Running campaigns on Display & Video 360 (DV360) can be a great way to connect with your desired audience and achieve your marketing goals. However, just like any digital advertising platform, DV360 campaigns can sometimes run into issues that affect how well they perform.

Once you start a campaign on a platform like DV360, it's important to keep track of how it's performing at different stages.

If you notice that certain parts of your campaign aren't spending as expected, it's tempting to think there's just one or two reasons behind it. However, it's usually better to double-check a few more things, starting as soon as the campaign begins. This can help ensure that your ads are being delivered smoothly.

This article covers a range of reasons why your campaign might not be delivering as expected:

1. Active Status: Check if your campaign, insertion order (IO), or line item is paused - this could be why it's not spending.

2. Creative Rejection: Your ads might not be approved or are facing restrictions. Check for any disapproved creatives or alerts in the creative section.

3. Flight Dates: Make sure your campaign, insertion order. line item flight dates are set correctly. Duplicating a line item can sometimes mess up the dates, impacting delivery.

4. Narrow Targeting: Too many restrictions can limit your inventory. Try to loosen them as much as possible while staying within the client's guidelines.

5. Specific Targeting: Targeting very specific regions or demographics with low numbers can also limit delivery.

6. Digital Content Labels: Some content labels may restrict where your ads can appear.

7. Creative Restrictions: If your ads fall under sensitive categories, they might need manual review before serving.

8. Impression Lost Chart: This tool can help you identify where you're losing impressions and why.

9. Time of Day: Check if your ads are set to run at optimal times.

10. Audience Targeting: Make sure your targeted audience lists are working properly.

11. Frequency Capping: Too many restrictions on how often your ads can be shown can limit delivery.

12. Targeting Combinations: Certain combinations of targeting criteria may affect delivery.

13. Custom Audience Targeting: Ensure your custom audience lists have enough inventory.

14. Viewability: Too much emphasis on viewable inventory can limit delivery.

15. Inclusion Lists: Make sure your inclusion lists aren't too restrictive.

16. Technology Targeting: Check if you've set any overly restrictive technology targeting.

17. History Changes: Review recent changes to see if they might be impacting delivery.

18. Budget Completion: Ensure your budget hasn't been reallocated elsewhere.

19. Overdelivery: Sometimes, line items can be spent too quickly initially, leading to slower spending later on.

20. Deal Line Items: Check for duplicate targeting layers on deal line items.

21. CPM in Deals: Make sure your bid is high enough to account for platform fees.

22. Inventory Availability: Check the availability of inventory in your chosen targeting.

23. Demo Targeting: Ensure you haven't limited your targeting too much based on demographics.

In this discussion, we'll talk about a structured plan for fixing problems that might come up during DV360 campaigns. This plan will help you spot and deal with common challenges at different points in your campaign.

The Troubleshooter tool is a really handy tool for figuring out what's going wrong with private auctions, guaranteed deals, non-guaranteed fixed deals, and open auction line items. It helps you understand why you might not be able to place ads in some spaces and why your Line Items aren't getting enough impressions even when there are spaces available.

With the Troubleshooter, you can:

• Quickly understand why a deal isn't spending.

• Resolve issues with deals from any exchange connected to DV360.

• Filter to troubleshoot individual deals when a line item targets multiple deals.

• Identify detailed reasons and quantities for lost impression availability at different levels.

• Determine why a line item isn't securing available inventory.

DV360 Troubleshooter

In DV360, if your line item isn't spending or encountering delivery issues, you can use the Troubleshooter tool to address problems with your deals and line items.

Using the Troubleshooter:

Start by navigating to the line item you want to troubleshoot. In the top menu, click on Troubleshooter.

1. Explore Key Displays: Once in Troubleshooter, you'll encounter essential displays that provide valuable insights.

 Here's what to expect:

1.  Inventory Dropdown: Choose between viewing results across all targeted inventory sources or specific deals. The default selection is "All inventory," but you can opt for a particular deal if needed.

Note: When viewing Troubleshooter for a specific deal, data for incoming bid requests can be seen by clicking Total available requests below the chart.

2.  Date Range Dropdown: Select the timeframe you want to analyse. Options range from the last 7 days to the last 14 days, enabling you to troubleshoot delivery over various periods.

3. Total available requests: The total number of available requests

4. Bid responses: The total number of bid responses

5. Impressions won: The total number of impressions won

6. Win rate: The % of impressions won when a bid response occurred

2. Interpretation and Action: As you explore Troubleshooter data, pay attention to trends and inconsistency. If you notice discrepancies in bid responses or impressions won, delve deeper to identify potential issues. Adjustments may be necessary to optimise your campaign's performance.

By leveraging the Troubleshooter tool effectively, you can address delivery issues, maximise impressions won, and ultimately enhance the success of your DV360 campaigns.

In the image below, observe the "Total Available Requests" section. If it shows zero, it indicates that the publisher has ceased sending bid requests. Flag this to the team for investigation.

Line item Troubleshooter - Requests vs Responses vs Won

In this particular line item example, Total available requests = 1.56T.

Stage 1:  Troubleshooter - Filtered by Impressions

Out of 1.56T available requests, only 26.6M (<0.1% of the total) are eligible impressions. The remaining >99.9% are filtered due to various reasons for this stage's filtration targeting restrictions. Other reasons like Pre Bid or Creatives can be disregarded.

We're left with 26.6M eligible impressions.

Stage 2: Troubleshooter - Filtered by the Eligible Impression

Out of the 26.6M eligible impressions, 45.9% are passed to the next stage.

Impressions filtered due to Frequency, Budget, and pacing are negligible.

12.2M eligible bids were submitted into the auction.

Stage 3: Troubleshooter: Filtered by the Auction

12.2M bids were submitted.

Auction loss (Internal) is 86.9%, indicating there are internal auction losses.

Stage 4: Troubleshooter - Filtered Bid responses

Out of the 1.6M bid responses, 96% were filtered due to Auction Lost (External).

Auction Loss due to external factors suggests competitors bidding higher through other DSPs. Adjust bids accordingly.

After filtering out 96% of bid responses, there are 64.2K impressions left.

Impression won: 64.2K.

Win rate % = Bid responses / Impression won

Win rate % = 64.2K / 1.6M = 4%

Conclusion:

Effective troubleshooting is essential for optimising DV360 campaigns and maximising ROI. By following this structured framework, you can systematically identify and address issues at each stage of the campaign lifecycle, ensuring that your campaigns deliver optimal results. Remember to continuously monitor performance metrics and adjust strategies accordingly to maintain campaign effectiveness over time.