done rapidly and efficiently. Marketers can activate, pause, and optimize digital out-of-home campaigns in near real time. They can tackle everything from strategy and activation to reporting and optimization all in one place.

Centralizing buys and automating out-of-home campaigns is particularly effective for brands with international footprints. It gives them a chance to reach their global audience using a single tool. Today Display & Video 360 already partners with exchanges Hivestack, Magnite, Place Exchange, Ströer SSP, VIOOH and Vistar Media. These exchanges give access to large media owners around the world like Clear Channel Outdoor, Intersection, JCDecaux, Lamar and Ströer. All of this inventory can be secured via programmatic deals.

Another benefit to programmatic digital out-of-home is the flexibility it provides. While traditional buying tactics are usually geared toward one general region, digital out-of-home allows brands to run different versions of their messaging based on location of the screen or time of day.

Effective, contextual ads

Digital out-of-home ads placed through Display & Video 360 are not personalized, and we do not use individual identifiers or any user location data. Instead, advertisers can reach people based on contextual information of the screen location, like a traditional out-of-home ad, but with the flexibility and ease of programmatic. For example, a fast food spot can quickly advertise on a billboard in a bustling business district during the lunch hour for office workers to see. Later that day, the same billboard can promote an upcoming performance at a nearby concert venue.

When measuring ad impact, publishers provide Display & Video 360 with an impression multiplier, which estimates the number of people who may have seen an ad. This estimate, which isn’t based on an individual’s data, helps advertisers properly measure the impact of their digital out-of-home campaigns. Display & Video 360 vets all publishers to ensure they follow measurement methodologies defined by industry-recognized vendors like Geopath. Publishers that self-measure are not supported.

ASOS finds its fit with digital out-of-home in Display & Video 360

ASOS, one of the world’s leading online fashion retailers, wanted to find new and engaging ways to create fame on the high street whilst staying true to its digital roots. ASOS’ marketing team decided to use digital billboards in heavy footfall areas to generate awareness for their brand and drive passersby to visit their online store.

ASOS used Display & Video 360 to quickly select digital billboards with the map UI and arrange relevant Programmatic Guaranteed deals with leading publishers like Intersection in the U.S. and JCDecaux in the U.K. This streamlined approach allowed the brand to lean on a central platform to buy, implement and measure their campaign. As a result, the team fast tracked the process of booking hundreds of digital billboards, generating 22 million viewed impressions across the two countries.

The retailer then conducted a geo experiment with JCDecaux’s measurement partners to evaluate the impact of digital out-of-home ads on brand metrics. They observed a 14% increase in brand awareness and a 22% increase in brand consideration in exposed vs control areas.

Find out more about how to get your message out with digital out-of-home in Display & Video 360.