Marketers and agencies sign annual deals with top publishers to simplify purchasing and negotiating inventory across multiple brands and campaigns. This includes annual upfronts and newfronts deals. Increasingly, marketers rely on Programmatic Guaranteed and other non-guaranteed deals to fulfill these commitments with Display & Video 360, because its frequency management capabilities improve performance while delivering consistent user experiences across channels.

To help media agency professionals more efficiently manage publisher deals, we’re introducing new tools to package, prioritize and monitor deals across partners and advertisers in Display & Video 360.

Let’s say you’ve negotiated a deal with a publisher and you’d like to use it across different partner accounts. Instead of going into each of Display & Video 360’s partner accounts and creating separate deals, you can now create one deal and then distribute impressions across partners and advertisers. You can also easily edit the deal and the changes will propagate to all Display & Video 360’s accounts you shared the deal with.

Package and prioritize deals across partner accounts

In addition to saving time creating and editing deals, you can also package the inventory to fit the needs of the brands you work with. You can take inventory from different deals, bundle them together and give access across partners and advertisers. For example, you can create a package for a special time of year (like Black Friday or major sporting event), a marketing objective or for always-on campaigns and share it across multiple partners. This way you don’t have to recreate the same package in multiple accounts. In addition, for preferred deals, you can prioritize access to the deal across partners and advertisers, giving you additional control in how you distribute impressions from the deal among your various campaigns.

Monitor publisher commitments in one place

When you commit to buying a fixed amount of ad inventory through a Programmatic Guaranteed or a non-guaranteed deal, you have to closely monitor its delivery so that you don’t waste your budgets. The ability to keep track of your spend at the publisher level is particularly relevant for your upfront deals that span across various properties and cover different advertisers and campaigns. So if these deals are running behind, it’s important to quickly reallocate impressions across campaigns. Now, you can easily monitor pacing for each publisher and deal in one place, identify delivery issues and reallocate impressions across accounts and campaigns before the deal expires.

To access these new tools, please contact your account team. In the future, we’re planning to add more controls and flexibility in how you manage your deals across partners.

Earlier this week, we announced new ways to help you easily capture connected TV and audio streamers' attention and understand what drives them to become customers.

To deliver a consistent user experience across these new channels and more established ones, it’s critical to control the overall number of times people see your ads.

Effective cross-channel frequency management can also reduce budget waste and help you make every ad dollar count. On average, we found that customers see a 6% reach gain when managing frequency in Display & Video 360.

But beyond averages, we heard that you needed a personalized assessment of the impact of cross-channel frequency management solutions on a campaign-by-campaign basis. We’re introducing two new tools that help you appraise the benefits of your own cross-channel frequency management strategy on an ongoing basis and at no cost.

Quantify the reach impact of cross-channel frequency management

First, we’re adding a dedicated data visualization for each campaign that spans across channels and has a frequency goal set at the campaign level. The visualization shows how much reach was gained due to effective frequency management at the campaign level. You can also access the same information at the advertiser or at partner level by creating an offline report in the standard Display & Video 360 reporting.

Having a real-time view of reach gains gives you more precision in evaluating your campaign performance. It also lets you assess the value of managing your programmatic campaigns across channels in a consolidated way. This leaves you better armed to defend marketing budgets.

With this new data visualization, you don’t need to set up an experiment with a test and control phase in order to see the impact of applying your frequency management strategy across media types. Display & Video 360 uses log data to automatically compare the reach obtained by a cross-channel campaign against the reach that you would have obtained with separate campaigns, each containing a single channel and its own frequency goal.

Measure the extra reach coming from Programmatic Guaranteed strategies

Display & Video 360 will now calculate for you the extra reach you get for each Programmatic Guaranteed deal using Display & Video 360's frequency management solutions. This new metric will help you get a better understanding of how Programmatic Guaranteed deals contribute to the incremental reach you get from applying frequency management across media.

This topline data point will be visible in a dashboard in the “My Inventory” tab. You’ll still be able to use Display & Video 360’s offline report to see budget savings reinvested and impressions passed due to frequency for each Programmatic Guaranteed deal.

Managing frequency without third-party cookies

We’re committed to building solutions that will let you maintain control over ad exposure in a way that respects user privacy even when third-party cookies and identifiers are missing. Since 2019, Display & Video 360’s cross-domain frequency management tools have been powered by machine learning technology. And recently, we’ve further evolved these models to enable advertisers to manage frequency on Firefox ETP and Microsoft Edge traffic. In the future, we’ll keep exploring innovative ways to protect users’ privacy while controlling users’ overexposure to ads and limiting media waste.

Connected TV (CTV) and audio streams flow into people’s screens with hours of entertainment. So successful brands like Adidas and Nestlé turn to programmatic technology as a way to connect with their viewing and listening audiences while simplifying the execution of CTV and audio ad strategies.

