Operative Blog

When you consider their importance, it seems surprising that ad tags aren’t shown more love by publishers.  They should be. If a site is properly tagged, it can generate far more revenue than it otherwise would.   Simply put, every subpar ad tag causes a publisher to lose potential revenue.  Here’s why:

Communication between a website and an ad server

Ads that command the highest CPM are those that are best targeted to an audience.  I’m sure Nike, Vonage or any other advertiser will pay more for a campaign that delivers results in the form of clicks and actions and then conversion. The best way for a publisher to ensure that its audience is attracted to the ads being displayed is to use the site content to gauge the interest of each visitor. For sites that require user registration, additional information, such as age and gender, may also be available.

All of this valuable information is useless, however, if it doesn’t make it into the ad server.  Building an advanced ad tag that passes along all relevant information allows the ad server to present the most appropriate ad to the user. Considering that the ad tag is the main source of communication between a website and an ad server, it makes sense that a suitable ad tag is needed in order for the server to perform most effectively.

My content is the best

We all know that not all content is created equal.  What is truly helpful is to be able to identify which content performs best. Knowing the patterns of visitors on a website allows sales teams to best match campaigns to content. For example, ads that appear on pages featuring content that engrosses visitors, such as news articles and movie clips, may not receive as many clicks as those on pages whose content is of a more general nature. The performance of low-click content makes it unsuitable for CPC campaigns.  When the content type is included in the site tag (ex: sect=news or sect=video), the publisher can then decide to exclude these sections from CPC campaigns and utilize them for branding campaigns, which do not require high click rates.  Rather than let the low click-through rate of those sections drag down the average performance of the site, the publisher is able to separate them out and sell the high-click content at a premium.  In this way, the publisher is able to best match content to advertisers and maximize revenue.

Trying to sell – Bump up the appeal

When a website is outfitted with site tags that take into account useful information – such as user details, page position, and site content – the sales team is able to sell more targeted campaigns at higher rates.  Being able to differentiate content allows for more flexibility when selling inventory.

Reports, Reports and more Reports!

Even after an ad serves, an ad tag’s job is not done.  Detailed ad tags are able to enhance reporting capabilities and make delivery reports more robust.  The information contained in the reports is useful to both advertisers and publishers.

Advertisers love detailed reports because they provide the advertiser with the ability to more effectively optimize a campaign.  Many long term campaigns rely on optimization to attain the results that an advertiser is seeking.  Publishers that offer detailed reporting are attractive to advertisers because they are more in control of how their money is being spent.

Consider this scenario:  A publisher  MYSAMPLETAG.COM (fake name) with advanced ad tags is able to target certain ads to a website that features several sections, each with different user demographics.  When the advertiser (lets say  TOYSRUS) examines the detailed delivery report, they notice that creative featuring a puppy performed particularly well on a section of children’s content whose visitors are between the ages of 6 and 11. Armed with this information, the TOYSRUS chooses to run the puppy creative at a higher rotation in that section, increasing the click rate of the campaign. The robust reporting that sophisticated ad tags can offer allows for greater campaign optimization and can enhance the performance of the website.

Let me tell you …

A very good example of the company  that certainly knows the value of an ad tag is NBC Universal’s Local Integrated Media.  Their websites span many different domains and markets and they cater to the tastes of many different audiences. Through their systematic and organized site tags, they are able to provide detailed information which enables them to make the most of the content that they produce.   Their careful attention to their ad tags has helped them make their complex network manageable.

Net-Net

Properly tagging a website is an investment that is well worth making. The returns to be gained from targeted selling and advanced reporting are significant for publishers and should not be overlooked. Targeted selling allows publishers to properly match advertisers to content, ensuring high performance that is valuable to advertisers.  Additionally, advanced reporting allows for improved campaign optimization and boosts performance even more. Every site that is not adequately tagged is not living up to its full potential.

**If you are interested in retagging your web site, or would like to learn more about working with an Operative re-tagging strategy consultant, please contact Greg Carr at 212.206.4762 or gcarr@operative.com.

"Managing The Ad Sales Process"- Paid Content and Operative

This morning we sponsored a breakfast with the folks at Paid Content.  Media luminaries Pam Horan (OPA), Riley McDonough (Reuters Media) and James Smith (The Huffington Post) discussed the challenges of digital media ad sales and sales operations. 

We’d like to thank Paid Content for kick-starting our morning with great content. 

