Operative Blog

At the back of every publisher’s mind is a question: “Does my revenue reflect the true value of my inventory?” In far too many cases the answer is either “no” or “I wish I knew!” So how can publishers feel confident that they’re selling the right inventory to the right buyer at the right price? The answer: productization. To learn more, Amy Inlow, our blog editor, asked product manager Andrew Sullivan to explain what productization is all about.

AI: Let’s start with the basics. What is productization, and why is it important for publishers?

AS: Simply put, productization is deciding exactly what you plan to sell and being consistent about it. Consistency is helpful for your sales teams, your buyers, your inventory managers, your pricing team and your traffickers. If everyone is working with a commonly accepted product catalog with predictable pricing rules then it takes the guesswork out of everyday tasks.

In the end a good productization practice will result in a toolset that the entire organization refers to constantly. It should be a searchable catalog that the sales team uses to build proposals for buyers, the foundation for a comprehensive rate card, an implementation guide for campaign managers and a reference for analytics teams.

The goal is to strike a balance that gives buyers access to the audience they’re looking for on safe, well-defined content, while maintaining a level of structure and control for operations teams to traffic and manage campaigns. But most important, I think, productization lets publishers confidently break out of the constraints imposed on them by their ad servers so they can create products and packages that really reflect buyer demand.

AI: How does productization actually occur?

AS: There are a few fundamental aspects to the process. The first is simply segmenting all of the ad slots a publisher has access to so that they can actually be sold. In practice this means starting with ad server tags to make sure they’re following a consistent structure, and documenting clearly how to target any given site, channel, section, page, etc.

On top of that the publisher should take stock of all demo, geo, behavioral and other targeting that is feasible based on their technology stack, and make decisions about which they’re ready to expose to buyers. Are you unable to DMA target in some areas because your mobile ad server doesn’t support it? Does it really pay to allow age targeting on the home page, or is it better to limit that inventory to exclusive sponsorships? Determine the combinations of targeting that make sense for your business on each of your properties, and document those as well.

With those things in place, ongoing productization means maintaining an internally published list of buyer friendly products with documented controls around pricing, targeting, creative specs, buyer limitations – and then as much META information as possible to help sell the inventory.

AI: What are some of the business issues productization helps publishers address?

AS: A big issue is simply knowing all of the ad slots publishers have available to sell. After all, you can’t sell ad slots that you don’t know about. This may seem easy but it can be challenging when new tags are being generated every day, or if the inventory was acquired through partnerships with other publishers or networks, for example.

Another issue is delivering on customer expectations. Sales teams are often too quick to sell products that are driven by the unique requirements of the buyer. For instance, the buyer may ask for audience segmentation, frequency capping, or special creative that aren’t standard offerings. The operations team is left to figure out how to match what’s been sold with what can be delivered, and turn it around in a few weeks or days. This disconnect causes delays, discrepancies, and unhappy buyers. Productization can help eliminate that disconnect by clearly identifying what is available to a sales team. This doesn’t mean that your organization shouldn’t offer the new and bleeding-edge experience buyers want, but when a request comes in that doesn’t match up to existing products, clear product definitions should provide the time and context the publisher needs to really capitalize on the opportunity.

Inventory management also gets a boost from productization. Not only does the structure and consistency of the catalog make inventory management possible, it’s also a way to prevent campaigns with combinations of targets and ad slots that have no chance of delivering in full. Is it worth it to deal with the booking calculations for users of a certain age in a specific DMA on your travel section? If not, don’t sell it.

AI: How will a publisher benefit from productization?

AS: A huge benefit is the sustainable boost in revenue that comes from implementing enterprise-wide sales guidelines. There may be inventory that performs best when sold to particular industries, or through specific sales teams, or when offered through an exchange. Implementing controls that ensure inventory is sold with the whole yield curve in mind is the only way to raise the effective CPM across the board.

Rate card management tools also help publishers boost revenue because they set standard rates for all products by channel, including price goals and minimum floors. They also let publishers ensure that products are sold using the cost method (CPM, CPC, etc.) that delivers the best results.

