Google published the first of a planned monthly series of Google Marketing Platform Drops on October 22, and one line in it reaches past the product list: LinkedIn CTV Ads programmatic inventory is now in Display & Video 360. In the Google posts we reviewed, it is the third company that owns audiences or inventory to be connected to DV360 buyers since April, after Albertsons Media Collective on April 27 and Walmart Connect on June 11.
Each connection was announced separately, and each reads as a partnership. Read in order, they describe a pattern that changes how a marketing team buys. The owner of the audience is no longer asking the buyer to come to its own console. It is delivering the audience into the DSP the buyer already uses.
What the first Drop contains
Glenn Thrope, Product Director for Display & Video 360 at Google, wrote in the Drop post that “Google Marketing Platform Drops, a new monthly series, delivers our latest news to help you get your best ROI across the full customer journey.” The first edition lists four items.
The first is a Gartner placement. Google says Gartner named it a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Advertising Platforms for Google Marketing Platform and ranked it first across all use cases (Full Funnel, Awareness and Performance). The second covers inventory in DV360: Marketplace, which Google says is curated by Gemini models, now offers personalized media bundles with single-click activation for live sports and tentpole events. The third is the LinkedIn line. Google says it has “brought LinkedIn CTV Ads programmatic inventory into DV360 for unified buying, planning, and measurement.” The fourth is a customizable Search Ads 360 Home view that uses Gemini models to consolidate insights and generate suggestions.
The post gives no launch date for the LinkedIn inventory, no list of supported countries and no fee terms. LinkedIn’s own announcement of programmatic CTV buying, published May 7, names a different DSP. It says LinkedIn is “expanding programmatic buying for CTV Ads, now available through Amazon DSP,” for US targeting. We read no LinkedIn statement about DV360, so the DV360 availability rests on Google’s post. The two statements are compatible: the same LinkedIn audience can be offered through more than one DSP.
Three arrivals in six months
Albertsons Media Collective, April 27
Marta Martinez, Managing Director of Google Marketing Platforms, announced that Albertsons Media Collective “is bringing first-party shopper data to YouTube and third-party inventory in Display & Video 360.” Brands can reach Albertsons Companies shoppers across YouTube and premium publishers and measure impact with SKU-level sales reporting. Google names Keurig Dr Pepper as an example of a brand managing commerce media in DV360 with the same accountability as its broader marketing.
Walmart Connect, June 11
Walmart Connect announced that advertisers can activate its audiences in DV360 and measure how video reach and awareness campaigns affect sales at Walmart. It begins with YouTube, with more inventory types to follow. Walmart’s own post says the work is “currently in a closed proof of concept phase and will become more widely available later,” so the June announcement describes a limited start. Google’s matching post says the integration is rolling out in DV360, starting with YouTube campaigns, and cites 150 million weekly U.S. customers for Walmart.
Joel Lunenfeld, Global CEO of Publicis Media Exchange, said in the Walmart post that the move is about “making high-quality retail audiences more accessible within the platforms our teams already use every day.” Courtney Rose, VP Retail at Google, said in the same post: “With viewers watching an average of 110 million hours of shopping content on YouTube every day, the reach of the platform and potential for engagement is undeniable.”
Walmart’s post adds that YouTube extends where advertisers can apply Walmart Connect audiences, including CTV and Walmart’s owned VIZIO inventory. Walmart says audiences are built on actual purchase behavior.
LinkedIn CTV Ads, October 22
The LinkedIn item is the least detailed of the three. Google’s Drop post is the only primary we found for it. The May announcement from LinkedIn gives the shape of the offer in the other DSP. David Roter, Senior Director and Head of Global Agencies and Video Solutions at LinkedIn, said the collaboration with Amazon DSP “expands how advertisers can buy LinkedIn CTV Ads.” Chris Conetta, Director of Omnichannel Supply at Amazon Ads, said: “Advertisers are building full-funnel strategies on Amazon DSP, and they want more ways to reach the audiences that matter most.” LinkedIn’s post says buyers can use targeting such as job title, industry and seniority, and that campaigns can still be bought directly through Campaign Manager or programmatically.
