The Power of AI in DV360: Maximizing Performance and Efficiency

AI features in paid media are continuing to become the norm; and leveraging AI features is a key advantage in a growing and competitive advertising landscape. 

DV360 has had AI features embedded in the platform since 2018, and its AI offerings have expanded and grown to help marketers meet the ever-changing and growing roster of devices and content to help advertisers maximize reach and revenue with new and existing customers. This post will explore the various embedded AI features in DV360, their unique benefits, and ideal applications of each feature. 

1. Automated Bidding:

Bidding to business and marketing outcomes is embedded in DV360 with automated bid strategies. Google’s AI algorithm leverages a variety of signals like user behaviors, historical performance, conversion performance, and contextual signals to optimize bids in real-time.

Automated bidding in DV360 can enable advertisers to achieve their campaign objectives (e.g., maximize conversions, reach target CPA) more efficiently by automating bid adjustments and reducing the time spent adjusting bids and budgets. 

Outlined below are the various types of automated bidding and their appropriate use cases. 

DV360 Automated Bidding Strategies

2. Custom Bidding:

Leveraging custom bidding models to achieve specific marketing objectives and customer sets can further help advertisers maximize mid and upper funnel media investment in DV360. The platform offers two custom bidding solutions, one called Goal Builder, an in platform using Floodlights and GA4 conversions, and the other a custom script that enables even more granular inputs and control of the bidding algorithm. 

• Goal Builder:
  • Advertisers can define specific goals and prioritize inventory based on valuable actions, such as Floodlight activities or Google Analytics 4 conversions. This provides more granular control over bidding optimization.
• CustomScript:
  • DV360 allows advertisers to create custom bidding strategies using AI with in platform tools and abilities to add in custom scripts to more effectively bid to specific business and marketing objectives, 

3. Enhanced Automation

In addition to the variety of automated bidding solutions in DV360, the platform also offers an additional AI tool to better aid the platform to bid optimally to each impression. 

Enhanced Automation, which can be leveraged at the Partner, IO, or Line Item level, uses AI to learn from click, impression, and conversion signals, in a data and privacy compliant manner, to better bid to impressions across campaigns. This can enable advertisers to bid and optimize campaigns more efficiently and help provide key bidding signals to campaigns when cookies are not available. 

4. Google Audiences:

DV360 offers a multitude of AI driven audience solutions, from optimized targeting, reach expansion, and Google audiences, there is an audience solution to suit every business and marketing objective. 

4.a. Optimized Targeting:

As third party cookies and signals deprecate, expanding to relevant audiences in a strategic manner will become more challenging. Optimized targeting within DV360 enables advertisers to expand their reach beyond their existing audience lists and connect with users who exhibit similar characteristics using AI signals.  This can in turn better fuel DV360’s bidding algorithms and campaign performance, further accelerating advertiser’s marketing objectives within the platform.

4.b. Reach Expansion:

DV360’s proprietary audience expansion tool for YouTube and Connected TV is powered by Google’s Machine Learning algorithms to help advertisers expand their campaign’s reach to users who have affinity for, or are interested in a particular brand, product or service. 

Advertisers can use their first party data lists for this setting, and exert control of how granular or wide they would like to expand their targeting.  Please note that CTV campaigns need to leverage a tag-based list for this feature.

4.c. Google Audience Solutions:

In addition to Optimized Targeting and reach expansion solutions are Google’s Custom Affinity and Custom Intent audiences, which offer powerful ways to define high-value user segments based on interests, behaviors, and real-time intent signals. Advertisers can input keywords, URLs, and apps that represent their ideal audience, and DV360 uses machine learning to model and reach users with similar browsing patterns and interests. Together, these tools allow advertisers to scale reach intelligently, even as traditional identifiers decline, by leaning on AI-powered contextual and behavioral data.

5. Brand Safety & Suitability 

For many years, advertisers and marketers would need to upload exclusion lists or oftentimes enlist third party block lists for brand safety and suitability settings in DV360 due its manual nature. In the past few years, DV360 has rolled out AI driven brand safety and suitability settings that can be applied at the broader partner level and can be as granular in their settings as the line item level using content suitability and pre-determined brand safety settings in the platform. 

These settings are AI driven, as Google’s algorithm is constantly scanning and updating content suitability ratings to better ensure advertisers DV360 media runs across suitable and appropriate sites, based on the advertiser’s preferences. This reduces the need for advertisers to be constantly updating keyword and block lists, saving time that could be spent on optimization and reporting.

6. Measurement and Experimentation:

Data driven measurement and experimentation is built into the DV360 platform and infused with AI. Both DV360 Experiments tool and its Brand Lift Measurement tools offer seamless ways for advertisers to effectively test and measure media performance in platform and make informed optimization decisions. 

Experiments in DV360 can help advertisers easily A/B test creatives, audiences, bid strategies, or targeting tactics across line items or insertion orders. The tools automatically splits the desired IO or LI into test and control cells using AI based user based identification signals, which are a durable solution as cookies and data signals are less stable. 

Brand Lift in DV360 works in a similar fashion to Experiments, by surveying exposed and unexposed ad viewers on YouTube and cross-exchange (3P CTV, video, audio) to measure the impact of media across metrics like awareness, consideration, and purchase intent.  

These AI powered measurement and experimentation tools can better assist advertisers in making data informed media and optimization decisions, even as cookies and data signals become less stable.

Benefits of AI in DV360

Overall, the DV360 platform offers many avenues for advertisers to deploy AI across media and measurement. Leveraging the AI features mentioned above in the platform can generate numerous benefits:

Improved Campaign Performance: AI algorithms optimize bidding, targeting, and creative delivery, leading to higher conversion rates and return on ad spend (ROAS.) 

Increased Efficiency: Automation of tasks like bidding, creative optimization, and audience expansion frees up advertisers to focus on strategic initiatives.

Enhanced Targeting: AI helps advertisers reach the right audience in a durable and privacy centric manner  with the right message at the right time, maximizing campaign relevance

Data-Driven Decision Making: AI-powered insights provide advertisers with a deeper understanding of campaign performance, enabling them to make informed decisions.

AI is a powerful tool that is transforming programmatic advertising in DV360. By leveraging AI features, advertisers can achieve better results, improve efficiency, and stay ahead in the ever-evolving and complex digital landscape.  

Cardinal Path can support you with GMP x AI training; specifically with DV360 and how to successfully implement AI features that will drive the most impact for your business. Reach out to our team to learn more.