Optimizing User Acquisition with Google DV360: Creative Strategies for Success

We’ve all seen significant changes in user acquisition (UA) advertising in the last few years. But we still see that for channels like Facebook, TikTok, etc. “Creative is king.” Despite this, many teams still face challenges with systematically working processes with creatives, struggling to catch users’ attention and win the auction.

Based on my experience in Scentbird, Praktika, and Playrix, the performance of top creatives may 5 times differ from low creatives’ performance, and “good” creatives live longer in rotation and burn out slower.

Let's discuss how we can think of creatives based on the DV360 example.

Frequency is one of the most critical factors for campaign success. For example, Facebook says ~2 - 2.5 times per week is optimal; higher numbers won’t be adequate and only add extra cost. Others say that 1.8 - 4 frequency is okayish, and a higher frequency is ineffective.

But can we use this approach in other channels? Can we use it as a “rule of thumb” before analyzing?

Our content and creatives may meet potential users in different mindsets and environments. They may scroll through their Facebook feed in the middle of the working day or on the phone while moving from one place to another. At the same time, our users may watch YouTube on their laptops while cooking, cleaning the house, or before sleep.

DV360 provides many more formats, such as CTV,out-of-home, in-game interstitials, small banners, etc., and all of these are genuinely different contexts. Considering this rich inventory, can we even think of creatives for all these placements similarly?

The most challenging thing for the marketer here is to see DV360 not line one channel but like a constellation of channels in one interface.

What is DV360

DV360, or Display & Video 360, is a comprehensive advertising platform developed by Google. It enables advertisers and marketers to plan, manage, and optimize their display, video, and programmatic campaigns across various online channels. DV360 offers tools for audience targeting, creative management, and real-time bidding to help businesses reach their desired audiences effectively through digital advertising.

Some may say that it’s just another way to buy YouTube ads, but it’s much more than that. The main feature of DV360 is the flexible frequency setting on each level of an advertising campaign, and we won’t find it in Google UAC. But besides that, there are a vast number of different inventories, like banners, video, native banners and video, YouTube, CTV, and out-of-door.

Let’s discuss one at a time.

Banners

There are an excessive number of available banner formats. How can we determine which to use and which to skip?

First, you can consider the most popular formats. And then run a test flight. After this flight, you can create a report where Google will show you particular formats your users may see depending on where your target audience can be found and which devices they have. Then, you’ll be able to score the formats by potential reach and make an informed decision about which formats you should remake (not resize) your creatives. The more appropriate sizes you’ll cover, the more “quality reach” you’ll have.

What do I mean by “quality reach”?

This won’t be a surprise if you see the most potential reach for small banners like 728х90. This banner is relatively small and can appear almost on any resource. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage of such formats.

The advantage is that using this format is the way to reach your users when there is no opportunity to reach them with any other ads. This is the case, especially when reach is important or a channel KPI.

The disadvantage is that if you put it along with the other banners, it’ll take the most impressions (and therefore the budget). Since it has relatively low performance compared to other formats, your campaign may have low performance at first glance.

So, how do you have a foot in both camps? The solution is to place small creatives to separate Line Items. Here, Google DV360's remarkable ability will help us. You can set low frequency and low budget, particularly for these types of banners.

For example, you set frequency 4 for the whole campaign but limit frequency setting to this particular Line Item to 1. (The lower the setting in the campaign hierarchy always overrides the higher). Thus, if your users were captured in several formats, they’ll see a thin banner 1 time, 3 other times, and other more prominent banners. But if your user only appears in this particular format, you’ll reach them at least once.

This workaround works excellently for Google DV360, unlike other DSPs or Google Ads Campaigns, where it’s more challenging or even impossible to separate creatives this way.

Also, it may be helpful to make these thin banners animated to capture the attention.

Video

There are a lot of placemats available for video on Google DV360. It has Video, Native Video, YouTube, YouTube CTV, or even Out of Home.

There is a trick here. When you launch a video on Facebook, even if it will run on different placements, it’s still in a single Facebook context, either mobile or desktop. This is not the case for DV360.

For example, when you run Native Video in the game, advertising another game, the Native Video takes all available space on the screen, capturing undivided user attention. Also, there is a button that the user may click on if they are interested.

Imagine you run the same video on CTV. The user is watching TV and suddenly sees a video from the game: absolutely another context, no device at hand, no button to click. Even if they are interested, do they have to remember the brand somehow, find the phone, and find the app in the store? Or what?

No doubt, many teams are struggling to test the CTV because other creatives are failing, and producing different creative concepts takes effort, time, and money.

So, how do we think of video creative for Google DV360? Let’s proceed with the game ad example.

First of all, we should consider the context. What is the user doing when they see our ads?

If you think about the Native Video format, you can group the game publishers in separate Line Items, and you know that the user is playing; you can provide a gameplay video or even a playable ad so that the experience will feel seamless.

If you think about the YouTube or CTV format, showcasing the brand and using a game story is better. For example, your game characters do something funny or exciting, or there is a mystery there, you name it. Thus, the user will be impressed with another story and may remember your app. Then, you can separate the users who saw one part of your game story on YouTube and show them another part of

it… the whole storytelling. Yep, Google DV360 supports even that.

Also, imagine that if the user is impressed after seeing your ads during movie night on CTV, they still have to pause the movie (which is only sometimes nice or possible), find their phone, etc. So? You may want to help them remember your brand better by increasing the frequency! Yes, “normal” frequency 2-3-4 is not the case here. You can show your ad significantly more times!

Will it work, and will it be profitable? The answers are different for different businesses and products.

In such situations, you can perform a test. You can divide your audience into groups, set different frequencies for each group, and determine the most profitable comparing costs to projected LTV. Yes, it’s quite an expensive study that requires a decent investment, both financial and FTE, from the analytics team. The potential outcome is that you may unlock a great scalable channel.

The context is much more important when you test the Out-of-Home format when you should consider not only the user context from his activity perspective but also the surroundings - district, buildings, events, time of the year, and much more. And here, the frequency may be even greater.

Final words

Google DV360 is a very controversial channel for media buyers. Besides Google, it charges by impressions and not by clicks, so guys who ran Google Ads Campaigns for a while initially feel quite uncomfortable. Media buyers who run Facebook feel uncomfortable with the interface. They call it a DSP but with YouTube and CTV… What is it finally?

The entire campaign structure is so unusual that you’ll need at least a month to wrap your head around it. And after all, there are different creative strategies and contexts.

If you are in a mature company with a solid product-market fit and resources and looking for your successive big win, maybe it’s an option. At least give it a chance.