In 2018, Google rolled out its Google Marketing Platform that allowed a holistic approach to buying and optimizing digital media. Here’s a quick glimpse at the basic structure of the Google Marketing Platform.
Today we’ll be focusing on the advertising side of the Google Marketing Platform. More specifically, we’ll discuss how the integration between DV360 and Campaign Manager can improve ad campaign performance. This, in turn, leads to increased return on investment for brands and businesses.
It’s almost impossible in the modern advertising climate to advertise effectively without using DV360 or Campaign Manager. That’s because tools like DV360 allow advertisers to plan, buy, optimize, and control media like never before.
Yet, marketers still remain confused about the most effective way to use DV360 and Campaign Manager together. As a result, they miss out on critical features and capabilities of the tools that improve end-to-end campaign performance.
So let’s dive in and look at how best to integrate DV360 and Campaign Manager to get the most out of your ad efforts.
What is DV360?
Let’s start with a brief overview of Google Display & Video 360. DV360 is a Demand Side Platform (DSP) that brands use to buy ad inventory programmatically. Formerly known as DoubleClick Bid Manager, DV360 now consists of five integrated modules. Here’s how these modules are structured.
The real advantage of DV360 lies in its ability to allow cross-team collaboration during the lifetime of a campaign. As all five modules collaborate and integrate seamlessly, marketers can gather faster and smarter insights. These insights give them more control over the messaging, audience, and budget of the campaign.
So let’s take a closer look at each of the five modules within DV360.
Campaigns
The campaign module remains the primary building and execution block of DV360. This module is where marketers decide everything from line items to insertion orders. The standout advantage of the Campaigns module is the centralized quality control over cross-channel media plan.
Audiences
The audiences module is DV360 audience center, which allows the simultaneous audience and campaign management. As you monitor your campaign, you can make changes to the audience side by side. Besides, the audience module allows in-depth audience profile analysis to set audiences according to activity levels.
Creatives
The creatives module is where the design for all creatives within the media plan takes place. This space allows the creative team to access innovative methods to design visually appealing ads using Ad Canvas.
Inventory
The inventory module is where the inventory from all publishers is stored and managed. Inventory is essentially the ad space publishers make available on their websites and platforms for buyers to advertise.
Insights
Insights module shows you the performance of your display and video ads. You can also generate reports based on the latest data to modify campaign strategy accordingly.
Programmatic Advertising & Related Concepts
This section provides a brief overview of programmatic advertising and related concepts for those who may be unfamiliar with them.
Programmatic advertising is the buying and selling of online advertising space using automated technology. The two parties involved in programmatic advertising are:
1. Advertisers who want to run ads on available ad space
2. Publishers who make ad space available on owned online space such as websites.There are specific computerized platforms involved in programmatic advertising to ease the ad exchange process. Publishers use a supply-side platform (SSP) to sell ad space, while advertisers use demand-side platforms (DSP) to buy ad space. DV360 is a platform that allows advertisers to buy ad space and thus, acts as a DSP. The ad space itself is known as ad inventory.
What is Campaign Manager 360?
Campaign Manager 360 is an ad server that allows advertisers to manage ads across websites and mobile. In addition to serving ad tags for advertisers, Campaign Manager 360 offers enhanced tracking and reporting capabilities. The core capabilities of Campaign Manager 360 allow advertisers to upload creatives and run end-to-end campaigns with dynamic targeting criteria.
The platform also offers advanced attribution modeling with various models such as first and last touch interaction or data-driven attribution that assigns value to consumer interactions with advertising channels. These insights allow advertisers to track conversions and sales, thus revealing the real performance of the ad.
This tracking isn’t limited to the Google ecosystem, either. Campaign Manager 360 can track digital activity over social media, emails, and texts and bring that data into the platform as well.
Ad Servers & Ad Tags in Programmatic Advertising
Ad servers are a core component of programmatic advertising. They are pieces of advertising technology (AdTech) that run online advertising campaigns. Once advertisers win the bid to serve ads on publishers’ ad space, ad servers show the ads to visitors.
Also, ad servers collect precious data for the advertisers regarding the performance of the ad. This data includes statistical reporting such as impressions and clicks on the ad. Campaign Manager 360 is the most widely used ad server for mobile and web advertising. It allows advertisers to serve the right ad to the right audience and collect insights that will enable crucial future optimization.
Add tags (also known as placement tags or creative tags) are pieces of code within the webpage where the ad is served. This code sends a request to the ad server to show a particular ad within a specific ad space on the webpage. Ad tags are usually HTML or Javascript codes embedded within the URL of the browser page where the request initiates.
How to Integrate DV360 with Campaign Manager 360?
