Editor's note: This post was updated on October 2026 to reflect current Display & Video 360 functionality and changes in the privacy landscape.
In the early days of online advertising, buyers had to send out RFPs and wade through countless rounds of emails and contract negotiations to purchase ad space on websites. This process required an immense amount of time and resources.
When programmatic buying came along, it brought with it a bevy of benefits, including improved workflow, lower CPMs, measurable performance, and the ability to target audiences directly. However, it didn’t guarantee the same inventory as going directly to a publisher.
Google Display & Video 360 (DV360) offers inventory and publishers across guaranteed and non-guaranteed buying types in a single tool, including private auctions, preferred deals, and Programmatic Guaranteed deals. Since you’ll still have the flexibility to choose which option to use, it’s important to understand the definitions, differences and best use cases for each.
A non-guaranteed private auction (PA) is a one-publisher-to-multiple-advertisers relationship where the publisher makes a portion of their non-guaranteed inventory available for purchase at a negotiated minimum-floor price for each private buyer. The inventory goes to the highest bidder.
When to use?
A non-guaranteed preferred deal (PD) is an exclusive, advertiser-to-publisher relationship for programmatically purchasing inventory with first-look access to custom inventory at a fixed CPM.
When to use?
Programmatic Guaranteed deals (PG) provide an automated buying solution with tagless trafficking, advanced targeting and consolidated reporting and billing. Programmatic guaranteed deals allow you to execute direct buys with publishers while eliminating manual processes.
When to use?
Here's how the three deal types stack up side by side:
| Private auction | Preferred deal | Programmatic Guaranteed | |
| Pricing | Negotiated floor price, highest bidder wins | Fixed CPM | Negotiated directly with the publisher |
| Guaranteed inventory | No | No | Yes |
| Spend commitment | No | No | Yes |
| Relationship | One publisher, multiple buyers | One publisher, one buyer, with first-look access | One publisher, one buyer |
| Best for | Scaling apps or sites that already perform well in the open marketplace | Buying from specific publishers at a predictable price | Locking in direct-buy placements like homepage takeovers |
There are multiple reasons to consider running deals in Display & Video 360 versus buying direct. These benefits apply to all deal types:
Non-guaranteed private auctions and preferred deals and Programmatic Guaranteed deals also come with their own benefits over traditional direct buys.
Deals do take some care to keep spending. Two of the most common deal setup mistakes we see are leaving "Target new exchanges" switched on, which lets a deal line item drift into open auction inventory, and applying an automated bid strategy to a line item that only targets deal IDs. We also upload and assign creatives before a deal's start date so they clear review in time. When a deal underdelivers, the Troubleshooter tab in DV360 shows where impressions are being filtered out, and our guide to troubleshooting a line item that isn't spending covers the rest.
As a company with a self-professed “data obsession,” it should come as no surprise that we’ve crunched the numbers. After all, what’s a list of benefits without real-world results to back them up?
Despite the benefits inherent in programmatic advertising, direct buying isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, as privacy regulations expand and browsers like Safari and Firefox continue to block third-party cookies by default, direct publisher relationships and cleaner supply paths carry more weight than ever. Luckily, advertisers no longer have to fear these types of changes or choose between the convenience of programmatic advertising and the control of direct buying when they run deals in Display & Video 360.
Ready to get started? We'd love to talk.