AdRoll vs. Display & Video 360 (DV360)

If you’ve been diving into the world of display and video advertising, you have probably encountered AdRoll and the Google-owned Display & Video 360 (DV360).

If you’re looking for a powerful tool to help you launch, manage, and report on your advertising and marketing efforts, these two solutions have lots to offer. When it comes to comparing capabilities, features, and all the rest, here’s your breakdown for AdRoll and DV360. 

What is AdRoll?

Display, video, & native ads + social ads + email — all together in one place. AdRoll is the marketing and advertising platform that helps you save time and money. With one login to one platform, you can manage and report on your campaigns across web, social, and email. 

What is DV360

DV360 is a tool that allows you to launch, manage, and measure ad campaigns. In addition to display and video ads, DV360 also enables you to run native, audio, and connected TV (CTV) ads. In contrast to Google Ads, which uses the Google AdSense network for display, video, and native ads, DV360 taps AdSense as well as 100+ other ad exchanges. That means the reach is a bit broader comparatively. 

AdRoll Offers

• Display ads

• Video ads

• Native ads

• Social ads

• Ads + email recipes

• Email

What You Should Know About AdRoll

• ✅ Ad exchange knowledge not required. It is not uncommon for multiple exchanges to offer a duplicate bid opportunity to the same advertiser. AdRoll works with select ad exchanges to eliminate duplication. Avoiding duplication becomes harder when the advertiser self-selects from over 100+ ad exchanges.

• ✅ Smaller spend possibilities. Looking for effectiveness while not breaking the bank? Our suggested spend minimum per month doesn’t break $500. While a smaller spend means more time to wait for learnings and optimization, you don’t have to crack into savings to make it happen. 

• ✅ Retarget right away. Retargeting is our bread and butter. While other tools want you to launch growth and traffic  ads before, or with retargeting strategies, we encourage  you to start with retargeting ads and grow from there.

• ✅ Dynamic ads. This critical ad type is important to many advertisers. Personalization is key to reflect your shopper’s behavior and interests. 

• ✅ Managed services. Our managed services are available for those who are looking for an expert partner to help run their campaigns. Learn more about our managed services here. 

• ✅ The power of social. With AdRoll, you can connect your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest campaigns and see all of your data in one place. Manage and report across social, web, and email. 

• ✅ Marketing recipes that work. You can implement a tried-and-true marketing strategy to your ads with one of our Recipes. There’s a recipe for many goals like cart abandonment strategies or brand awareness.

• ✅ Email marketing. Capture email addresses, create and send emails, plus track and analyze your efforts in one place. Your customers are 2x as likely to convert and also convert 2x faster when they’re targeted with ads + email. 

DV360 Offers

• Display ads

• Video ads

• Native ads

• Audio ads

• Connected TV ads

• Digital out-of-home ads

What You Should Know About DV360

• ✅ Reach. With over 100 ad exchanges, you have granular control over the ad exchanges you wish to do business with. However, with DV360 you will need a strong working knowledge of the inventory each ad exchange offers in order to avoid duplicate bidding and the higher costs that entails.

• ✅ Feature full. This tool can be very powerful for those with a deep understanding of programmatic advertising; campaign controls and configurations are plentiful. However, underperformance and errors in optimization adjustments are possible when so many settings exist. 

• ❌ eComm integrations. Lacks native connection to popular ecommerce stores such as Shopify.

• ❌ Spend. While there’s no clear minimum spend in media per month, there may be a larger spend required in order to reach maximum effectiveness. 

• ❌ Creative limitations. Despite their effectiveness and use by many advertisers, DV360 ended the use of dynamic creative in 2019. 

• ❌ Social restrictions. DV360 does not allow for the launch and management of social ads. For this, advertisers will need a separate platform.

• ❌ No tried-and-true recipes. You won’t find any proven ad setups that are plug-and-play with DV360. AdRoll offers marketing recipes, a guided setup for ads and email, in the AdRoll platform. These setups can help you reach your goals quicker. 

The Final Word

While both platforms offer advertisers robust options for different types of ads, AdRoll truly offers  a one-stop solution for a breadth of problems. 

While DV360 can allow advertisers to dip their toes into audio, TV, and out of home digital ads, there are a few cons that may outweigh the pros. Keep in mind: the lack of ecommerce store integrations, no dynamic product ads, and the inability to seamlessly target store visitors via pixel integration may leave SMBs and ecommerce brands looking for more elsewhere.

Last updated on November 14th, 2023.