Last December I tuned in from London to see Argentina win the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final, watching the game live on TV alongside almost 1.5 billion other people around the world. And on Sunday, many of our friends across the pond watched in excitement as Kansas City won Super Bowl LVII. Not only were sports fans captivated by these live events, but advertisers were too. That’s because these events bring a huge number of people to television screens at the same time — giving advertisers a prime opportunity to engage with them.

With the shift to streaming over the last few years, an increasing number of advertisers have prioritized building connected TV (CTV) campaigns into their media strategies. Let’s take a look into some new features in Display & Video 360 that advertisers use to plan, buy and measure CTV campaigns.

Plan: Simplified reach and forecasting

Planning is a critical entry point of any digital campaign and it’s imperative to get it right. Advertisers use Reach Planner in Display & Video 360 to accurately forecast the reach and expected performance of CTV campaigns. It helps advertisers discover new publishers and CTV inventory and drive more efficient budget allocation decisions.

TV functionality in Reach Planner makes it possible to evaluate the unique and incremental reach of streaming publishers including YouTube, Hulu, Roku alongside linear TV. This feature is now generally available to advertisers in the US, Japan, Vietnam, France and Germany. Advertisers in the US looking for more granular reach can connect with the right audiences thanks to TV consumption data from the top 150 local Comscore markets directly in Reach Planner.

Advertisers can also use Reach Planner to gain insights into potential performance before campaign spending. It now supports Deal ID forecasting, helping advertisers understand how a Preferred Deal or Programmatic Guaranteed deal might perform before running. This is particularly important for CTV inventory where much of the high-value inventory is transacted through deals, especially in tentpole moments like the World Cup or Super Bowl.

Buy: Easier booking for premium placements

According to Nielsen’s total TV and streaming report, YouTube is the leader in streaming watch time in the US and advertisers have been turning to YouTube to reach a broad audience of viewers. In order to guarantee delivery at a fixed CPM, many advertisers reserve YouTube CTV inventory directly from Display & Video 360 with Instant Reserve which reduces the time to reserve YouTube inventory from weeks to minutes. Instant Reserve also unlocks audience targeting capabilities that were previously only available for open auction buys.

We’ve heard from many advertisers that they want even more YouTube inventory available through Instant Reserve, so we’ve added the ability to target some of the most popular YouTube streaming content like YouTube TV and other YouTube Select lineups, as well as premium formats like YouTube Masthead. Now, advertisers can seamlessly activate their brand’s message across curated YouTube packages and on YouTube’s high-impact home screen placement — helping to achieve their reach and awareness goals.