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Flight Control Help Center

YouTube Campaign Workflow (DV360)

  • Updated

General

For YouTube campaigns in Flight Control, similar to campaigns for closed-garden platforms like Meta and TikTok, Clinch doesn't act as a third-party ad server. Instead, Clinch manages the creation, rendering, and upload of video creatives to the advertiser’s YouTube channel, which are transacted through Display & Video 360 (DV360).

Note: YouTube campaigns that run through DV360 aren't available for self-service client accounts. Please contact your Clinch account representative for any questions.

YouTube campaigns utilize the YouTube channel integration to upload and host video creatives created and rendered in Flight Control. You can then use your Google Ads or DV360 account to run these YouTube ad campaigns.

For DV360, partial automation is available; while the creation and rendering of video creatives to YouTube is automated, you would need to manually upload the ads created in the Flight Control campaign to the corresponding DV360 campaign via a structured data file (SDF) import. Ads cannot be toggled on and off. 

Supported Ad Types & Specifications

Flight Control supports the following YouTube ad types for DV360:

  • Skippable In-Stream
  • Non-Skippable
    • Note: "Non-Skippable Reach"—which includes Bumper and Non-Skippable (15 and 30 seconds)—isn't supported.
  • Bumper
  • In-Feed
  • Shorts

Supported placements: 

  • Placements that support the above ad types.

Supported objectives for DV360:

  • YouTube & Partners on CTV
  • Brand Awareness and Reach
  • Product and Brand Consideration
  • Drive Conversions

Supported metrics for DV360:

  • Impressions
  • Clicks
  • Cost

image2.png User Permissions

  • You need Admin permission to add integrations to your account.
  • You need the Campaigns user permission to create and edit campaigns.

Prerequisite icon.png Prerequisites

  • Connect your YouTube channels to your Flight Control account. Refer here to learn how to locate your YouTube User ID and Channel ID, which are necessary for connecting your YouTube channel to your Flight Control account.
  • For YouTube campaigns using DV360:
    • Connect your Flight Control account to your DV360 account.
    • Create campaigns in DV360 with YouTube-supported line items and ad groups.
  • Have video creatives to use in your account's Creative Library.

Note: To add these connections in Flight Control, go to Account > Integrations. For more information, see the Integrations Overview article.

YouTube Campaign Workflow (DV360)

Step 1: Create a YouTube Campaign for DV360 in Flight Control

  1. Go to Campaigns.
  2. Click Create > YouTube > DV360.

Step 2: Configure Settings in the Homepage

image10.png

The Campaign Homepage is the first step of the campaign, where you can:

  1. Add a campaign description.
  2. Add campaign tags for reporting purposes.

Step 3: Sync the DV360 Account with the Flight Control Campaign

  1. Go to your campaign's Ad Groups step.
  2. Click Add.
  3. Select the DV360 Account.
  4. Select the DV360 Campaign.
  5. Click OK.

Flight Control will sync the ad groups from the DV360 campaign into Flight Control.

Step 4: Configure the Campaign Logic and Generate Ads

  1. Go to the Campaign Logic step of the campaign's workflow and build the decisioning logic.
  2. Click Generate Ads in the campaign header to create ad variations for the campaign.image5.png

Step 5: Publish Ads

image11.png

  1. Go to your campaign's Ads step to review your ad variations.
  2. Click on the current Campaign Version > Save Version.
  3. Click Publish in the campaign header.
    • The Publish Ads window will be displayed, listing the number of ads that are new, updated, or deleted since the last publishing action. Ad variations will be uploaded to the YouTube channel selected in each creative card.image9.png
  4. Review the ads to be published and click Publish.

Step 6: Upload the SDF File to the DV360 YouTube Campaign

image4.png

  1. Click Sync in the campaign header.
    • The Sync window will be displayed.image7.png
  2. Click Download SDF to download the SDF file.
  3. Upload the file to your DV360 YouTube campaign.
  4. Return to the Sync modal and select the Import confirmed checkbox.
  5. Click Sync to sync ads between Flight Control and DV360. 
  6. Click Actions > Synchronize Ad Groups.
    • If the sync is successful, the publish status will change to "Published," and the campaign will be ready to be activated.
  7. Click on the current Campaign Version > Activate Version.

Step 7: Activate the Campaign

image1.png

  1. Click Activate in the campaign header.
    • The Activate Ads modal will be displayed.
  2. Optional. Enter a custom version name.
  3. Optional. Enter a version description.
  4. Optional. Click Set time for future activation to set a time at which the campaign version will become active.

  5. Click Activate.

    image2.png

Step 8: Monitor Campaign Insights

Once the campaign version is activated, you can view insights by navigating to the Insights step in the Header. The following insights are available:

  • Clicks
  • Impressions

Important: Once your campaign is running on the social platform, you must make changes to Flight Control-related ads directly within Flight Control, not the social platform. Otherwise, unintentional changes and data overwrites may occur.