Getting DV360 access: the three routes and what each one asks of you

You cannot sign up for Display & Video 360 the way you sign up for Google Ads. There is no credit-card signup, no free tier, and no self-serve door. Access comes through a contract with someone — the only question is with whom, and what that contract costs you.

Google's own account hierarchy documentation describes the structure plainly: advertiser accounts sit underneath a top-level account that represents an agency, a trading desk or a large individual advertiser. Creating an advertiser is something done from that top-level account. If you do not hold one, someone else holds yours.

For what the platform actually is and does, start with what is DV360.

The three routes in

Route	What it requires	Typical timeline	Who holds the account
Direct contract with Google	Platform agreement, committed spend, your own trained team	Weeks to months	You
Through an agency	An agency relationship; access is a by-product of the media contract	Depends on the agency	The agency
Through an access provider	Commercial agreement with the provider; no Google minimums	Days	Your own advertiser account, under the provider's top-level account

There is no fourth door. Anyone offering "DV360 access" is offering one of these three with different wrapping.

Direct with Google

The cleanest structurally and the hardest to qualify for. You sign a platform agreement, you commit to volume, and you staff the operation yourself. Google does not publish the thresholds; the numbers circulating are reported by buyers and vary by market and negotiation, so treat any specific figure you read — including on vendor blogs — as market rumour rather than policy. See DV360 minimum spend for how to think about it without inventing a number.

Through an agency

Fast if you already work with one that has access. The trade-off is that access is tied to the relationship: the account, the audience lists and the conversion history typically live with the agency, and leaving the agency can mean leaving the account. That is fine if you intend to delegate media wholesale. It is a problem if you are building an in-house capability.

Through an access provider

A provider that holds a top-level account creates an advertiser account for you underneath it. You get the platform without Google's committed-spend requirements, because the provider aggregates volume across clients. The variable is how the provider is set up: whether you get your own advertiser account or share one, whether you can operate it yourself, and whether your data is portable. Compare the models in reseller vs direct seat vs managed service.

The five questions to settle before signing

1. Do I get my own advertiser account, or do my campaigns live inside someone else's?
2. Can my team log in and operate, or is every change a ticket?
3. Who owns the audience lists and conversion history, and can I export them?
4. What is the total cost — platform fee plus data plus operation — and is there a minimum or a monthly floor?
5. What happens if I leave? Get the exit terms in writing while everyone is still friendly.

Question 3 is the one people skip and regret. Audiences and measurement history are the compounding asset; a route that resets them every time you switch providers quietly costs more than any fee.

How long it actually takes

Provisioning an advertiser account through a provider is a matter of days. What delays launches is almost never the platform:

• the conversion pixel or Floodlight tags are not implemented or not firing correctly,
• creative does not exist in the formats the channels require,
• nobody has written down who the audience is,
• billing and invoicing terms are still being negotiated.

Sort those in parallel with provisioning and you can be live the same week. Sort them afterwards and access will have been the fastest part of a two-month project.

What a provider should be able to show you

Before the commercial terms, ask to see the operational ones. A serious provider answers all of these without hesitating:

• The account structure, drawn out: where your advertiser account sits and what else shares the level above it.
• A sample report at publisher and line-item level, not a summary slide. If reporting is aggregated only, your optimisation options are aggregated only.
• Which channels are live in your market, specifically. CTV, DOOH and audio availability varies enormously by country and a global capability list says nothing about yours.
• Who your day-to-day contact is, and what the response time looks like when a campaign is misdelivering on a Friday.
• The offboarding process, in writing.

A provider who treats these as reasonable questions is the kind you want. A provider who treats them as distrust has told you something useful.

What it costs to be in the wrong route

The cost of the wrong access route is rarely the fee. It is the year you spend building audiences and conversion history inside an account you do not control, followed by the quarter you spend rebuilding them somewhere else. Compare routes on what you keep, not only on what you pay — the cost structure underneath all of them is in how much DV360 costs, and the operating models in self-serve DSP vs managed service.

Where SeatNMD fits

SeatNMD is an access provider: you get DV360 without a direct Google contract and without the spend minimums Google asks of an agency, with access provisioned in days rather than months. You buy YouTube, CTV, DOOH, audio, display and video, with Google audiences and premium inventory. You choose how it runs — Self, where your team operates; Support, the model most clients pick, where you operate with senior backup; or Managed, where we operate end to end — and you can move between them without re-contracting. Billing is monthly and platform costs sit on our credit lines. Audiences, history and measurement stay yours.

FAQ

Can I sign up for DV360 myself?

No. DV360 has no self-serve signup. Every advertiser account sits under a top-level account held by an agency, a trading desk or a large advertiser, so access always comes through a contract with one of those or with an access provider.

Do I need a minimum spend to get DV360 access?

Google does not publish one. In practice the commitment comes from whichever contract you sign: direct agreements involve committed volume, while access providers typically do not impose Google-scale minimums. More detail in DV360 minimum spend.

How long does it take to get DV360 access?

Through an access provider, days. Directly with Google, weeks to months, because it involves a negotiated platform agreement. Either way the practical blocker is usually tagging, creative and audience definition rather than provisioning.

Who owns the DV360 account and the data?

It depends on the route. Under a direct contract, you. Through an agency, usually the agency. Through an access provider it varies by provider, so ask specifically whether you get your own advertiser account and whether audience lists and conversion history are exportable.

Is DV360 the same as Google Ads?

No. Google Ads is self-serve and buys Google's own inventory. DV360 is a full DSP buying across exchanges, including CTV, audio and DOOH, and it requires contracted access. The comparison is in DV360 vs Google Ads.

---

Want to know which route fits your operation? Tell us what you run today through the contact form and we will come back with a straight answer, including when the answer is "not yet".