Another benefit is improved reporting. Productization is instrumental for any critical revenue analytics. The holistic view lets publishers compare how their inventory performs across sales teams and channels. Since all sales teams, including performance and marketing teams, will be working with comparable products, publishers can actually compare apples to apples.

AI:  How does a publisher go about productizing inventory? What are the first steps?

AS: Any publisher doing direct sales today has been doing productization since their first IO was trafficked. Even if they haven’t been thinking about it as productization, all the placement lists, trafficking instructions, rate cards, creative specs and other materials that sit in Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint and people’s heads are the building blocks of a product catalog. The first step is to focus as an organization on the right strategy for the business and get buy-in from stakeholders to participate. From there it’s a matter of deciding on the technical infrastructure for managing the catalog and going through the process.

To really manage a robust enterprise level catalog requires an Advertising Business Management platform that can really bring everything together. It should provide the tools to generate and manage a product catalog, and ideally it will embed that catalog in the sales, trafficking and reconciliation process with hooks into business intelligence and inventory management.

Operative hosted a webinar on this topic Thursday, November 17.  Our guest speaker and presenter was Joanna Bloor, VP of Sales Operations for Pandora.  To obtain a copy of the webinar recording, please send an email to info@operative.com and we will email you the link once it becomes available.

About Andrew Sullivan

Andrew is the mastermind of Operative’s unique, multi-dimensional inventory management solution, as well as the company’s Ad Master Model and Campaign 360, solutions that enable publishers to better manage and optimize their product offerings and solutions set.  In his role as Product Manager, Andrew manages and oversees development for the software; acts as a liaison between sales, account management and development; and is continually designing solutions to meet ongoing publisher challenges.

Andrew began his career at Operative as a Campaign Manager, trafficking, managing and optimizing campaigns for both publisher and agency clients.  Within a year of joining the company, he was leading the systems integration team, working with some of Operative’s largest clients on software implementations.  Andrew also served as Senior Manager for Strategic Development, where he focused on new product innovation. 

Prior to joining Operative, Andrew worked as an Art Director at Agora Studios.  He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electronic Media, Arts and Communication from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  

Do you depend on someone to run your business whose business goal is to eat your lunch?

Andrew Wallenstein of www.paidcontent.org just published a great article yesterday about Netflix’s recent 10-K filing in which they disclosed the risks associated with their Amazon partnership.

It is obvious that Netflix is facing serious competition from Amazon in their primary business.  But what was disclosed is an additional threat from Amazon, and risk to Netflix.  Amazon, according to the article, provides “mission-critical” web services that enable Netflix to remain in operation.  This same supposed “business partner” is about to become a major competitive threat to Netflix as it looks to offer an online streaming video service to customers that will compete directly with the Wall Street darling (NFLX).

Netflix depends on Amazon to allow their business to scale.  Netflix depends on Amazon to innovate their services so that they can better compete against Amazon.  If they don’t provide that innovation, Netflix will be at a disadvantage.  Is that a safe bet?

And what bets are you placing every day?

David B. Yoffie and Mary Kwak wrote, in their famous Harvard Business Review article entitled, With Friends like These: The Art of Managing Complementors, that “Executives often overestimate common interests with complementors and repeatedly under-estimate the potential for conflict.”

How often are we (the digital ad industry) depending on competitors to provide sufficient innovation to our mission-critical platforms, and protection of our data, in order to grow our businesses? Do the people that have access to your data want you to win?  Do the people that provide your business systems – from business intelligence and inventory optimization, to user data and customer data – really want you to win?  Or do they just want you to win long enough until they can commoditize your value?

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself to determine if you are putting your primary business assets at risk vis-à-vis a current or potential “partnership:”

-          What are my most critical assets?

-          Who has access to them?

-          Who do I depend on to monetize them?

-          Do they compete? Now? In the future?

-          Are my “frenemies” going to share their innovation, or keep it themselves?

-          What would happen to my business if they stopped serving my interest?

Once you have the answers to these questions, you will be better equipped to know a) whether or not there are risks you need to disclose to investors and/or b) whether or not you should continue to engage in those relationships at all.

