DV360 Audit Checklist: 86 Checks Before You Optimize

A DV360 audit should check much more than whether CPM, CTR or CPA looks good.

Before optimizing a campaign, you need to know whether the account structure, tracking, budgets, bidding, audiences, inventory, frequency, creative, deals and reporting are configured correctly.

Otherwise, you risk optimizing around a setup problem.

The purpose of a DV360 audit is to separate configuration issues from genuine performance issues before budget is moved or targeting is changed.

Quick answer: A complete DV360 audit should validate campaign hierarchy, Floodlight and conversion tracking, budgets and pacing, bidding, targeting, inventory, brand suitability, frequency, creative, CTV/video setup, deals, attribution and reporting. Only after those areas are verified should performance optimization begin.

Download the Complete DV360 Audit Checklist

Use our 86-point DV360 Audit Checklist to review an account before launch, during an optimization cycle, when performance declines or when taking over an existing DV360 account.

The checklist covers:

• Account and campaign structure

• Floodlight and conversion tracking

• Budget and pacing

• Bidding

• Audiences

• Geography and devices

• Inventory

• Brand suitability

• Frequency

• Creative

• Video and CTV

• Deals and PMPs

• Reporting and attribution

Download the DV360 Audit Checklist

What should a DV360 audit cover?

A useful audit answers three questions:

1. Is the campaign configured correctly?

2. Is the campaign receiving enough eligible inventory and data to perform?

3. Are performance problems caused by strategy, execution or measurement?

Those questions should be answered in that order.

If tracking is broken, CPA is unreliable.

If targeting is too restrictive, increasing bids may not solve delivery.

If frequency caps are too aggressive, the campaign may appear to have an inventory problem.

If a deal is not properly targeted, premium supply may never become eligible.

A good audit therefore begins with technical validation, not optimization.

1. Audit the account and campaign structure

Start at the top of the DV360 hierarchy:

Partner → Advertiser → Campaign → Insertion Order → Line Item → Creative

The audit should confirm that the structure reflects the actual media strategy.

Check:

• Is the correct advertiser being used?

• Are users assigned the correct permissions?

• Are campaigns separated logically?

• Are insertion orders grouped by objective, channel or budget?

• Are line items separated enough to optimize independently?

• Are naming conventions consistent?

• Are dates aligned across campaign, IO and line-item levels?

Poor hierarchy makes optimization and reporting harder even when the campaign technically delivers.

For setup guidance, see our step-by-step DV360 campaign setup guide.

2. Audit Floodlight and conversion tracking

Do not evaluate campaign performance until measurement is verified.

Audit:

• Which Floodlight activities are used?

• Are they the correct business actions?

• Are conversion windows appropriate?

• Are duplicate activities inflating results?

• Are post-view and post-click conversions being interpreted correctly?

• Is attribution consistent with reporting elsewhere?

• Are conversion values being passed correctly where relevant?

If DV360 and another analytics platform show different conversion numbers, that does not automatically mean one is broken.

Different platforms can use different attribution methods and conversion logic.

The audit should document those differences before judging performance.

3. Audit budgets and pacing

Budget problems are often mistaken for targeting or inventory problems.

Review:

• Total budget

• Daily pacing

• Start and end dates

• Spend to date

• Remaining budget

• Planned vs actual pacing

Then check each line item.

Questions to ask:

• Are some line items consuming too much budget?

• Are stronger line items being restricted?

• Is the IO budget preventing line-item delivery?

• Is pacing too aggressive early in the campaign?

• Is spend being distributed according to strategy rather than simply availability?

A campaign can hit its total budget and still have poor allocation.

4. Audit the bidding strategy

The bid strategy should match the objective and the amount of data available.

Review:

• Bid strategy

• Bid amount

• Optimization objective

• Conversion volume

• Learning period

• Bid limits

• Historical CPM or CPA

• Whether the strategy was changed too frequently

An algorithm cannot optimize effectively if the campaign repeatedly changes direction.

Before switching bidding models, confirm that the existing strategy has enough volume and time to learn.

5. Audit audience targeting

Targeting is one of the first places to check when delivery is weak.

Review:

• First-party audiences

• Customer Match

• Remarketing

• Google audiences

• Publisher audiences

• Third-party data where available

• Optimized targeting

• Audience exclusions

Then check how audiences interact with other targeting layers.

A line item targeting:

small audience + narrow geography + specific device + one deal + tight frequency

may simply have too little eligible inventory.

The question is not only:

“Is this audience relevant?”

It is also:

“Is this audience large enough to deliver under the rest of the campaign settings?”

6. Audit geography and device targeting

Check that geographic targeting reflects the campaign brief.

Review:

• Countries

• Regions

• Cities

• ZIP/postal codes

• Proximity targeting

• Excluded locations

• Device targeting

• CTV-specific device settings

Geographic mistakes can be expensive because the campaign may still deliver normally - just in the wrong places.

7. Audit inventory sources

Inventory-source targeting determines which exchanges and private deals can supply impressions.

Audit:

• Which exchanges are enabled?

• Are inventory sources intentionally included or excluded?

• Are deal IDs correctly targeted?

• Is public inventory being restricted unnecessarily?

• Are inventory filters reducing scale?

• Are exclusion lists still relevant?

• Is the campaign buying from the expected supply sources?

For campaigns with delivery problems, inventory restrictions should be checked before increasing bids.