And special thanks for Pam, Riley and James for divulging the report card of their solutions providers, debating the long-term value of ad networks, and reminding us that our job as media publishers is to get closer to our customers/consumers byleveraging people, process and technology.

Check back in tomorrow for a full recap on the breakfast, anecdotes on the ‘cute vs. ugly impressions’ in your product catalog, and best practices to growing your business immediately and in the future.

Our top tips to help Creative Houses and clients get highly creative creatives working!

When you work with a publisher that likes to dazzle their audience with the latest shiny ads and takeovers on a regular basis, you get used to a lot; takeovers, sidekick and pushdown ads that move the entire page around, pagemorphs, floor ads, game banners, synchronised ads,  … you name it, we’ve probably done them, usually delivered with only hours to spare before the campaign starts!

Due to the complexity of the creatives and with so many people being involved, it regularly happens that I end up checking the test pages with one eye on the clock – Murphy’s Law states this will always happen on Friday afternoons. Generally, the creative houses and agencies I work with are often quite small, and have a high rotation of personnel and with it the knowledge and experience.

I remember one problematic campaign, spending days emailing the client about a creative issue, eventually, I ended up talking to ‘Bob’ (altered his name to protect the guilty…), in his converted garden-shed, convinced he was the greatest flash designer ever… 20 minutes later I was still explaining to him about the basics such as button actions. By the time we resolved the issues through many emails, it was green lit, the very day the campaign ended. When we told him it was assigned he replied with “All right!!!” … needless to say we never received another creative from ‘Bob’ again.

So how do you prevent something like that from happening?

-          Your client needs to trust you … that you know your stuff and believe you can explain technical issues to anyone, this will give you direct access with their advertising agencies or creative houses (saving time and avoiding miscommunication).

-          Know who you are speaking to and talk on their level. If people feel you are talking jargon they don’t understand, they will most likely ignore it or pass it along and you’ll get nowhere fast. Make sure you know who you NEED to speak to as well, as you don’t have time to waste, chasing the wrong person.

-          Never send out the same “Here’s the tech spec” email more than once. If the designer didn’t get your explanation the first time, sending exactly the same email will not make them see the light. Call them.

-           Network. You never know when you need a favour from someone when your main contact is not available. I always have a 30 second chat with everyone I speak to and most importantly, NEVER fall out with anyone, as you will find that they are “in a meeting” when you most need them.

My final piece of advice, always remember, when faced with insurmountable odds, the phone is mightier than the email!

I was sitting in my living room last night, eating some very yummy cheese, apple and crackers when I got a text message.  It was from Greg Carr, one my Account Executives saying, “The annual 212 boat cruise was sold out…they turned away half the paid guests”.

This made me think…wait a second, I thought we were in a recession…how did a boat cruise get sold out by double.  Not only was it sold out, but there we actual quality folks that attended.  When I say quality, I mean it the way an ad sales person would mean it…lots of media buyers from interactive ad agencies.

This brings me to only 1 theory – the recession can bring some good with the bad.  Sure, digital ad dollars have flattened out and sure companies are going out of business…and yes, CPMs have plummeted.  But when I see the 212 boat cruise sold out with quality people, this tells a story of new born collaboration in digital media.

Reason 1: With so much uncertainty in the market place, it’s human nature to find out one thing: what is going on?  What are people saying?   What are they seeing?  When will they see it?  How do I protect myself?  Folks who typically sat in their ivory tower and had their underlings do their dirty work are feeling pressure to go back to their roots, get out and ask questions.  Because of  this, people that you may not have had access to before, are now accessible.  Major brand managers and marketers, Media Directors at top Ad Agencies…all accessible and approachable.

Reason 2: Everyone is being forced to do more with less.  If you are an ad agency and have less employees, that’s less people to come up with the big idea.  This has led and will lead to more brainstorming between publishers and agencies.  Agencies can no longer afford to do things the way they used to…think tanks are smaller and ideas can no longer be created in a vacuum.

Reason 3: Lastly, relationships are now more important than ever.  Ad Agencies are under pressure to perform.  They want to meet the people they are buying media from, they want to know them personally and can now afford to, because every morsel of business is so important to them.  People are getting closer to their competition, more so than ever before.

Now, maybe it was just a nice summer eve on Thursday evening in NYC and the sound of a few drinks on the Hudson sounded divine…but I think there’s much more to it than that.