Co-opetition is part of our life, it is here to stay.  But engaging with partners that compete or may potentially compete with your primary business and source of revenue is a significant risk that should be carefully evaluated.  Furthermore, you must have the foresight to know whether or not these “partners” have the potential to one day become a competitor, forcing you to predict the future market landscape by running if-then scenarios. Simply disclosing the risk to investors is not enough – and in fact, it’s probably too late.  Understanding the implications and risks before you even have to disclose should be the first step businesses take in evaluating their mission-critical business relationships.

So who’s guarding your henhouse and what will you have to disclose to investors in your next 10-K filing?

I would love to hear from you on related scenarios that may exist in our space where there is exposure of critical business assets and/or partnerships because one partner is preying on the other(s). Comments welcome here or via email.

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-what-worries-netflix-about-amazon-isnt-just-competition/

AdExchanger: Operative CEO Leo Discusses New Operative.One Platform And Automation In Ad Ops

AdExchanger.com: Seven years as CEO and President for one company is not the norm for digital.  Why does it make sense for you?

ML: I love my job. I work with talented people, great clients, and we’re solving a huge problem that publishers, networks and agencies need solved. Our future is bright.  Why would I do anything else?

What problem is Operative solving today?

There are two certainties in our space:

1. The industry cannot thrive until it becomes easier to do business with.
2. Continual innovation is a requirement for survival.

By giving media companies and their partners freedom from the complexities of the digital value chain, Operative enables both.  Since the ERP evolution of the 1980s and early 90s, you will not find a leader in any other industry that has not brought together all of their value chain processes and systems. This revolution, which is a ticket to the game for everyone else, is only just getting started in digital media.

Without a platform upon which publishers can innovate, digital innovation creates chaos. We provide a business management system that supports the adoption of new innovation (new products that can be offered to advertisers) in the context of the publisher’s current way of doing business, yet integrated all on one platform.

Can you drill down from the big picture and discuss the three biggest pain points that you’re solving for clients today?

Sure. We are focused on addressing the following problem areas:

1. Demand-side planning:  With so many different technologies and channels available to monetize inventory, it can be difficult for publishers to understand what and how much is available to sell, and determine the best way to package and price. There is pain associated with managing and optimizing price, as well as pushing inventory to these channels.  Operative.One solves for this.
2. Supply chain management:  The amount of innovation that comes out of this industry is staggering. Ad production technologists like DoubleClick, Rubicon, and BlueKai are a constant source of innovations, increasing the value we bring to advertisers. But if those innovations are not integrated into the business, then chaos ensues.  Production systems are not business systems, and media companies simply cannot grow if they manage production systems independent of one another.  Operative.One enables effective cross-platform execution providing a single view across all production systems.
3. End-to-end ad execution:  For many publishers, product packaging, sales, operations and finance processes are connected manually, and internal systems that handle inventory, CRM and financials don’t talk to each other.  This limits sales productivity, reduces time to meeting impression goals, and causes billing discrepancies. We connect all business processes and systems so publishers can effectively package, sell, traffic, manage, optimize and collect revenue on ads.

Operative.One represents one place to manage demand, one place to manage supply, and one place to execute digital ads.

How has Operative pivoted its business to meet client needs over the past 10 years?

Operative has always been focused on getting the job done for its clients. Ten years ago, we began as an ad operations services company, and over the last six years, we have done significant work to automate those jobs. While the jobs remain the same (whether performed by a client’s staff or ours), our platform creates efficiencies and lowers transaction cost – ultimately getting the job done faster and cheaper.

What is advertising business management?  How do you see this evolving in the next 1-3 years?

Business management platforms are well established in industries outside of digital media. Leaders in business management solutions include SAP, Oracle, Netsuite, Salesforce… and even Wide Orbit, which serves stations and networks. For the advertising industry, business management solutions free media companies from the complexities of the value chain by integrating all of the processes and systems necessary to package, sell, traffic, manage, optimize and bill ads.

In the next 1-3 years, the industry will focus more on the business of advertising, not the system or the pain associated with industry innovation and so many disparate technologies.  Does anyone really need to know how the sausage is made? Does anyone question how a TV ad makes it on the air?  Has a Jaguar salesman ever concerned himself with how (or if) the ABB 6-axis robot is installing the sunroof before it leaves the assembly line?  Don’t publishers succeed when sales people stop talking about ad tags and start talking about how their products maximize brand value?