What the three connections have in common
Each connection puts an owner of first-party signal inside a buyer’s DSP. Albertsons and Walmart hold purchase data. LinkedIn holds professional profile data. DV360 and Amazon DSP hold the buyer’s budgets, frequency settings and reporting.
The video side runs in parallel. Google’s September 28 post on Vertical Video Unification says DV360 now centralizes vertical video buys from publishers into a single workstream, and reports that in initial testing Unilever’s Hellmann’s and WPP Media achieved a 24% increase in unique reach while reducing cost per unique user by 25%. We covered that launch when it went out in Google Folds Vertical Video Buying Into DV360. The Drop’s Marketplace bundles for live sports apply the same idea to live sports and tentpole events: a curated package that an advertiser activates in one step.
Taken together, the posts describe one product direction. Google positions DV360 as the place where retail data, professional data, vertical video and premium streaming can be planned together, with Gemini models doing part of the selection. Google’s Drop post calls the aim “unified buying, planning, and measurement.”
Where the unification stops
Three limits show up in the primary documents.
The first limit is maturity. Walmart describes its DV360 work as a closed proof of concept. Google’s LinkedIn line carries no availability detail. An advertiser reading the announcements as a feature that is on today in every account would be reading more than the sources say.
The second is measurement ownership. Walmart’s post says advertisers will “measure how video reach and awareness campaigns impact sales at Walmart,” and Google’s Albertsons post describes SKU-level sales reporting. In both cases the sales outcome comes from the retailer’s data. The DSP carries the buy and the retailer supplies the outcome. A marketing team gets one workflow and still has two sources of record for results, which can differ in definitions of a customer, a conversion window and an attributed sale.
The third is overlap. LinkedIn’s audiences are offered through Amazon DSP according to LinkedIn and through DV360 according to Google. A B2B advertiser running CTV in both can reach the same decision-maker twice, and neither DSP sees the other’s delivery. Frequency settings in one DSP apply to what that DSP serves. Google’s September post makes a related point for vertical video, saying DV360 delivers performance “without overexposing users to the same ads,” a benefit it says siloed buying strategies cannot replicate.
Two earlier pieces on this site cover other recent DV360 changes: Google Adds Data Strength Uplift Metric and Extends Data Manager to DV360 and GA and DV360 Merges Brand Suitability Controls, Tightens Impression Counting.
What it means for the marketing leader
In our reading, the practical effect is on contracts and measurement plans more than on media plans. When the audience owner sells through your DSP, the DSP’s agency or account team is no longer the only party who can explain a result. The retailer or the professional network holds part of the answer.
A marketing leader running retail or B2B CTV should expect three changes. Budget lines move: spend that would otherwise be booked with an audience owner directly can be booked in the DSP instead, which changes who invoices and who reports. Audience tests become cheaper to run, because activating an audience no longer needs a new platform login and a new set of creative specifications. And the burden of proof shifts to measurement: since several parties report on the same impression, the marketing team has to decide which one counts.
The sources also show where not to over-commit. Walmart’s own wording on a closed proof of concept argues for a small test before any annual plan assumes scale, and Google’s silence on LinkedIn availability argues for confirming eligibility with an account team before a CTV flight is built around it.
Questions to put to your DSP and audience partners this quarter
- Confirm in writing whether the audience is live in your account today, in which countries and for which inventory. The June Walmart post and the October LinkedIn line both leave this open.
- Agree which party reports the sale or the job-title match, and fix the conversion window.
- If the same audience is available in a second DSP, set one frequency plan that covers both.
- Establish who invoices the media and the data fee, and whether the data fee appears as a separate line.
- Check whether the campaign can still be bought directly from the audience owner, and compare the results.
Google describes the Drops as a monthly series, so the November edition will show whether more audience owners are added. A running table of which audiences are live in which DSP, with the date and the written confirmation for each, lets a team answer that question in its own accounts before the fourth quarter closes.
Source: Google Marketing Platform blog, “Explore new ways to drive your best ROI with the first Google Marketing Platform Drop”. Also read: Walmart Connect, Google on Albertsons Media Collective, LinkedIn News, Google on Vertical Video Unification.
