Operative Blog

For the last session of the day, Operative CEO and President, Mike Leo, lead a discussion with Rob Deichert, Senior Vice President, Global Sales Development and Operations, AOL Advertising and Mark Ellis, Executive Vice President, Sales, AOL Advertising.  The panel explored how Sales and Ad Operations  work together to drive revenue, increase customer satisfaction, and continually optimize the consumer’s experience. 

We are in an industry of mass customization.  Everyone and every web site needs something unique and specific and customizeable - but are we there yet?  How do we deliver a custom product but on a mass standpoint?

Question: How does Sales work with Ad Ops? 

Answer: First and foremost, the work starts when the sale happens.  Ad Ops is a major partner, not an obstacle to winning and closing deals.  It’s common that the Sales person always wants to push the envelope with an agency buyer.  This is where Ad Ops has problems- a new custom environment for every agency client. 

Question: Is there one part of customization that would dramatically help? 

Answer: Optimization and billing would have a major impact on making the sales cycle better. 

Question: Does Sales appreciate Ad Ops? 

Answer: Yes (smile).  “All custom = no profit.  And all mass = no innovation.”   The key for any publisher is to find the happy medium because that is how a publisher can advance to the next level. 

Question:  Lets look at an example- AOL’s largest spending customers get the best and brightest opportunities because they have real dollars to spend.  Can we spill less blood than we did 2 years ago, if so, how do you do it? 

Answer:  The major change is that there are definitions for all products (Project Management), like an Operations role.  But in 2009, Ad Operations emerged as a major part of all implementations once a sale happened.  The majority of time though, even today, Ad Ops and Sales are not on the same calls.

Question: How do you manage inventory? 

Answer: The forecasting is more accurate when you add in multiple areas.  There is a balance between very specific sections and the ability to sell the entire site.  Managing inventory is entirely based on the market conditions.  The order of magnitude of creative in online versus TV is so different.  Online averages one piece of creative to 70k users versus a broadcast campaign which over 1 million.

Question: If the agency knew it was easier to do business with a publisher and that made business a lot easier, would the agency move more of the budget to them?  

Answer: Yes, the ability to provide fully baked programs at a strong value creates a much better relationship. 

Question: Is it part of your sales pitch, that “We are better at Ad Ops”? 

Answer: Yes, but it is subtle.  When you don’t have the best product, cheapest price, or largest site, customer service drives a large part of sales. 

Question: What improvements in the sales process have helped the most?  

Answer: One sales person, one person to talk to, one insertion order = huge win.  The online offline combination has a long way to go.  Video and TV will be the first to converge.  Others will follow.

Question: What will be the Big Wins in the next 3 years?  

Answer: The system between agency and publisher with regards to creative and discrepancies. 

“Looks like its cocktail time…”  Mike Leo

Does this sound familiar?

Lack of data integration

Too much manual data entry

Mistakes and discrepancies are constant

Invoices do not match

Every RFP is different 

IAB is trying to create a standard RFP –> Proposal –>IO –>Invoice process.  In conjunction with the IAB, Operative is participating in the beta project .  Geoff Petkus,  Senior Director of Product for Operative, takes the stand to showcase the ‘standard’ communication process between Agencies and Publishers.

Step one, RFP receipt.  We will validate the incoming RFP for any errors and codes. The next step includes client-specific rules for what to do next. Each publisher will have the ability to define rules for any agency or account. 

Next we go to RFP management.  When an RFP comes in from an Agency, it will be assigned from a queue so that everyone is working on the most recent business.  After that, it will be organized into a RFP detail page. 

The last step is sending the proposal. 

Question of the day-  How does the new Ebusiness RFP platform play in a world that could be eliminating a major part of the RFP process?  

The whole process is meant to return RFP’s faster because they are in an agreed upon template to start with.  Operative can play a big role in the workflow- ask us how…email Sales@operative.com to hear about our work with Donovan Data Systems iDesk and innovations in streamlining agency/publisher communications.

Geoff Petkus

Right this moment, Operative’s Senior Director of Product, Geoff Petkus, is presenting at the IAB Ad Operations Summit on the IAB working group’s advancements in automating agency and publisher communications. 

Check out the session: The Power of Automation, E-Business Solutions!

Follow Operative Founder and VP Sales, Lorne Brown on Twitter- http://twitter.com/LorneBrown

Follow the IAB on Twitter- http://twitter.com/IAB

The question is not WHO owns the data but who CAN USE the data.  So the truth is that more data leads to more complexity in our business. The vast majority of publishers are still trading on content and not audiences.  But staying ahead of the technology curve allows a publisher to be more aggressive in the innovative marketplace. 

One big problem within digital advertising is that the cost of doing business is 2x or 3x the amount of other mediums (such as print, radio, TV, etc).  We need one electronic system to handle the workflow and inventory…  The fundamental problem is that companies like Procter and Gamble cannot spend $1 billion online without a better understanding of audience measurement. 

Think about search.  Google is successful because they gave the advertiser control.  This is a concept of what needs to change in the display market- let the market decide what it wants to buy.  Display has 95% of all inventory but provides very little control for advertisers. 