If you were running a media agency today, what key strategies would you put in place to survive and prosper in the future?

I would ensure that my teams were focused on marketing problems, not technology problems. It’s important for agencies to get control over variable costs and understand how to leverage technology without being in the weeds with it. The number of transactions required to execute a digital campaign are an order of magnitude more than most any other media. If you do not have control over the transactions, it’s difficult to grow a profitable business.  Agencies need to be partnering with providers who have built a business on helping agencies manage transactions, and can take infrastructure off their plates so they can grow profitably, and focus on what’s most important: client relationships and great creative.

What are the funding needs for the company? Profitability? Any plans to go public?

We are profitable and we plan to go public.

Is the DSP model impacting your business? How?

Yes, Operative.One plays an important role with any innovation that our clients choose to adopt.

Ad networks, DSPs, direct to advertisers (and more to come) – these are all viable channels for monetizing advertising assets. The key is having tight controls and a unified view of distribution channels, whatever they may be.  Having one business system ensures media companies can make the right decisions to effectively price and allocate inventory across channels.

What are you seeing from clients today in terms of current momentum?

Publishers are increasingly more focused on direct sales. The deal size is going up and CPMs are going up. And our clients don’t want to give inventory to those who commoditize it.

For publishers looking to get their arms around their data, what do you advise?  And what do you tell them regarding ad network/exchange relationships?

The secret to data is having it all together. Getting it is easy. Analyzing it is hard. The only way to properly analyze data to have it all in one place.

Follow Mike Leo (@rmikel), Operative (@OperativeInc) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.com.

Adotas – Answers Served: Operative Discusses Solbright Acquisition

ADOTAS – On the heels of the launch of its Operative.One platform for connecting the demand and supply sides, Operative acquired Solbright, which develops software assisting publishers in managing online ad revenue and workflow. According to CEO Mike Leo, the acquisition will bolster Operative’s ability to deliver efficient and effective infrastructure for media companies.

Leo took a few minutes to talk about the acquisition as well as the ways in which Operative.One stands out from the pack of end-to-end digital marketing solutions.

ADOTAS: What interested Operative in Solbright?

LEO: Their clients and their employees.

How does this acquisition fit in with Operative’s aims?

This gives the advertising business management category much-needed scale, while Operative gains significantly in market share and a strengthened competitive position. We estimate to now be managing more than 30% of all digital ad spend through our solutions.

The result is greater value delivered for our clients. A more scalable overall business and R&D organization means a broader and deeper set of integrations with demand and supply-side systems, accelerated product innovation, and improvements to the already high level of client service and support we provide today.

What kind of updates will clients notice when Solbright’s technology is integrated into Operative.One? What will be the most useful?

We’ll be working with each and every Solbright client over the next year to upgrade them to our Operative.One platform. Operative.One provides significant next-generation advantages –- for example, a robust product packaging and selling architecture and an enhanced platform for third-party system integration (e.g., Salesforce). The employees who built Solbright and have been working closely with Solbright customers for several years have joined Operative in the continued development and support of Operative.One.

How does Operative.One stand out from other end-to-end digital advertising solutions?

We’re the only ad business management platform that brings it all together for media companies and their partners. We’ve essentially created a “hub” that allows clients to eliminate the complexities associated with the digital value chain by integrating all systems and processes necessary to package, sell, traffic, manage, optimize and bill ads. In a nutshell, we are connecting critical functions (from product packaging to invoice) with our clients’ ecosystems.

What attracts media companies and publishers to Operative.One? How do their concerns differ from advertisers?

Operative takes care of business infrastructure for media companies, so they can focus on what’s important: product innovation and client relationships. They are also starting to realize that continual innovation and operational effectiveness are inversely proportional. We provide a platform upon which to innovate without the associated chaos.

