What Is DV360? Display & Video 360 Explained for Indian Marketers

What is DV360?

DV360, short for Display & Video 360, is Google's demand-side platform. A demand-side platform, or DSP, is software that buys ad space for advertisers. It looks at each available impression on a website, app or streaming service, checks it against your rules and decides whether to bid and how much to pay. Our guide to what a demand-side platform is explains the category in more detail.

DV360 is part of Google Marketing Platform, alongside Campaign Manager 360 for ad serving and tracking, Search Ads 360 and Google Analytics 360. It launched under this name in 2018, when Google combined DoubleClick Bid Manager with features from Campaign Manager, Studio and Audience Center in a single product.

The value is easiest to see with an example. Say a two-wheeler brand wants YouTube, JioHotstar, a few Hindi news sites and metro station screens for a festive launch. Booked separately, that means four contracts, four creative workflows and four reports, none of which can tell you how many people saw the ad more than once. Through DV360, the same plan runs from one account, with shared audiences, one frequency cap and one view of reach.

What can you buy with DV360?

You can buy almost every digital format except search ads, which run in Google Ads or Search Ads 360. Here are the main channels, with the indicative ranges we use when planning in India.

CPM is the cost per thousand impressions. CPV, used for skippable YouTube ads, is the cost per view. These are planning ranges, not quotes. Final rates depend on dates, targeting and season, and GST is extra.

Premium inventory also comes with minimums. Smaller regional OTT apps start from about ₹2–3 lakh, while JioHotstar entertainment starts around ₹10 lakh. You can see how each format is priced on our YouTube advertising page, and the OTT, news and DOOH deals we plan in DV360 on our premium inventory page.

How is DV360 different from Google Ads?

Google Ads is open to anyone and built around Google's own properties and network: Search, YouTube, Gmail, Discover and the Google Display Network. DV360 is built for buyers who want reach and control across the wider web, streaming apps and screens, including private deals with named publishers.

Both can run YouTube. The difference is everything around it. In DV360, YouTube sits in the same plan as your OTT, news and DOOH buys, so one frequency cap and one reach report can cover all of them. Google Ads is quicker to start and leans more on automation, which suits search and smaller performance budgets. Our DV360 vs Google Ads comparison goes through the trade-offs in detail.

How does DV360 work?

Every DV360 account uses the same five levels, and settings flow from the top down.

When someone opens an app or a web page, the publisher's exchange sends out a bid request. DV360 checks it against your line items. If it matches, DV360 bids, or applies a price you agreed earlier in a deal. The winning ad is served, and the impression is counted and measured. All of this happens in well under a second.

That is the short version. Our guide on how DV360 works walks through bidding, pacing, deals and reporting step by step.

Which ways of buying does DV360 support?

DV360 supports four main ways to buy, and most good plans use more than one.

1. Open auction: any buyer can bid. It gives the widest reach and the lowest prices, with the least control over placement.
2. Private auction, also called a private marketplace or PMP: an invite-only auction with a floor price, run by a publisher for selected buyers.
3. Preferred deal: a fixed price with a first look at the inventory, but no promise of volume.
4. Programmatic Guaranteed (PG): a fixed price and a fixed number of impressions, booked in advance, much like a traditional booking.

YouTube reservations can also be booked inside DV360 as instant deals. For Indian OTT apps, PG is the usual route because it locks the CPM and the volume before launch. We compare the options with examples in Programmatic Guaranteed vs PMP vs Open Auction.

What targeting and measurement does DV360 offer?

Targeting covers who you reach, where, and next to what. You can use Google audiences such as affinity and in-market segments, your own first-party lists, location down to city or radius, language, device (including connected TV), content categories and specific apps or channels. Brand safety controls let you exclude sensitive content, and you can add third-party verification from firms such as Integral Ad Science or DoubleVerify.

Measurement covers delivery and outcomes. Active View, Google's viewability measurement, checks whether an ad had a fair chance to be seen. Floodlight tags, set up in DV360 or Campaign Manager 360, track conversions, and you can link Google Analytics 4. DV360 also reports unique reach and frequency across channels, and YouTube Brand Lift studies are available when a campaign meets the spend thresholds.

Who should use DV360?

DV360 suits advertisers who need reach, control and premium inventory across several channels. It is far less useful if all you run is search.

It is a good fit for:

• brands running video across YouTube and OTT that want one frequency cap
• agencies managing several brands from one setup
• BFSI, auto and real estate brands that need named publishers, PG deals and tight brand safety
• marketers who judge campaigns on reach and frequency, not only on clicks

It may not be the right tool yet if you only run search or Shopping ads, if your monthly budget is very small, or if nobody on your side can run the platform and you don't want a managed partner either.

How do you get DV360 access in India?

DV360 has no public sign-up. Google sells it as an enterprise product, through its own sales team and through partners that hold DV360 seats. In practice there are four routes:

1. A direct contract with Google, which usually suits large advertisers with a high committed spend.
2. An advertiser account or child seat under a partner's seat, where your team runs the campaigns.
3. Your media agency's seat, if your agency already runs DV360.
4. A managed service, where a specialist team runs the account for you.

At DV360 Account, we set up advertisers and child seats under our partner seat, with billing in ₹ and GST invoices, and we also run campaigns for brands and agencies. Most accounts are ready within a few working days once we have company documents and billing details. PG deals take longer because publishers have to confirm inventory.

Our guide to getting a DV360 account in India lists the paperwork, and self-serve vs managed DV360 helps you pick a working model.

What does DV360 cost?

DV360 cost has three layers: media, the platform fee and, if someone runs it for you, a service fee.

Media is what you pay for impressions or views. Google also charges a DV360 platform fee, calculated as a percentage of media cost. The rates are set by contract, with one rate for exchange inventory such as open auction and private deals, and a lower rate for YouTube and Programmatic Guaranteed. Google doesn't publish these rates. If a partner or agency runs the account, there is a service fee as well, usually a percentage of media spend, a fixed monthly fee or a campaign fee. Verification tools and third-party data can add small extra costs.

For a quick sense of scale, divide your media budget by the CPM and multiply by 1,000 to get impressions. ₹10 lakh of media at a ₹250 CPM buys about 40 lakh impressions. At an average frequency of 4, that is roughly 10 lakh people reached.

We break down fee models in our DV360 pricing guide, and our post on the minimum budget for DV360 covers what a realistic starting spend looks like.

What mistakes should you avoid when starting with DV360?

Most early problems come from setup, not from the platform itself.

1. Treating DV360 like Google Ads. Switching on every exchange and audience at once spreads the budget thin. Start with a clear goal and a few well-funded line items.
2. Launching without conversion tags. Put Floodlight or GA4 tracking in place first, or automated bidding has nothing to learn from.
3. Judging automated bidding too early. Google says its bidding algorithm can take up to four weeks to calibrate.
4. Forgetting frequency. Set caps at campaign or insertion order level. Google removed lifetime caps in February 2025, so the longest window you can set is 30 days.
5. Not asking who owns the account. Make sure the advertiser, audiences and reporting history stay yours if you ever change partners.

Next step

If you want to see what DV360 could deliver for your budget, ask for a free media plan. Within one working day, a DV360 specialist sends a channel mix, publishers and estimated reach, and our team can turn it into a live campaign.