With the rise of businesses that envision building their online presence, digital marketing becomes inevitable for them to stand out among the fierce competition fighting for the attention of their audience. Display and Video 360 is one of the many DSPs that enable advertisers to do that.
When N-Number of Advertisers is competing using over 50 DSPs, the fight for the desired spot on the desired website/app is something that happens at an unimaginable pace. In this situation, it is beyond question that advertisers will demand value for each buck that they have spent through the Demand Side Platform with a clear bifurcation of the charges paid to – Publisher, Supply Side Platforms, Exchanges, Demand Side Platform, Agencies, and other involved entities. Therefore, it is important that they have complete visibility of what they are billed for.
But how can this be ensured? How can the advertiser have maximum visibility of what is their Budget Spent? What is their Media Cost? What are the Fees that are levied on them by advertisers by Display Video 360 or other Partners?
Here are some details that will help answer these questions and understand the Billing Part of Display Video 360 more:
The first level of Top to Bottom Hierarchy is a Billing Profile which is created when a Partner is created in the Google Marketing Platform. It includes the following details:
| Item | Details |
| Profile Name | Name that the Partner wants to be displayed on the Invoice |
| Purchase Order Number | Number of PO in case the usage is limited |
| Billing Country | The Country in which the invoices will be billed |
| Billing Currency | Currency of the Invoices |
| Invoice Level | Whether the invoices are generated at Partner, Advertiser, Campaign Insertion Order or Line Item level |
| Invoice Detail Level | Whether to group fees at Partner, Advertiser, Campaign Insertion Order or Line Item level |
| Invoice Split Level | Whether to Segregate the Invoices according to Platform Spends or Media Spends |
| Itemization Level | Whether to include Media and Platform Lines, Media or Platform Lines, All fees in Single Line or Separate Lines |
Partners can check which advertisers use the billing profile from the Assignment Section and the Invoices can be checked from the Billing Summary Section.
All of these settings are prerequisites, but what might actually interest the advertisers is where can they keep a tab of their Costs and Fees once their Campaigns have started churning out the Monies, i.e. WHERE CAN THEY CHECK THE INVOICES?
Answer to this Billing Summary. It can be accessed from Advertiser>Advertiser Settings>Basic Details>Billing Profile>Billing Summary.
THIS IS THE KEY which can unlock all the information for the relevant Advertiser Stakeholders.
The billing Summary consists of the details of Transactions, Invoices, and Other Settings.
In the Transactions tab, the advertiser can see details of all the transactions that have been conducted through the Billing Profile. It is available in Summary View and Detailed View that can be adjusted according to the date range.
The Detailed View resembles the Bank Statement containing the Date, Details of the Transactions, and Amount of the Transaction.
Summary View bifurcates the Particulars into Costs, Payments, Adjustments, and Taxes.
A question that might arise here about what do Adjustments refer to?
Adjustments refer to the amount that is credited to the Payment Account by the exchanges in case of one of the below reasons:
| Credit Adjustment or Memo | Invalid Traffic Adjustment | Budget Adjustment |
| Reason of Credit that was applied to the account in form of a memo with the details of the reduction to the due amount from the specific invoice or a payment account. | Adjustment against invalid clicks and impressions that might have been generated through Robots, Clicking Tools and other Software | Adjustment for when your account spends more than the allocated budget. |
In the Invoices tab, the advertiser gets a dump of all the invoices that have been raised and processed in the past. Besides the Document Number, the Advertiser can get visibility of the following details of the Invoices in a tabular format – Status, Due Date, Issue Date, Document Type, Client/Payer, Invoice Amount, Amount Paid, Outstanding Balance, Advertiser ID, Advertiser Name, Campaign ID, Campaign Name, Insertion Order ID, Insertion Order Name, Partner ID, Partner Name, Purchase Order – and use the same as filters to find the Invoice they are looking for.
Here, Campaign ID, Campaign Name, Insertion Order ID, and Insertion Order Name are available only when the Invoice is detailed at the said levels.
In the Payments Setting Tab, the Advertiser gets visibility of
| Details | Editable once Set? | Viewable? |
| Payment Accounts ID | No | Yes |
| Payment Account Name | Yes | Yes |
| Payment Methods | No | Yes |
| Email Invoice Delivery | Yes | Yes |
| Billing Address | Yes | Yes |
| Payment Profile ID | No | Yes |
| Billing Country | No | Yes |
| Account Type | No | Yes |
| Billing Address | No | Yes |
| Tax Information | No | Yes |
| Business Name and Address | No | Yes |
| Document Language Preference | No | Yes |
| Payment User | No | Yes |
Now that the Advertisers know from where the invoices can be accessed, it is natural that they are going to compare the same with the actual cost incurred in the campaigns. This happens because there are multiple components that form a part of the invoice which might not be split into different particulars.
So here is how a comparison can be drawn between the numbers available in DV360 and the Invoices generated in Billing Summary:
Go to Insights>Offline Reporting>Standard>Billing report Template and generate the report for the same duration as that of the invoice using the following:
Dimension: Partner/Advertiser
Metrics: Media Cost, Billable Cost (Media Cost + Additional Fees), Media Fee 1, Media Fee 2, Media Fee 3, Media Fee 4, Media Fee 5, Media Cost Data Fee, and Platform Fee
Once this report is extracted, the same can be compared with the Amount in the Invoice minus the Refund & Adjustments, and Taxes.
Please note that the Platform Fees, Ad Serving Fees, and other Partner Fees are not disclosed on Open Resources. They are determined to post a discussion with the Agency and Sales Team from GMP.