Now that we’re familiar with DV360 and Campaign Manager 360 let’s look at how to integrate them. Google Marketing Platform works optimally when all platform products combine to provide shareability, access, and transparency. Advertisers can incorporate DV360 with Campaign Manager 360 using these easy steps:
Step 1: Share Floodlight Configuration with DV360 Partner
Google Marketing platform allows new advertisers in DV360 to link to Campaign Manager 360 by granting permission. But first, Campaign Manager 360 advertiser has to share Floodlight Configuration with DV360 partners.
To share the configuration, authorize the DV360 partner, select the advertiser from the Advertiser Tab and click on Floodlight Configuration. Select New association from the DV360 Association panel. Once you have read and authorized the sharing notice, enter the ID of the partner you want to link with.
Step 2: Advertiser Ad Server & Attribution Setting
After sharing the Floodlight Configuration, select Display & Video 360 and Third-party ad servers. For the attribution settings, use the Floodlight group linked with your partner in Campaign Manager 360.
Step 3: Choose Campaign Manager 360 Site(s)
Once you’re done with the Ad server and attribution settings, Campaign Manager 360 will ask which site you want linked. Here, you’ll find two options.
The first option is the Automatically linked Campaign Manager 360 site that is set up for you if you do not have an existing Campaign Manager 360 site to connect with DV360.
The second option is Adding your own Campaign Manager 360 site that already exists and is available for linking with DV360. If you select this option, only creatives and placements will link to DV360.
Want to know how to set up Google Analytics 4 property too? Check this out.
How DV360 & Campaign Manager Help Improve ROI?
After integrating DV360 and Campaign Manager 360, you can take advantage of multiple features that help improve ROI. Let’s look at some of the fundamental ways you can improve advertising ROI thanks to this integration.
Integrated Reporting Across Marketing Platforms
One of the core challenges of advertising online is keeping track of data and performance. With so many ad campaigns running on different platforms, data starts to look messy, and ROI plummets. With the integration of DV360 and Campaign Manager, advertisers can make customized reports for multiple marketing platforms.
In addition, DV360 provides multiple dimensions in cross-platform reporting. This includes tracking everything from site and creative performance to the geographical engagement of ads. When all of this data is available for ad campaigns across marketing platforms, it becomes easier to formulate strategies. This, in turn, leads to improved ROI over the long term.
Enhanced Marketing Attribution
Marketing attribution is essential for a high ROI as it makes the most of ad spend and budget. Attribution allows advertisers to pinpoint the audience members to target through an effective channel. This saves unnecessary ad spend and increases ROI.
Campaign Manager 360 integrates the information from multiple channels and platforms onto a single dashboard. This makes marketing attribution easier and more impactful. Advertisers can compare different attribution models in Campaign Manager 360. With data flowing in from so many various sources, you can formulate a holistic strategy for increasing ad campaign effectiveness.
Google Analytics is an excellent source of Marketing Attribution modeling as well. Check out how to generate attribution reports in GA.
Automation & Refinement of Audience Targeting
One of the main reasons for the negative ROI in advertising is presenting the wrong audience’s right ads. With DV360, a wide range of audience targeting options allow custom audience formation for specific campaigns.
The integration of DV360 and Campaign Manager makes tracking audience changes more effortless as well. Since Campaign Manager acts as an ad server, the platform reports the effectiveness of a particular ad for a set audience. By continually retargeting and refining audiences through DV360, advertisers can get the most out of their ads and improve eventual ROI.
Optimization Through Streamlined Workflow
Online advertising is a complex set of processes involving buying, planning, measuring, and controlling end-to-end campaigns. That’s why it’s essential to have streamlined workflows that integrate the different steps of executing campaigns. With the integration between DV360 and Campaign Manager 360, you’ll be able to activate assets across Google Marketing Platform.
As such, advertisers can optimize campaigns with multiple streamlined workflows. For instance, an integration with Analytics 360 allows in-depth analysis of paid media’s performance with a particular target audience. Integrations of Campaign Manager with DV360 also make it easier to map the entire customer journey.
Centralized Management for All Campaign Messages
Integrated Marketing Campaigns (IMCs) are the core of modern marketing. This is very much the case for online advertising as well. Ad messages for a single campaign need to complement one another across different marketing channels. This synchronization is not always easy to achieve since multiple ad campaigns are running simultaneously across multiple channels.
With the integration of DV360 and Campaign Manager 360, achieving synchronization of campaign messages is easier than ever. The campaigns module of DV360 allows centralized management for all campaigns. This provides a sense of continuity to a brand’s ad campaign and campaign management.
Improved Creative Capabilities with DV360
It’s no use launching ad campaigns if they aren’t visually appealing or effective in converting users. According to Neilsen, ads with impressive visuals have an 89% chance of converting users. With DV360, advertisers can make high-quality creatives, including rich media, interactive media, and high-quality formats.
These are just some of the features that advertisers unlock with the integration of DV360 and Campaign Manager 360. Google Marketing Platform makes buying media and measuring campaigns easier. This eventually leads to greater control over ad campaign lifetimes leading to higher ROI.
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