Last week, we introduced new Display & Video 360 tools to help you forecast the reach of your audio and CTV campaigns on an ongoing basis.

Today, we’re spotlighting three additional features that will help you easily capture the attention of CTV and audio streamers and understand what encourages them to become customers.

Pick the right context for your CTV ads

Reaching viewers based on their interests and passions remains one of the most promising opportunities of CTV advertising. That's why we invest in features like similar audiences for CTV devices that help you find new connected TV viewers who share similar attributes with the audiences you already know.

But we’ve heard many of you want to combine these new tactics with best-in-class techniques inspired by traditional TV advertising that give you confidence that your ads are displayed in a safe and relevant context.

To help you do just that, we’re soon integrating new CTV contextual signals in Display & Video 360. This will allow you to pick inventory by genre, length or livestream content.

Let’s say you want to associate your ad message to some of the highly anticipated sports events of the summer, like the Olympics or the U.S. Open. Using Display & Video 360, you’ll easily select CTV live inventory that falls under the “Sports” genre. Then you’ll also be able to verify that your ads served against content that is suitable for your brand.

Measure the sales impact of your CTV ads

As pandemic restrictions ease in some parts of the world, ad spending is rebounding. But advertisers’ preference still goes to ads that can prove they’re effective at moving products off the shelves.

This fall, we’re introducing sales lift measurement for CTV ads using Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) in the U.S. Harnessing sales data across NCS’s extensive retailer network, this feature will give you a chance to quantify how your CTV ad impressions led to offline sales. The report features useful metrics such as percentage sales lift, total incremental sales and return on ad spend that can inform future campaign optimization. This data will be available right in the Display & Video 360 interface, meaning that no pixel implementation or log file data crunching will be required.

And because the Display & Video 360 integration with NCS already covers all other digital environments, publishers and formats, you can now understand the incremental lift attributed to campaigns spanning across CTV apps, display, audio and more.

Create professional dynamic audio ads

On top of the big screen, people will also turn on their smart speakers and headphones this summer to enjoy live sports and music festivals, or to listen to a podcast while relaxing in a deck chair. Creating great audio ads can be a chicken-and-egg problem. How can you justify a big incremental creative investment if you haven’t yet proven you can run fantastic digital audio campaigns?

That’s where Display & Video 360 can help. With Audio Mixer, you could already assemble a multi-track audio ad using simple drag-and-drop editing features. Building on Audio Mixer, we’re adding new dynamic production capabilities so that you can build tailored audio ads, quickly and efficiently, at scale. This new dynamic production tool allows you to use various segmentation rules, like location, schedule or audience, to create customized, relevant ads, all from a single audio creative.

For example, you can create a back-to-school audio campaign that has customized offers for different markets. Once you record the audio asset, you can use the dynamic audio tool to create additional custom assets with local in-store promotions based on where the ads will run.

Both Audio Mixer and the dynamic production tool will also be available in the recently announced Ads Creative Studio.

As people shift to on-demand ways of consuming TV and audio content, advertisers need on-demand ways of buying ads on these channels. Stay flexible and relevant by simplifying the execution and measurement of your CTV and audio campaigns with Display & Video 360’s new tools.

Connected TV (CTV) and audio streams flow into people’s screens with hours of entertainment. So successful brands like Adidas and Nestlé turn to programmatic technology as a way to connect with their viewing and listening audiences while simplifying the execution of CTV and audio ad strategies.

Last week, we introduced new Display & Video 360 tools to help you forecast the reach of your audio and CTV campaigns on an ongoing basis.

Today, we’re spotlighting three additional features that will help you easily capture the attention of CTV and audio streamers and understand what encourages them to become customers.

Pick the right context for your CTV ads

Reaching viewers based on their interests and passions remains one of the most promising opportunities of CTV advertising. That's why we invest in features like similar audiences for CTV devices that help you find new connected TV viewers who share similar attributes with the audiences you already know.

But we’ve heard many of you want to combine these new tactics with best-in-class techniques inspired by traditional TV advertising that give you confidence that your ads are displayed in a safe and relevant context.

To help you do just that, we’re soon integrating new CTV contextual signals in Display & Video 360. This will allow you to pick inventory by genre, length or livestream content.

Let’s say you want to associate your ad message to some of the highly anticipated sports events of the summer, like the Olympics or the U.S. Open. Using Display & Video 360, you’ll easily select CTV live inventory that falls under the “Sports” genre. Then you’ll also be able to verify that your ads served against content that is suitable for your brand.

Measure the sales impact of your CTV ads

As pandemic restrictions ease in some parts of the world, ad spending is rebounding. But advertisers’ preference still goes to ads that can prove they’re effective at moving products off the shelves.