As an industry, we’ve been running so fast and trying to automate so much, you start to lose sight of what got us here.  Collaborating with each other.  This theme, in my opinion, will continue for a while since it’s the very behavior that got us here in the first place…getting out and meeting people in order to be successful.

-Lorne

As part of what will be our ongoing series on The Anatomy of an Ad Tag, this post will offer a brief discussion of the key ‘pros and cons’ of two different ad tag types. Iframe or JavaScript ad tags?  You decide…

When tagging up a website with ad tags there are two main types which can deliver rich content, they are Iframe or JavaScript ad tags, but which one should you choose? In this post, we’ll take a minute to talk about the differences between the two, let’s kick off with Iframe tags.

Iframe Tags

An Iframe is simply a tag that defines an inline frame that contains another document. It is supported by all major browsers. With Iframes you can define the width and height of the document loaded into the frame and choose to have a border and define the border color. Iframes can serve most rich content but will have to have an Iframe buster file implemented to serve expandable creatives from a third party rich media vendor.

Iframe pros:

• Although Iframe tags are in the page html, their content is loaded separately to the page so page load times may be slightly quicker than pages using JavaScript Tags.

Iframe cons:

• There can be larger counting discrepancies with Iframe tags.
• To serve expanding creatives, an Iframe buster file will need to be implemented by the publisher for each rich media vendor used. This is due to the nature of an Iframe being a fixed width and height.

JavaScript Tags

A JavaScript tag is the best tag for serving rich content because of its flexibility. JavaScript is also supported by all major browsers. JavaScript ad tags pull external content using the src variable.

JavaScript pros:

• Can serve all rich media content.
• Counting discrepancies can be less than Iframe tags.

JavaScript cons:

• Can affect page load times as the browser will wait for the JavaScript content to load before continuing to render the page.
• The tag will not show if the user has JavaScript disabled in their browser.

In conclusion, while both Iframe and JavaScript tags have their merits, it is our recommendation that you use JavaScript ad tags for serving ads because of their flexibility and ability to serve all rich media content now and in the future.  Iframe tags are only typically recommended for complex web pages where JavaScript is proven unsuitable such as refreshing elements in the same page.

What tag is your organization?  Why?  We’d really like to hear your opinions and experience on this subject.  Until next time, happy tagging!

Join Mike Leo, Operative CEO and President, at OMMA Behavioral on July 30 in San Francisco as he moderates the Keynote Panel “Is BT Paying the Rent: Has Behavioral Paid Off for Publishers?”

Panelists will include thought leaders from Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Weather Channel Media Solutions, DailyMe, AllRecipes, and Yahoo.  For more information please visit http://www.mediapost.com/events/ .

Glad you’re here and welcome to the inaugural post of our soon-to-be infamous Ad Ops Blog!  Over the next weeks and months (and years and millenniums …), we’ll be discussing ‘everything Ad Ops’ – from processes and best practices that will make your Ad Operations hum, to the latest developments in technology that will make your ads sing … and to boot, we’ll have fascinating interviews with our brilliant operations staff whose experience represents more than 100 years in online advertising (I know, I know … that’s before the Internet, or even before TV, but it’s true and always sounds really cool in the “About Us” section on the company web site).  Seriously, over the last 10 years we’ve had the pleasure of working with literally 100’s of small and large publishers and agencies as an integral part of their Ad Ops team … so, we’ve learned a thing or two about what works and, even more intriguing, we’ve learned what’s a total waste of time and effort.

But wait there’s more! In addition to our own existential musings about the Wonderful World of Ad Ops, we hope to feature some of YOU, our devoted readers, and your unique perspectives and opinions.  After all, what good is having a blog anyway if it’s just going to be a one-way conversation?!  So, at worst we promise not to bore you to death, and at best we hope to provide you with timely and relevant information that you can start using right away.

