Google is making a major change to how advertisers manage vertical video campaigns, bringing buying and measurement into a more unified workflow inside Display & Video 360. The move comes as marketers increasingly build campaigns around portrait-oriented video designed for phones and other mobile-first viewing environments.
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Google is bringing vertical video deeper into its advertising ecosystem with a new feature for Display & Video 360 that allows marketers to buy and measure portrait-oriented video inventory across publishers through a more unified workflow. Called Vertical Video Unification, the update is designed to simplify what has traditionally been a fragmented process for advertisers managing mobile-first campaigns across different platforms and inventory sources. Google says the system uses its Gemini AI models to help with campaign buying, execution and measurement, while early testing with Unilever and WPP Media produced a 24% increase in unique reach and a 25% reduction in cost per unique user.
The change reflects how dramatically video consumption has shifted toward portrait-oriented screens. Rather than treating vertical video as a specialized format that advertisers need to manage separately, Google is attempting to make it a more integrated part of programmatic advertising. Display & Video 360 customers can use the platform to coordinate vertical video campaigns across different publishers and environments instead of having to create disconnected buying and measurement workflows for each destination. Google describes the goal as giving advertisers a single place to reach audiences as they move between different services, apps and digital publishers.
That is particularly important because vertical video has become closely associated with the way people use smartphones. Google's own advertising guidance already recommends that marketers provide 9:16 vertical assets alongside square and traditional 16:9 video, particularly for mobile-focused campaigns. On YouTube, a vertical 9:16 video can occupy substantially more of the phone's screen than a conventional horizontal video, while Google says adding vertical assets can improve performance in certain Shorts and video campaigns.
The new Display & Video 360 capability is intended to take that format strategy beyond simply uploading a vertical video. Instead, Google is focusing on the larger problem of buying and measuring that inventory across a fragmented digital advertising environment. Advertisers previously had to coordinate different platforms, budgets, targeting systems and reporting tools when attempting to reach consumers with vertical creative across multiple publishers. By centralizing more of that process within DV360, Google is positioning the platform as a control center for campaigns built around portrait video.
Gemini is an important part of the new approach because Google is increasingly incorporating its AI models into the broader Google Marketing Platform. The company has already introduced Gemini-powered tools for campaign management, optimization and reporting, including capabilities intended to help marketers analyze performance and generate campaign insights. The vertical-video update extends that broader strategy into media buying and measurement, allowing AI to play a role in understanding campaign performance rather than leaving advertisers to manually compare isolated reports from different sources.
The early Unilever results provide the most concrete indication of what Google believes the unified approach can accomplish. Google says testing involving Unilever's Hellmann's brand and WPP Media produced a 24% increase in unique reach while reducing cost per unique user by 25%. Those numbers are results from an early test rather than a guarantee for advertisers generally, but they demonstrate the potential benefit Google sees in reducing fragmentation between different vertical-video inventory sources.
For advertisers, the distinction between reach and efficiency is significant. A campaign can generate millions of impressions without necessarily reaching a proportionally larger number of individual people, particularly when the same audience encounters an advertisement repeatedly across different platforms. A unified buying and measurement system can potentially give marketers a clearer picture of unique reach and help reduce unnecessary duplication, while also making it easier to determine where additional spending is actually expanding the audience.
The update also arrives as Google continues building a broader mobile-first advertising strategy. Earlier this month, the company introduced additional Demand Gen features, including one-click experiences for 9:16 image advertisements on YouTube Shorts. Google said advertisers adding Gmail to Demand Gen campaigns saw image creatives generate an average 40% increase in conversions at the same return on investment, based on its internal global data from February 2026.
Vertical video therefore appears to be becoming less of an isolated advertising format and more of a fundamental component of Google's campaign infrastructure. The company already supports vertical video throughout several campaign types, including YouTube Shorts, and says vertical assets can also reach Google video partners, many of which have inventory designed around mobile-oriented viewing. That gives advertisers a reason to produce portrait creative even when their campaigns extend beyond traditional social-video environments.
The larger strategic question is how Google's unified approach will affect the way brands divide their advertising budgets. Vertical video has historically been strongly associated with social platforms, where advertisers became accustomed to creating campaigns specifically for portrait feeds and short-form viewing. Google is now attempting to make the format more accessible through programmatic buying, giving marketers a way to incorporate vertical creative into broader campaigns rather than treating social and open-web video as completely separate advertising worlds.
For agencies managing campaigns for large brands, the potential advantage is operational as much as technological. Instead of maintaining numerous individual workflows, teams can potentially use Display & Video 360 to coordinate buying and evaluate performance through a common system. The more inventory that can be measured consistently, the easier it becomes to compare audience reach, costs and outcomes across different environments.
There are still practical considerations for advertisers. A unified buying system does not eliminate the need for high-quality creative, and simply converting a horizontal advertisement into a vertical frame does not necessarily produce an effective mobile advertisement. Google's own guidance recommends creating dedicated vertical assets and keeping important branding, messaging and calls to action within appropriate safe areas because interface elements can appear differently depending on the device and placement.
Google's latest move ultimately reflects a broader change in digital advertising: the screen orientation itself is becoming an increasingly important part of campaign strategy. Instead of forcing advertisers to adapt portrait video to systems built primarily around traditional horizontal advertising, Display & Video 360 is being redesigned to treat vertical video as a first-class component of programmatic media buying.
With Gemini providing an AI layer for measurement and optimization, Google is also trying to move advertisers toward a system where campaign decisions can increasingly be informed by automated analysis of performance across environments. The 24% increase in unique reach reported by Unilever offers an early example of the potential impact, while the reported 25% reduction in cost per unique user highlights why advertisers may be interested in consolidating vertical-video spending.
The significance of Vertical Video Unification is therefore bigger than another advertising-format update. Google is attempting to connect the creative format that dominates much of mobile video with the programmatic infrastructure brands already use to purchase digital media. If the early efficiency and reach results can be reproduced across a wider range of campaigns, vertical video could become an increasingly integrated part of how major advertisers plan, buy and measure video rather than remaining primarily a social-media advertising specialty.
For Google, the strategy also puts Display & Video 360 at the center of the continuing shift toward AI-assisted advertising. Gemini is becoming increasingly embedded across Google's marketing tools, while vertical video gives the company another way to connect advertisers with audiences across the mobile-first web. The result is a push toward a more unified advertising model in which creative format, media buying, audience reach and measurement can be managed together rather than through separate systems.