Google on October 8, 2026 made version 11 of Structured Data Files generally available in Display & Video 360, according to a post on the Google Ads Developer Blog signed by Trevor Mulchay of the Display & Video 360 API Team. The release reworks four YouTube third-party vendor columns in the line item file, removes the reporting ID columns that sat beside them, extends Lookalike audience targeting to nearly all ad groups and adds Business Chain proximity targeting to line items.

In Short

Google updated the spreadsheet format that big advertisers and agencies use to build and change campaigns in its ad-buying tool, Display & Video 360, all at once instead of clicking through screens. The new version changes how the files record outside measurement companies on YouTube ads, adds two targeting options, and prepares the files for a new way of buying YouTube inventory that only some partners can use for now. Anyone whose files or scripts still use a version older than v10 has until January 2027 before those versions stop working.

What Google released

The announcement is short. "Today we're announcing the general availability of Structured Data Files v11. All users can now use v11 when downloading and uploading SDFs in the Display & Video 360 interface," according to the post, dated Thursday, October 8, 2026, and published under the labels "release" and "sdf."

SDF is the CSV-based format that Display & Video 360 uses for bulk management of campaigns, insertion orders, line items, ad groups and ads. Teams download a set of files, edit them in a spreadsheet or with a script, and upload them back, which lets a single upload change hundreds of entities. Because every column is defined by a specific version, each new version is effectively a new contract between Google and anyone whose tooling reads or writes those files.

Google lists four changes in the post. Two expand targeting. One rewrites existing columns. The fourth prepares the format for a product that most users cannot yet touch.

Four YouTube vendor columns change shape

The change most likely to break existing files concerns third-party measurement on YouTube. According to the post, Google "updated the format of four existing YouTube third-party vendor columns in the line item file format to incorporate reporting IDs and support multiple vendor assignments. The related YouTube third-party vendor reporting ID columns, now redundant, have been removed."

The blog post does not name the four columns. Google's SDF release notes for v10.1, the version that preceded v11, list line item columns including "TrueView Third-Party Reach Vendor" and "TrueView Third-Party Viewability Vendor," which in that release gained the vendors Aquila and Zefr respectively. Whether those two are among the four columns rewritten in v11 is an inference from the naming; the post itself gives no column titles and directs readers to the release notes "for the details on the changes in v11."

What the post does make clear is structural. Before v11, a vendor and its reporting ID lived in separate columns. In v11, the reporting ID is folded into the vendor column itself, and that column can hold more than one vendor assignment. For any script that parses line item files by column header, the removal of the reporting ID columns means a lookup that worked against v10 will fail against v11. For any template that assumed one vendor per measurement type, the new multi-vendor format changes what a cell can contain.

The context matters here. Third-party measurement on YouTube has been a manual, ticket-driven process for much of the platform's history. In late October 2024, YouTube streamlined third-party measurement controls for Display & Video 360, letting advertisers enable partners at the advertiser level and apply them to line items without filing support tickets. That article listed DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science for viewability; DoubleVerify, IAS and Zefr for brand safety; a long list including Nielsen, Comscore and Kantar for reach; and Kantar, Dynata, Intage, Macromill and Nielsen for brand lift. Each partner, the article noted, required a vendor client ID, and only one combination of vendor, measurement type and client ID was allowed per account. The v11 format change, which ties reporting IDs to vendor assignments and allows several assignments in one column, appears designed to bring the bulk file into line with that kind of configuration, though Google's post does not explain the rationale.

Lookalike targeting reaches almost every ad group

The first item on Google's list widens the reach of Lookalike audiences. According to the post, v11 "expanded the availability of Lookalike audience inclusion and exclusion targeting to all ad groups except for those under YouTube Ad Sequence line items."

Ad Sequence line items, which serve a set of YouTube ads to the same viewer in a defined order, are the only exception the post names. Every other ad group can now carry Lookalike inclusion and exclusion settings in the file.

The timing follows a broader shift in how Display & Video 360 handles audience expansion. On June 15, 2026, Google replaced legacy audience expansion with lookalike audiences for YouTube Video reach and Video view campaigns, one of 12 changes PPC Land catalogued in June. Legacy audience expansion had been capped at 1%, while lookalikes offer Narrow (2.5%), Balanced (5%) and Broad (10%) scale settings, with seed-list exclusion on by default. Advertisers had to set up the new lookalikes manually; existing expansion settings did not migrate automatically.