Predictions – if you are looking at demand side platforms and buyers are looking to find value, then you will see audience based buys through open marketplaces and there will be less integrated sponsorships (Yahoo).  Data will either liberate us or crush us (WPP). There will be two different planners: the ones in the marketplace and the other will be integration (WPP).  Real time bidding (like a clearing house) will control 60% of the business in 2 years (WPP).

The knowledge is where the data is.  How can Operative become a force and help publishers use this data?  Let us know your thoughts…

Dan Murphy, SVP at Univision Interactive Media and LONG TIME supporter of the IAB, gave an update on the IAB Ad Operations Council.

The joke of the day is that Ad Ops has become a REAL job- where everyone is wearing suits and leaving the jeans and sneakers at home.  According to Dan, both the agency and the publishing sides have value to bring to the table.  6 years ago, the industry was talking about all of the same problems we continue to address today (late creative, intrusive ads, audience measurement, rich media specs and discrepancies).  6 years ago, Ben Reid (when working for About.com) spearheaded the “OARS- Online Ad Reporting Standards” project (ebusiness).  Today, Operative still has a stake in the eBusiness initiative: Geoff Petkus has continued to work with the IAB committees on standards and specs to unite both publisher and agency processes and data models.    

The new IAB audit will go a long way to standardize the industry.  An overwhelming amount of impressions are audited throughout the web, and verification systems will need to help the ecosystem and not hurt the process.  According to a survey Dan initiated, “Ad Ops is 50% more complex than it was 3 years ago”.  Fragmentation is out of control right now because of the different sites and structure in the marketplace.  While innovation and growth are not slowing down, the largest concern for media companies is “Inventory and Yield Management”.  A close second is “Billing Discrepancies.”

Operative.One Campaign360

Are discrepancies STILL keeping you up at night? 

Has your CFO  charged you with the responsibility of driving revenue opportunity within your Ad Ops department in 2010?

Now is the time to alleviate pain.  Create operational efficiencies within your digital organization by implementing tools that will automate the collection, reconciliation and reporting of primary and 3rd party ad server data. 

Visit our booth and ask the team about the benefits of Operative.One Campaign 360.

IAB Ad Ops Summit - Operative mugs

Need a refill on your coffee before heading back into the 11:30am session on “Ad Units?”

Stop by our booth and pick up a mug!

Kamal Chadha (CBS Interactive)- Panelist

Tim Messier (The Weather Channel Interactive)- Panelist

Steve Sullivan (Microsoft Advertising)- Moderator

As an industry, we’ve made strides in discrepancy management by implementing guidelines and best practice processes.  But the issue of discrepancies is still catastrophic.  Between human error and mapping line items to placement ID’s, manual processes and lack of automation only continue to perpetuate the impact of discrepancies.

Real life example: Today, the publisher gets the tag from the agency, and inserts the tag into the ad server.  For each tag, there is an associated publisher #.  How do you sync the tags with the publisher #, and report on the two?  Answer: more reporting options.

1. Madison, the CBS Interactive media custom server, collects all line item information.
2. Weather.com uses Solbright and passes a flight ID to the ad server for unique information.
3. Schedule standardized reports that will help you get in front of these issues before billing at the end of the month.
4. The last option is reporting through access to the ad server’s API.  CBS Interactive’s goal is to have an API automatic system that pulls 3rd party numbers every night with an alert function that highlights areas of concern.  There’s a new solution on the market with similar functionality.

Next steps- get the IAB council back together.  Educate the industry on possible solutions such as AdJuster and Operative.One Campaign360. Finally, establish partnerships that will ease the discrepancy pain.

For everyone in this room to be successful, we absolutely need to be thinkers.  The days of only being doers must come to an end- radical change comes from radical ideas.   Maybe change our name from Ad Ops to Revenue Ops. 

Questions:

1. How do you look to scale your business?  Automation is a great first start.  Be committed to what is going on at the industry level.  Think about the profession of ad operations and if you have already scaled on the back-end, now think about revenue consulting. 

2. Will there really be fewer monetized websites in the future?  Right now more and more sites are entering the market, but as we move forward, making money will be critical to staying around and surviving.  Protect your revenue and stop giving money back.

What does TRUE operational efficiency look like?   Buying, selling and executing digital advertising should be a transaction similar to eating out at a restaurant- you don’t HAVE to think about too hard.  As an industry, publishers and agencies spend too much time in petty details and legal issues and THIS needs to change. 

David Cohen of Universal McCann asked 3.5 Questions:

1. Characterize ad ops?  We NEED good people but we LOSE good people.  Others talked about challenging times with too many demands.  There are common sentiments about how this portion of business is perceived. 

2. Greatest improvements?  Better collaboration every day. 

3. Could discrepancies start going down?  Is this one of media’s greatest pains?  Consider the amount of time it takes to analyze the data, the manual processes and paper STILL involved the process.  We still need mutual trust, collaboration and transparency among publishers and agencies.

David shows a chart called the Road to Nirvana (not the band), and all of the pieces that need to change to make the system run a lot smoother.  It starts with something as easy as RFP standardization, and continues to T&C’s.  Late creative is another big issue that needs to be solved. 

2010 is our year.  Simple dialogue can go a long way.  The only constant right now is that the rate of innovation is fast.

David’s prediction for 2015 is that there will be two different camps: High volume vs Premium publishers. 

Total commercial websites will drop dramatically.  In 2015, MSA’s will be signed at the beginning of the year in order to make life much easier.