Advertisers are demanding for new ways to deliver content; e.g., mobile, Tivo, iPad, which is one of the drivers behind the current pace of digital innovation and, hence, the chaos. The amount and pace of innovation that comes out of this industry is staggering — ad production technologists, such as Google, Pubmatic and FreeWheel, providing a constant source of innovations for increasing the value we bring to advertisers. But those innovations must be integrated into the business, rather than the business being a slave to the innovations.

What’s the key to providing transparency on every transaction level?

Data. But data is the easy part. Getting it all in one place is the challenge.

So who is easier to deal with — the supply side or the demand side? If you had to side with one in a fight, who would you go with?

You cannot choose one over the other. Ask Apple. Providing value requires a robust ability to seamlessly combine components of the value chain to create true scalable value. But value cannot be realized unless you can manage all distribution channels with a high degree of rigor.

These are not new problems and the solutions already exist. Demand planning and supply chain management go back to the first farmer’s market. They just need to be translated for our space. That is not an easy job, but the scale we have achieved allows us the resources to get the job done for our clients.

DIGIDAY:DAILY – Operative Buys Solbright With Sites Set Far Beyond Digital

by Melinda Gipson on Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Strengthens Company Market Share and Brings Scale to Advertising Business Management Category

New York, NY- October 18, 2010 – Operative, the advertising business management company, today announced it has acquired Solbright, a pioneer in digital advertising operations solutions. Founded in 1999 and based in New York City, Solbright is a leading provider of revenue and workflow operations software that currently helps leading websites to manage their online advertising.  The deal strengthens Operative’s market position as the company estimates its solutions now manage more than 30 percent of digital advertising spend, and counts half of the top 50 online media leaders as clients. Terms were not disclosed.

“Having entered the digital ad operations market on the ground floor, Solbright’s ultimate goal has always been to establish the company as a leading innovator in the space,” said Tom Pace, President and CEO, Solbright. “Today’s announcement marks a significant milestone in that journey, as we recognized a tremendous opportunity to influence the market by joining Operative’s strengths with ours. With more than 200 customers now looking to Operative to meet their digital advertising needs, we are well-poised to become the standard business infrastructure supporting media industry leaders of today and tomorrow.”

Earlier this month Operative launched Operative.One, the first advertising business management platform to deliver freedom from the complexities of the digital value chain by integrating all processes and systems necessary to package, sell, traffic, manage, optimize and bill ads. Operative.One provides media companies and their partners with end-to-end business transparency, resulting in a boost in operational efficiencies and reduction in transaction costs.  Resources from the combined companies will manage upgrades to Operative.One for joint clients throughout 2011. 

“Joining forces with Solbright gives us the critical mass to solidify our position within cross-platform digital advertising,” said Mike Leo, CEO and President of Operative. “This powerful combination enables Operative to truly deliver the enterprise-class infrastructure media companies require to effectively and efficiently run their business.  I am excited to work with a team of this caliber to further our commitment to enabling client success in our ever-evolving marketplace.”

The acquisition augments Operative’s current product development and client services functions with 11 years of deep domain expertise in digital advertising operations.  Solbright employees will immediately play an integral role in the continued development of Operative.One while also ensuring business continuity for existing clients.  This increased scale will benefit the combined client base through:

• Delivery of broader and deeper integrations with demand and supply-side systems
• Acceleration of Operative.One product innovation in the areas of analytics and enhanced cross-platform support
• A robust Digital Media Index that provides access to actionable insights on industry pricing and spending trends
• Enhancements to an already high level of client service and support

“As media companies depend more and more on revenue from digital advertising, solving the difficult problem of integrating the variety of platforms in the digital ecosystem becomes critical to their businesses,” said Andrew Frank, Research Vice President with Gartner’s Media research team.  “Both Operative and Solbright are strong forces in the digital advertising space, so I’m encouraged that this deal can create the kind of scale necessary to bring a comprehensive solution to the market.”

About Operative
Established in 2000, Operative (www.operative.com) is the advertising business management company that gives media industry leaders and their partners the freedom to move fast and forward with solutions that eliminate complexities within the advertising ecosystem.  Through the alignment of people, process and technology, Operative.One brings together the business processes and systems necessary to package, sell, traffic, manage, optimize and collect revenue on advertising products. More than 200 industry leaders, representing more than 30 percent of digital advertising revenue, rely on Operative, including The Wall Street Journal, MSN, Smart Money, NBC Universal and National Public Media. Operative is headquartered in New York City.