The same tiers appear on the Google Ads side. In September 2026, Google's help documentation began describing Lookalike segments in Video campaigns, with the same 2.5%, 5% and 10% tiers, after Demand Gen had moved in March 2026 to treat Lookalike reach tiers as audience suggestions rather than hard limits. For Display & Video 360 users who build ad groups in bulk, v11 is the point at which Lookalike settings can be written for nearly every ad group through the file, rather than added one ad group at a time in the interface.

Business Chain proximity targeting

The second targeting change is narrower. According to the post, Google "added support for Business Chain proximity targeting to the line item file format."

As the name indicates, Business Chain targeting is a form of location targeting built around the physical outlets of a named chain, rather than a list of addresses entered by hand. The post does not say whether it was previously available in the interface or the API only, nor does it describe the column format. Its addition to the line item file means that line items using this targeting can now be created and edited through bulk upload, which matters most for retail, restaurant and automotive advertisers running many local line items at once.

YouTube Instant Deals, in beta and outside the file

The fourth change is the most conditional. According to the post, Google "added new columns, column options, and column restrictions to support YouTube Instant Deal line items, their ad groups, and their ads."

The same paragraph then sets limits that restrict how much the new columns can be used. "Support for YouTube Instant Deals is in beta and only available to allowlisted partners," according to Google. "YouTube Instant Deal line items and the ad groups and ads under them will not be included in any downloaded files and can only be uploaded through the YouTube Instant Deal creation workflow of the Display & Video 360 interface."

That is an unusual arrangement. Instant Deal line items will not appear in a standard SDF download, so teams that audit or back up their accounts by downloading files will not see them there. Uploads go through a dedicated creation workflow rather than the general bulk upload page. In practice, the new columns describe a file format that exists for one purpose inside one workflow, available only to partners Google has placed on an allowlist.

Google's Display & Video 360 help center uses the instant deal label for reserved YouTube buying, including a page titled "YouTube Programmatic Guaranteed via instant deals." A programmatic guaranteed deal fixes price and impression volume between one buyer and one seller in advance. The blog post does not say which YouTube deal types the beta covers, how many partners are on the allowlist or when the beta might widen.

The January 2027 deadline

The post closes with a reminder about older versions. "Please be aware that if you are using a version earlier than v10, you are using a deprecated version that will sunset in January 2027," according to Google. "Follow the instructions in our migration guide to migrate to v11 from any available version."

The month matches a date Google had already set. On June 29, 2026, Google announced that SDF v9, v9.1 and v9.2 would sunset on January 28, 2027, a lead time of 213 days. After that date, according to PPC Land's reporting, accounts still defaulting to those versions switch automatically to v10, and download requests specifying SDF_VERSION_9, SDF_VERSION_9_1 or SDF_VERSION_9_2 return a 400 error.

The October 8 post does not repeat the exact date. It refers only to "a version earlier than v10." In practice, the v9 family is all that remains in that category: SDF v7.1, v8 and v8.1 had already been scheduled to sunset on March 3, 2026, and v7 on November 4, 2025. So the sunset Google refers to is the January 28, 2027 cutoff for v9, v9.1 and v9.2, 112 days after the date of the v11 announcement.

There is a small gap between the warning and the advice. The deprecation applies only to versions earlier than v10, yet the post points readers to a guide for migrating "to v11 from any available version." v10 and v10.1 are not described as deprecated. A team on v9 can meet the January deadline by moving to v10, though doing so would mean absorbing two migrations within a short span if v11 later becomes the floor.

An accelerating release cadence

Version numbers once moved slowly. SDF v7 reached general availability in early November 2023. The following stretch, as compiled in PPC Land's July 2026 report, included the QA format in August 2024, v8 on October 28, 2024, v8.1 in March 2025, v9.1 on September 17, 2025 and v9.2 on October 27, 2025. v10 and v10.1 followed in 2026, and v11 now arrives less than three years after v7.