To quote from a not-so-famous Latin verse:  A cane non magno saepe tenetur aper (“A boar is often held by a not-so-large dog.”)  OK, a slight digression … but the point is that every good solution needs a darned good problem to precede it.  And, what better place to root up a bunch of problems that need solving than in Ad Ops.  So to kick this off, we’ve blame-stormed and come up with some Topics, Considerations & Challenges faced by Ad Ops that we’d like to get your help in selecting for future blogs.  If there are subjects here (or not here) that you would like to see covered, please let us know … second drum roll, please:

• Late to the dance … a creative love story [Late creatives]
• And what math are you using? [Unraveling the mysteries of primary and third party ad server discrepancies]
• I want it THIS big! [Impact of nonstandard ad units]
• What’s in an ad tag? [Deciphering the anatomy of an ad tag]
• Why I don’t fix my own car [Should you consider partnering with an Ad Ops expert?]
• Recovering from Analysis Paralysis [How to build efficiencies in Ad Ops that work]
• Kaboom! Oh No!! NOT AGAIN!!!! [Top Five Ad Ops disasters to avoid]
• The kid’s menu isn’t always cheapest [Which ad server will provide you the best value?]
• The replacement TV doesn’t work either [Creative houses need more than just "send me a new creative that   works” to make it work]
• My life is a bit complicated [Why bad ad tagging is just money down the drain]
• Just short of the goal line [Tinkering with optimization]
• It sounded really cool when we pitched it [As creatives get more complicated, so does the development and testing]
• Alice doesn’t work here anymore [Ad Ops asked to do more with less during down economic times]
• A little lumpy around the middle [Managing to the ebbs and flows]
• Who’s the new kid? [Effectively on boarding new operations staff]
• Who took my abacus?! [Maintaining and gaining new technology skills]
• There is no good ‘make good’ [How quality translates to dollars]

In our next series of blogs, we’ll take a closer look at many of these topics and attempt to provide helpful discussion of solutions to these new and old challenges faced by Ad Ops.  We encourage you to share with us your thoughts as well … we’ll do our best to address them right here in future posts.  We encourage you bookmark this page, email it to a friend, colleague or associate (as well as add our RSS feed).

Thanks for stopping by and reading this far … we look forward to many interesting discussions to come.

Is this your product catalog?

As I talk to clients and prospects, one of the most common fallacies I run across is the idea is that inventory costs are fixed and cheap. However, when we dig a little deeper we find that isn’t necessarily the case. Many people I work with in digital media feel there is little risk to adding another layer of targeting or packaging capability to their portfolio. The assumption is that if the targeting isn’t used, it doesn’t cost the publisher anything. In other words, more is more.

How did this approach come to be? In my opinion, the roots are in our DNA so it’s especially hard to resist. We are a medium founded on technological advances – it’s natural to keep adding capabilities. In the 90’s header info (geo-targeting, OS and browser targeting) and registration info (gender, HHI, etc.) were major leaps forward. But now we’ve layered on behavioral targeting, re-targeting, performance targeting, keyword phrases, social media profile info etc. and it shows no signs of stopping. Companies like DoubleClick/Google, BlueKai, MediaSix Degrees, Tacoda/Ad.com Quantcast have helped with this proliferation. In part this comes from a renaissance of entrepreneurial companies seeking to meet or exceed the power of Google’s ad-word target benchmarks as focus returns to performance. As always, marketers seek to avoid wasting budget as much as possible. Often publishers are challenged to say no to new capabilities that seemingly all their competitors are adopting.

Well, if we turn everything on but don’t use it, what’s the harm? In a word, clutter. I liken some sites I know to the homes we see on the show Clean House. Verdict: Foolishness! There are two challenges with having a bloated product catalog:

1)      The operational costs to manage. These hidden costs are everywhere – extra time to get complex avails into the plan, extra time explaining (and re-explaining) what a specific capability is to all parties, product sheets, added trafficking time, potential vendor management time, product catalog analysis, campaign reporting, optimization, invoicing, etc.

2)      Distraction from Core Competency. Advertisers buy your site because you have a great audience. The further you winnow out ‘waste’, the further away you get from what makes your site unique and the more your impressions become commoditized.

So is RON the answer? I hope not. The trick is finding your Innovation Fulcrum.

To do this, you’ll want to create the simplest product catalog, baseline the effort and revenue associated with it throughout the selling process, then add in layers until you find the point where the margin becomes unacceptable. This is called the Model T method. You then have two options.

1)      Stop. Create artificial constraints for the overall health of the company

2)      Change the equation – perhaps with a targeting premium or a change of process, an additional layer or two becomes profitable

All participants in the digital ecosystem should be going through this exercise in this climate. Given their position in the company, Ad Operations has an opportunity to take the lead in assessing the right balance of operational complexity and revenue opportunity. Only sites that have a compelling product offering with an internal efficiency will be able to thrive. Taking steps to assess what the right mix of capabilities are for your business will pay for itself for years to come.