At most agencies, Ad Operations teams are typically brought in only right before a campaign’s launch date.  The media team works with the client and publishers for months to build and finalize a plan, the design team develops the creative, and only AFTER this does the Ad Operations team step in to traffic.  By bringing Ad Operations into the media planning process much earlier, you can create more robust media plans, ensure that launch dates are met, and determine a process that reduces back and forth communication.

1. Most media planning teams are focused on one or only a few clients, but Ad Ops teams typically work with a dozen or more advertisers and execute a variety of types of campaigns.  Ad Ops sees it all—different vendors, types of targeting, audience segmentation, etc.  As a planner, if you explain what kind of campaign you are looking to run and what kind of targeting you want to do, Ad Ops may be able to inform you of better ways to achieve your goals within your ad server. Leverage the experience your Ad Ops team or partner has gained from working on past clients and campaigns…it may help you build a more targeted, customized media plan.

2. Before promising your client the swift implementation of a creative or technology you haven’t worked with before, give your Ad Ops team a call.  For instance, if you are gearing up for a campaign and your client wants to use a new rich media vendor, loop in your operations team.  If Ad Ops has worked with the technology solution before, they may be able to provide feedback based on past experience; like complexity of ad trafficking, how long the implementation process might take, etc.  Working closely with your ad operations team can help you set realistic time lines that meet your needs as well as your advertiser’s.

3. Your Ad Ops team can also be a great resource for building process.  Launch dates can be delayed if information is missing or creative isn’t built correctly.  Ad Ops can help media planners develop tools like trafficking sheets, timelines, specification grids or checklists.  Sometimes simply listing what Ops will need from you (site contacts, URLs, specific trafficking instructions) beforehand will limit the back and forth communication that often delays implementation. 

As you prepare for a busy Q4, consider Ad Ops as a resource for MUCH more than just trafficking.  Don’t be afraid to get on the phone and pick your trafficker’s brain if you have an idea that you are not sure how to execute.  If you view your traffickers as partners, your campaigns and clients will benefit.

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Caitlin O’Reilly, Operations Manager, Operative

Operative provides outsourced Ad Operations for both agencies and publishers across the globe. Caitlin O’Reilly is one of Operative’s technical and tactical experts for all things Agency, providing advice to agency clients on a variety of subject matters including campaign and creative performance, troubleshooting, click tracking, reporting and rich media guidance.

Ad Operations Training

Within the Ad Ops community, the turnover of people coming in and leaving can be nonstop.  It might seem like you are always training the newbie.  Training new traffickers can be a daunting task if you approach your employees with an overload of information.  The 5 steps below are guidelines we follow at Operative, that have proved to be incredibly beneficial to traffickers, as well as our customers.

1. Set the stage for what lies ahead

Learning to traffic is like learning a new language.  And with that learning, there can be a fair amount of initial frustration.  To combat this, communicate with your new trafficker throughout the entire training. Provide clear direction.  Take things one step at a time and don’t overwhelm them.  Always encourage questions!  If they don’t feel like they can ask you questions continuously, they will develop bad habits that could negatively affect your campaigns.

2. Reinforce the need for multi-tasking

Without the ability to manage several projects at the same time, your new trafficker will feel the weight of the pressure.  At first, start them off with simple projects like QA’ing creative or setting up a single Ad in the Ad Server.  After they grow comfortable with those tasks, and you are comfortable with their progress, add levels to their trafficking and so on.  Soon enough they will be trafficking a small campaign without even realizing how much they accomplished in a short amount of time.

3. Pay attention to detail

A main component of our day-to-day work as traffickers is spent on the details of a request.  Whether the details are simply the naming convention of a creative or the specific targeting that an entire campaign needs to achieve, the attention to detail is what sets apart traffickers.  When starting out with a new trafficker, reinforce the importance of details.  Slight pressure helps the traffickers learn faster because they are more sensitive to the task at hand.

