In a world where digital advertising has faced profound changes in data privacy, transparency demands, shrinking agency margins, and proliferation of ad tech, many brands are choosing to take direct control of their programmatic advertising. Specifically, they are taking ownership of enterprise tools like DV360, CM360 and SA360. The message is clear: “If you control the platform, you control the future.” Below is a deep dive into why this shift is happening, what it means in practice, and how brands are navigating the journey.
The Strategic Drivers: Transparency, Data Ownership, and Performance
One of the key motivations behind brands bringing programmatic in‑house or owning their ad tech platforms is control over data and transparency of media spend. According to industry reporting, “in‑housing offers increased visibility of data… Brands may not want to share insight if it belongs to the agency of record.” Econsultancy+1
This matters for large advertisers using platforms like DV360, CM360 and SA360, where complex workflows, multiple partners and cross‑channel audiences make visibility essential.
At the same time, platforms themselves are converging – ad tech and martech are blending, and advertisers now face high expectations for first‑party data activation, identity‑based targeting, and measurement in a cookieless world. Gartner emphasises that marketing leaders must integrate proven strategies to deal with the complex digital ecosystem. Gartner
In that context, owning your stack (or directly managing it) is not just tactical, it’s strategic. It allows brands to operate at the intersection of media, data and measurement with fewer dependencies.
What “Owning Your Platform” Really Means
When a brand “owns” the platform in this context, it typically means:
- Transparency of media cost, partner margins and inventory via platform visibility.
- Ease of integrating measurement & attribution across channels (DV360 + CM360, or other non-Google platforms) to form a unified view of campaign impact.
- Greater ability to enable first‑party data, audience building, and identity strategy embedded within the platform rather than siloed in external systems.
- Billing directly to your business instead of via your agency
Brands can still have their agency experts manage the platforms on their behalf, but if in-housing management you should also expect:
- Managing media via the DSP (DV360) or SA360 internally rather than via an agency trading desk. While the basics can be learned rather quickly, there is a learning curve. DSPs are enterprise-level tools that do require proactive management as opposed to more simplistic, black-box walled garden buying platforms.
- Separating ad serving to CM360 as opposed to sending directly to partners or otherwise managing the platform to ensure tagging accuracy, conversion measurement and reporting integrity.
In short you gain: control, speed, transparency and data alignment.
Why Now?
Three major contextual shifts make this moment ripe:
- Privacy & identity change: With third‑party cookies fading and consumer tracking under scrutiny, brands want closer control of their first‑party data. Analytics and ad measurement strategies must adapt accordingly.
- Budget pressures and media scrutiny: Digital budgets face increased scrutiny. Brands need to show measurable ROI and avoid agency mark‑ups or opaque supply‑chains.
- Convergence of tech stacks: Martech and ad tech are blending, enabling unified customer‑journey analytics and real‑time bidding across channels. Gartner lists tech convergence as a strategic trend. Gartner
Optimizing media execution while safeguarding data and delivering brand‑centric experiences is driving brands toward owning their stack.
How Brands Can Make the Transition
- Assess readiness: Map your current media stack, partner dependencies, data flows and platform footprints.
- Choose your path: Many brands adopt a hybrid model (partially in‑house) before full‑stack. In-housing, full-stack media buying works well for large advertisers with many resources. Hybrid models tend to fit the resources of mid-market brands.
- Align your Tech Stack and Resources: If you’re using DV360/CM360/SA360, ensure your people, process and data flows align with operations of these platforms.
- Govern data & identity: Build or integrate your audience data, identity resolution and measurement under your control.
- Operationalise media ops: Define team roles, governance, bidding strategy, media inventory oversight, tags & measurement.
- Invest in talent & training: You’ll want specialists (campaign operations, data science) not just generalists.
- Set KPIs and review: Ownership must come with accountability. Track cost efficiencies, transparency, time‑to‑insight, data integrity and performance lift.
Final Thought
Owning your platform – whether DV360, CM360, SA360 or equivalent – means owning your digital media future. This era of advertising is defined by data sovereignty, privacy shifts, demand for transparency, and media performance under pressure. Brands that take direct control gain strategic advantage. Yes, the build can be complex, but the reward is control, speed, insight, and long‑term resilience. Digital advertising will continue to evolve. Control of the platform equals control of the Ad Tech narrative and ultimately, better control of your overall media success.