Each release has carried removals as well as additions. When v9.1 arrived in September 2025, Google removed the Bid Multipliers column from line item files and the Measure DAR and Measure DAR Channel columns from insertion order files, and made the Io Objective column mandatory. According to Google's release notes, v10 removed 21 fields from the Campaign file and about 60 from the Insertion Order file, including most targeting include and exclude fields. v11's removal of the vendor reporting ID columns is smaller, but it follows the same pattern: the file loses columns as Google consolidates where settings live.

The format has also changed in ways that do not depend on version numbers. In August 2024, Google brought a QA format to general availability, producing read-only "Line Item - QA" and "YouTube Ad Group - QA" files with display names in place of numeric IDs. In May 2026, Google added partial SDF uploads, which let teams upload only the Line Item ID and the column groups they want to change, rather than the more than 120 columns a full line item file requires. Neither the blog post nor PPC Land's May coverage says how partial uploads interact with the rewritten vendor columns in v11.

Other DV360 changes landing in the same weeks

v11 arrives alongside several dated changes that affect the same files. Google removed two brand safety exclusion controls on October 1, 2026, a change that reached the "Digital Content Labels - Exclude," "Brand Safety Sensitivity Setting" and "Brand Safety Custom Settings" SDF columns. The same notice set October 12, 2026 as the date from which Ad SDF uploads for YouTube responsive ads must include a business name of up to 25 characters and a 1:1 logo of at least 144 by 144 pixels, unless the parent advertiser has default values.

Then, on October 26, 2026, remaining legacy maximum cost-per-view and Video reach 1.0 line items are auto-archived and stop serving, with advertisers expected to migrate manually to Video reach 2.0 and Video view line items. The same roadmap renamed advertiser-level inventory mode values in SDF, with Expanded becoming Maximum and Standard becoming Moderate.

For a team maintaining bulk tooling, the sequence is dense: a new version on October 8, a mandatory field change for YouTube responsive ads on October 12, a line item type shutdown on October 26 and a version sunset on January 28, 2027. None of these is dramatic on its own. Together, they mean the column layout of a typical YouTube line item file can differ materially depending on which week it was generated in.

Why it matters

Bulk files are not a niche tool inside Display & Video 360. Agencies and in-house trading desks use them to launch campaigns at scale, to apply settings across many line items and to keep account structures consistent between markets. The demand-side platform is Google's main programmatic buying product, and many third-party campaign management tools read and write SDF on behalf of their users. A change in column structure is therefore a change that propagates into software outside Google's control.

v11's changes fall into two groups. The Lookalike and Business Chain additions extend what can be done through the file, and teams that do not use them can ignore them. The vendor column rewrite is different, because it alters columns that existing YouTube line item files already contain and removes others outright. Files built against the v10 layout will not map cleanly to v11.

The YouTube Instant Deal columns raise a separate question. A format whose rows never appear in downloads and can only be uploaded through one interface workflow is closer to an internal specification than a bulk management tool. Google has published it in a general release that every user can access, while the product it serves remains in beta for allowlisted partners. The post does not say whether downloads will eventually include Instant Deal line items.

The post invites questions through the "Google Advertising and Measurement Community" Discord server. It does not announce a sunset date for v10 or v10.1.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Google's Display & Video 360 API Team, with the post signed by Trevor Mulchay. The change affects agencies, trading desks, advertisers and third-party tool vendors that download or upload Structured Data Files in Display & Video 360, particularly those running YouTube line items with third-party measurement vendors.

What: Structured Data Files v11 became generally available. It expands Lookalike audience inclusion and exclusion targeting to all ad groups except those under YouTube Ad Sequence line items, adds Business Chain proximity targeting to line item files, rewrites four YouTube third-party vendor columns to carry reporting IDs and multiple vendor assignments while removing the separate reporting ID columns, and adds columns for YouTube Instant Deals, a beta limited to allowlisted partners whose line items are excluded from downloads.

When: The Google Ads Developer Blog post is dated Thursday, October 8, 2026. Versions earlier than v10 sunset in January 2027; Google previously set January 28, 2027 as the sunset date for SDF v9, v9.1 and v9.2.

Where: In the Display & Video 360 interface, where all users can now download and upload SDF v11, announced on the Google Ads Developer Blog.

Why: The post does not state a rationale. The changes bring the file format into line with Lookalike audiences, which replaced legacy audience expansion in Display & Video 360 in June 2026, with self-service third-party measurement on YouTube, and with a new YouTube Instant Deal buying workflow still in beta.