This fall, we’re introducing sales lift measurement for CTV ads using Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) in the U.S. Harnessing sales data across NCS’s extensive retailer network, this feature will give you a chance to quantify how your CTV ad impressions led to offline sales. The report features useful metrics such as percentage sales lift, total incremental sales and return on ad spend that can inform future campaign optimization. This data will be available right in the Display & Video 360 interface, meaning that no pixel implementation or log file data crunching will be required.

And because the Display & Video 360 integration with NCS already covers all other digital environments, publishers and formats, you can now understand the incremental lift attributed to campaigns spanning across CTV apps, display, audio and more.

Create professional dynamic audio ads

On top of the big screen, people will also turn on their smart speakers and headphones this summer to enjoy live sports and music festivals, or to listen to a podcast while relaxing in a deck chair. Creating great audio ads can be a chicken-and-egg problem. How can you justify a big incremental creative investment if you haven’t yet proven you can run fantastic digital audio campaigns?

That’s where Display & Video 360 can help. With Audio Mixer, you could already assemble a multi-track audio ad using simple drag-and-drop editing features. Building on Audio Mixer, we’re adding new dynamic production capabilities so that you can build tailored audio ads, quickly and efficiently, at scale. This new dynamic production tool allows you to use various segmentation rules, like location, schedule or audience, to create customized, relevant ads, all from a single audio creative.

For example, you can create a back-to-school audio campaign that has customized offers for different markets. Once you record the audio asset, you can use the dynamic audio tool to create additional custom assets with local in-store promotions based on where the ads will run.

Both Audio Mixer and the dynamic production tool will also be available in the recently announced Ads Creative Studio.

As people shift to on-demand ways of consuming TV and audio content, advertisers need on-demand ways of buying ads on these channels. Stay flexible and relevant by simplifying the execution and measurement of your CTV and audio campaigns with Display & Video 360’s new tools.

At Google Marketing Livestream this spring, we talked about how Google Marketing Platform can help you drive performance while protecting privacy. That’s when we raised the curtain on some Display & Video 360 product announcements designed to help you reach your customers wherever they are — including on connected TV and audio.

Today we're kicking off a series of articles about Display & Video 360 that cover these new features, as well as upcoming capabilities to support your business recovery and growth. This includes new TV and audio reach forecasting tools and new frequency metrics to help you quickly figure out where your audience is and how to reach them in the most cost-effective way. This series will also introduce new enterprise-level features designed to increase your productivity thanks to automated yet customizable technology. First up is planning.

Get more premium reach with Display & Video 360’s planning tools

Planning is no longer a one-time exercise; it needs to happen on an ongoing basis to keep up with your audience’s rapidly-changing habits. Planning solutions that are tightly connected to your media buying platform can let you more accurately and more quickly assess the potential reach of your plans.

To help media planners adjust to this new way of working, we’re introducing two Display & Video 360 tools that will help you estimate the reach of your campaigns in real-time across any inventory type – including traditional TV, connected TV (CTV) and even audio.

Plan your CTV and audio campaigns alongside your other media buys

Watching CTV and streaming audio are now mainstream behaviors. To help marketers make the most of this extra reach opportunity, we’re adding new signals in Display & Video 360’s reach planning tool so that you can plan the reach of your CTV and audio deals in real time. This will complement existing Display & Video 360 forecasting capabilities which already allow you to estimate the reach of your display and video programmatic deals as well as your CTV open auction buys.

Planners will now be able to more immediately answer questions like, “How much incremental reach could I get by combining a network CTV deal with YouTube reservation and open auction video or audio ads?” They’ll have the option to forecast the reach of their campaign either by picking from their custom list of available CTV and audio deals or by choosing publishers they’re considering adding to their media mix.

Strike the optimal mix of TV and digital media to maximize reach

Planning tools that span across traditional and CTV viewing can help you navigate the shift from linear TV to streaming more effectively. For example, TV in Google Ads Reach Planner lets advertisers like PepsiCo better plan for their reach and frequency goals by allocating optimal budgets across TV and YouTube.

We're bringing TV planning to Display & Video 360 users in the U.S., France, Germany, Japan and Vietnam. By combining actual historical TV and digital ads data into a single reach curve the tool will show the unduplicated reach of the entire plan across TV, YouTube, broadcast and cable networks on CTV and the rest of your digital campaigns. Display & Video 360 will use data from major single-source panels in each available country or region to understand the TV viewership and how it overlaps with digital media consumption.

We’ll start rolling out this TV planning functionality in beta in the fall. It will be fully self-service and you’ll only need some basic details about your media plan to get started: your core audience demographics, the duration of your campaign and your estimated TV discount so that we can return tailored estimates.