4. Plan for errors           

Hmmm…errors.  While this is a touchy subject with all traffickers, errors are inevitable and unavoidable because our job function is very hands-on and extremely manual.  The challenge is to make sure to move on after an error is made and learn from your mistakes.  Much like a quarterback in football, throwing an interception is a momentary mistake but you have to get right back up, finish the game, and not dwell on it.

5. Prepare to be ‘last in line’

Lastly, it is critical to alert your trafficker that he or she is the last person on the assembly line of implementing an ad and ensuring it delivers on the web site properly.  What we do is considered the ‘finished product’ and with that, comes the need for increased visibility and accountability.  As traffickers, we need to communicate, juggle tasks, receive instruction, give feedback, and finish the project at hand on time and without error.

Once you complete these tasks, take a step back, see how your new trafficker is doing and then get ready for that next training because there is always someone else is waiting in the wings.

For more information, please click here.

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Patrick Bevilacqua, Operations Manager, Operative

Operative provides outsourced Ad Operations for both agencies and publishers across the globe. Patrick Bevilacqua one of Operative’s senior technical and tactical experts for all things Agency, providing advice to agency clients on a verity of subject matters including campaign and creative performance, troubleshooting, click tracking, reporting and rich media guidance.

The world of creative in online advertising is constantly evolving. It seems that every month we’re reading about new types of creative that can be implemented on a publisher’s web site. While many still use plain images to do their advertising (and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that!), we are beginning to see that advertiser’s want to directly engage the user…and when they do, it leads to quantifiable results.

While Flash® is still considered ‘Rich Media’ by many, it is quickly becoming ‘standard’ creative in this day and age. Flash® ads are now so common that even as a user myself, I do not feel that it captivates my attention like many of the newer brands of creative – ads such as push-downs, interstitials, and floating ads, while sometimes annoying to the user, also present a better opportunity to capture the user’s attention.

So if you are a publisher and want to get involved in the freshest types of rich media, here are 3 things to know so that you aren’t caught off-guard by the newest creative types.

1. Rich Media Vendors are the way to go.

If you’ve yet to take a dive into the world of rich media, know that there are specialists out there whose core competency is building and serving high-end rich media. Providers such as Pointroll, Media Mind(formerly Eyeblaster) and Eyewonder specialize in this type of work, and can handle any questions you may have about rich media as well as assist you and your advertiser in the creation of your product. Operative has developed partnerships with several of these vendors as well- reach out to us if you would like an introduction!

2. Rich Media creative is served differently than standard creative.

Standard ads are served through an ad tag on your website. These ad tags contain a specific size and directly correlate to a specific position on your page. There is very little complexity here. When delving into a high-end rich media creative, the equation changes. Take a “pushdown” for instance:  This ad is meant to load as a standard ad, but when you mouse over it, it “pushes” the content of your page down as the ad expands to a greater size. To create this type of movement, the code within the ad interacts with the code on your web page, creating this action. Obviously this can be a complicated process, which leads us to…

3. There will be some frustrations!

Most publishers can attest to the struggles obtaining creative in time for an on-time campaign launch. When using rich media, the struggle may increase. As a publisher, if you know you are going to be using rich media, it is best to plan for it! Rich media creative often require extensive testing in a custom set-up test environment (make sure you have one!) before setting the creative live to your actual web page. These ads often do not work the way you expect them to on the first try, so it’s imperative to test them before launch. This, of course, means you’ll need the creative in your hands well before the launch- so make sure you plan ahead for this when scheduling campaigns and working with a creative developer!

Diving head-first into the world of rich media is an exciting step for every publisher…and can lead to increased revenue. But know that a lot of work, and often times, a lot of patience is a part of the package! All in all however, employing rich media on your site can be a tremendous benefit to both you (higher CPMs), and your advertisers (more customers)!

For more information, please click here.

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Blogged by Christopher Lane, Operations Manager

Operative provides outsourced Ad Operations for both agencies and publishers across the globe. Chris Lane is one of Operative’s senior technical and tactical experts for all things Publisher, providing advice to publisher clients on a variety of subject matters including campaign performance to troubleshooting and product optimization.