8. Audit brand safety and suitability

Review:

• Advertiser-level brand suitability

• Content categories

• Digital content labels

• Sensitive-category exclusions

• Apps and URL exclusions

• Third-party verification

• Deal-specific exceptions

The audit should answer:

Are we protecting the brand without unnecessarily removing high-quality eligible inventory?

Brand safety and brand suitability are not identical.

Safety protects against content advertisers should not appear next to.

Suitability determines the additional level of content sensitivity appropriate for a specific advertiser.

9. Audit frequency caps

Frequency should be reviewed at every relevant hierarchy level.

Check:

• Campaign frequency

• IO frequency

• Line-item frequency

• Time period

• Cross-line-item overlap

• Audience size

• CTV-specific exposure levels

A frequency cap that looks reasonable at line-item level may become restrictive when combined with an IO or campaign-level cap.

If delivery is weak, frequency is one of the first controls to inspect.

10. Audit creative

Strong targeting cannot rescue unusable or weak creative.

Review:

• Creative approval status

• Correct dimensions

• Destination URLs

• Click tracking

• Landing-page functionality

• Video specifications

• Creative rotation

• Frequency by creative

• Performance by creative

• Expired messaging

• Creative fatigue

Also confirm that enough creative variation exists to support meaningful testing.

11. Audit video and Connected TV

Video and CTV campaigns require additional checks.

Review:

• Device targeting

• CTV inventory

• Video duration

• Completion rate

• Publisher mix

• Creative compatibility

• Inventory environment

• Deals

• Frequency

• Geographic scale

• Brand suitability

Every additional targeting layer reduces scale.

A CTV campaign combining a narrow audience, small geography and limited publisher list may underdeliver even with a competitive bid.

12. Audit deals and PMPs

For every deal, confirm:

• Deal ID

• Publisher

• Inventory type

• Start and end dates

• CPM

• Budget

• Creative eligibility

• Geography

• Device

• Audience

• Frequency

• Deal status

• Line-item targeting

A negotiated deal does not automatically serve simply because it exists in the account.

Also check whether additional audience, geography or brand-suitability restrictions are removing most eligible impressions.

13. Audit reporting

A good DV360 audit compares:

• Spend

• Impressions

• Reach

• Frequency

• CPM

• Clicks

• CTR

• Conversions

• CPA

• Viewability

• Video completion

• Inventory source

• Device

• Geography

• Audience

• Creative

• Line item

• Deal performance

For a deeper measurement framework, read our DV360 Reporting Metrics That Really Matter.

If your team uses dashboard reporting, see our DV360 to Looker Studio Guide.

14. Audit attribution before optimizing

Conversion reporting can look different depending on:

• Attribution model

• Conversion window

• Post-view logic

• Post-click logic

• Floodlight configuration

• Analytics platform

Before pausing a line item because CPA looks poor, make sure the comparison is valid.

Every audit should document:

Which attribution model are we using to make optimization decisions?

15. Separate configuration problems from performance problems

Every audit finding should be classified.

Do not solve a configuration problem with a performance optimization.

For example:

Problem: Campaign underspends.

Possible causes:

• Geography too narrow

• Audience too small

• Deal unavailable

• Frequency too restrictive

• Inventory excluded

The wrong response is:

Increase the bid immediately.

Diagnose eligibility first.

16. Prioritize audit findings

Not every issue deserves equal attention.

Critical

Problems that make data or delivery unreliable.

Examples:

• Broken tracking

• Wrong geography

• Incorrect budget

• Rejected creative

• Missing deal targeting

High

Problems that materially limit performance.

Examples:

• Overly restrictive audience

• Poor pacing

• Excessive frequency

• Wrong bid strategy

• Weak inventory mix

Medium

Optimization opportunities.

Examples:

• Creative fatigue

• Audience reallocations

• Device adjustments

• Supply-path refinement

Low

Reporting and housekeeping improvements.

Examples:

• Naming conventions

• Dashboard layout

• Historical labels

• Archived creative cleanup

Fix Critical issues before evaluating performance.

When should you run a DV360 audit?

Before launch

QA the setup before media begins spending.

48–72 hours after launch

Verify delivery, tracking and inventory.

After the learning period

Evaluate bidding and audience performance.

Before a major budget increase

Make sure scaling will not amplify an existing problem.

When performance declines

Separate technical issues from genuine performance deterioration.

When taking over an account

Audit the inherited structure before changing it.

Before renewing a provider

Use the checklist to evaluate whether campaign operations are being managed properly.

If a campaign is already underperforming and you need deeper diagnosis, read our Display and Video Campaign Underperformance Audit.

The bottom line

A DV360 audit is not a report card.

It is a decision framework.

The goal is to verify that the campaign has:

• Reliable measurement

• Logical structure

• Correct budgets

• Appropriate bidding

• Enough audience scale

• Eligible inventory

• Sensible frequency

• Approved creative

• Working deals

• Useful reporting

Only after those elements are validated should optimization begin.

Otherwise, campaign teams can spend time adjusting bids, budgets or audiences when the real problem is structural.

Use the downloadable 86-point DV360 Audit Checklist to create a repeatable QA process across every DV360 account you manage.

For teams that need ongoing campaign execution, optimization and reporting support, read our DV360 Managed Service Guide.

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Frequently Asked Questions