If your budgets are somewhat flexible, we’ll show two curves: one will show the reach you’d get by spending your entire budget on TV and the other will show the optimal reach you’d get by efficiently splitting your budgets across TV and digital. You’ll also be able to set a fixed TV budget and see a single curve showing the extra reach you could get by adding digital channels such as YouTube and CTV ads to the mix.

The growth of new media types alongside traditional TV has made forecasting reach and ad spend more difficult than ever. With Display & Video 360’s real-time forecasting solutions you’ll be able to approach show premieres seasons this fall with more serenity.

In 2018, we launched Google Marketing Platform Partners to provide marketers a network of accredited partners to help them grow their business with our ads and analytics tools. As digital marketing becomes increasingly complex, businesses need help to solve challenges across and beyond our products, such as first-party data solutions, machine learning and more. Today we are expanding that partnership program to go beyond Google Marketing Platform products with the introduction of our first skills-based certification: Mobile Web Certification. This is our first step in a process to support a more comprehensive network of partners to meet your evolving business needs.

As today’s consumers increasingly turn to their phones to get things done, they expect experiences that are fast, seamless and personalized. In fact, a mere 0.1-second decrease in site speed can boost conversion rates by 8%, and our new research shows that 72% of consumers are more likely to be loyal to a brand if they offer a personalized experience. That’s why mobile best practices -- from speed to user experience optimization -- can drive user engagement on mobile sites, improve user sign-in rates and help marketers generate richer data for optimizing return on ad spend.

Partners certified in Mobile Web work with your business objectives to implement improvements to your user experience while helping you drive engagement on your mobile site, increase mobile conversion rates and generate first-party data to support accurate performance measurement. They have passed a rigorous certification and testing protocol, showing mastery of a wide range of mobile services and an ability to help more users convert.

If you have a gap in skills within your own teams or you need an expert third-party perspective to help you prioritize, Partners certified in Mobile Web are here to help. Over the coming months we will be assessing and adding more Mobile Certified Partners, so please check our Partner Gallery if you are looking for help to improve your mobile website experience.

Mobile represents our first step beyond product certifications. We know this is just one area where you're looking for answers and we're committed to finding new ways Certified Partners can support you every step of the way.

When we introduced Google Marketing Platform in July 2018, the world was a different place. A royal wedding, the World Cup and Hurricane Florence were among the top news stories. A global pandemic was not the first thing on everyone's minds.

Much has changed over the past three years. We've all learned how to unmute ourselves on video chats and attend meetings in our sweatpants. But one thing that hasn't changed is Google Marketing Platform’s commitment to helping marketers navigate periods of change.

It's not just the pandemic. With an intensified focus on privacy, driven in part by shifting consumer expectations, new regulations, and technology platform changes, brands need to find new ways to connect with their customers and measure marketing performance. And as we move into the recovery, Google Marketing Platform is here to help marketers adjust to the new normal.

Addressing rapid change, with help from first-party data

In our research, we’ve seen that using first-party data helps brands build stronger relationships with customers, create additional value, and boost ad performance. Brands using first-party data for key marketing functions have lifted revenueup to 2.9 times and decreased costs by 1.5 times, compared to companies that failed to fully integrate first-party data. And the most successful have invested more heavily in technology and organizational enablers, such as a unified advertising and analytics platform like Google Marketing Platform.

One business that used Google Marketing Platform and first-party data to successfully navigate the pandemic is Deckers Brands, makers of active lifestyle footwear featuring brands like UGG, Teva and HOKA.

Founded in 1973, Deckers Brands grew rapidly over the years, but eventually growth began to slow. The company's channel-oriented strategy – which featured separate marketing teams for search, display, video and other channels – created silos.

The company knew it needed to become more customer-centric and to connect customer data across multiple touch points. To achieve that goal, Deckers Brands partnered with digital marketing specialists Jellyfish and adopted Google Marketing Platform as its integrated advertising and analytics solution. Jellyfish helped Deckers Brands use tools within Google Marketing Platform to apply machine learning to its first-party data, then activate the insights obtained from that data.

When countries around the world implemented stay at home orders in early 2020, Decker Brands’ found that its new strategy was essential to helping them quickly spot and react to customer trends. In the United States for example, the company exported data from its Analytics 360 account into BigQuery, a data warehouse solution part of Google Cloud, to better understand customer buying behavior. They found an increase in the sale of UGG slippers, which helped them quickly learn that people were interested in more comfortable footwear for the home. When people began venturing outside, Deckers Brands saw that trend very early through increased interest in HOKA running shoes and Teva hiking sandals and was able to quickly respond.

Using Google Marketing Platform and Google Cloud together, Deckers Brands was able to continue putting people into products they loved –  and grow their business. To learn more, read the full case study here.