Operative Blog

For over 10 years, Operative has helped publishers of all sizes assess, select, implement and manage ad servers. We’ve also designed training, delivered technical support, and created custom reports for our clients. Along the way we’ve learned the ins and outs of the leading platforms, including DFP for Small Business, DFP Premium, ADTECH, Open AdStream (OAS), and OpenX Enterprise.

So which ad server do we recommend for your enterprise? The answer, it turns out, entirely depends of your level of experience in ad serving, your “learning curve” appetite, selling strategies and a host of other factors. To learn more, our blog editor Amy Inlow, spoke with Barnaby Edwards, one of our product managers and ad server experts, on how publishers should go about selecting an ad server that’s right for their enterprise.

Amy: Let’s start at the very beginning. What should a publisher think about when selecting an ad server?

Barnaby: The first thing you need to consider is your level of experience. Are you a start-up? Or are you an established publisher who has out-grown your current ad server? Start-ups may do fine with free ad server, such as DFP for Small Business, which offers basic targeting, standard reporting and other features to get the publisher up and running quickly and easily. But it’s just a stepping-stone to a more robust system.

Another consideration: Your future plans. Don’t select an ad server that only supports display ads if your goal is to offer video or mobile ad placement a few years down the road. Migrating all of those tags to the new server will be a complex process, especially with active and planned campaigns to accommodate.

Publishers should also take their selling strategies into account. Do they plan to sell remnant inventory via third-party exchanges? Do they want to sell premium ad bundles? Advanced targeting? Capabilities for all of these things vary from server to server.

And ease-of-use is critical. How much of a learning curve can you handle? Are you okay with a complex implementation? Or do you prefer something that’s more out-of-the-box? The more flexible the system, the better the control you have over your environment. But you’ll need a higher level skill set for running your ad server and making changes.

Amy: Let’s say I’m a publisher who’s just starting out. Which ad servers would you recommend, and why?

Barnaby: DFP for Small Business would be a good choice, especially if you’re a very small publisher who’s just beginning to sell ad space and have just a few premium deals. It’s free, simple, and basic. You can do geotargeting, time of day and placement targeting, run standard reports, and do some campaign optimization. And if you don’t have a direct sales team, its integration with AdSense will be essential to monetize your inventory. Support is a bit of a challenge however, since it’s mostly self-service.

OpenX Enterprise is also a good choice for publishers who are just starting out and want a server that will grow with them for a while. The interface is simple and its workflows are intuitive and Web 2.0 friendly. You can do geo-targeting (by longitude and latitude), retargeting, behavioral targeting, and create and sell audience segments. And it’s integrated with OpenX Market, which is an ad exchange where you can sell remnant inventory.

One of the things I really like about OpenX Enterprise is its Server-Side tagging feature, which essentially lets the publisher create and manage tag with its interface. There’s no need to muck around on the publishers website – or engage development resources – to update tags.

Forecasting is a bit of a drawback with OpenX Enterprise in that you need to build a campaign in order to see the amount of inventory you’ll have available, which is a lot of extra work.

Amy: And let’s go to the opposite extreme – which ad server is best for large publishers?

Barnaby: DFP Premium is the industry standard – and the reason why Google acquired DoubleClick. The ad server is very flexible, offers granular targeting and robust campaign optimization and forecasting capabilities. In fact, it’s designed to handle any requirement a publisher may have.

The forecasting and campaign optimization uses predictive modeling and algorithms that are unique to the publisher, and are really quite advanced. It’s the best bet for publishers who need to deliver great campaign results for their advertisers.

DFP Premium integrates with DoubleClick Ad Exchange, making it easy for publishers to sell their remnant inventory. And it supports Dynamic Optimization, which means prior to delivering an ad, ad server will look at the publisher’s guaranteed campaigns, and test what the impression will garner on the open market and sell it to the buyer with the highest CPM.

DFP Premium’s architecture is open to interpretation, which gives publishers almost unlimited flexibility as to how they categorize their inventory. Publishers go through a process of defining their sites, zones and key-values in order to sell inventory. But, this also means that the learning curve is steep, and that traffickers need a higher level of skill than they would if they were using other ad servers. So publishers really need to think about the level of resources they want to commit to their DFP ad server.

Another issue is what type of machines their ad ops team will use to access the UI. DFP supports Internet Explorer only.

Amy: What if I’m a large publisher and want something that’s more out-of-the-box?

Barnaby: There are some very good options available to you. ADTECH is a premium ad server that on the whole equals DFP Premium in terms of targeting, reporting and trafficking. ADTECH however, offers a simpler, more intuitive user interface and workflow. Its workflows are horizontal, letting you drill down on any particular asset or targeting feature of a campaign.

One of the things I personally like about ADTECH is the way campaigns are trafficked. ADTECH lets you customize the view, so if your campaign doesn’t use any key values, for instance, you can eliminate that step as your build your campaign. This saves a lot of time.

It’s forecasting is simple, but inconvenient. Like OpenX Enterprise, you first need to build a campaign and insert a line item in order to see how much inventory you have available, which is less than idea for forecasting in response to RFPs.

Amy: What if support is really important to me?

Barnaby: Most of the ad servers have a self-service model along with a general contact center for asking questions. You won’t get immediate answers to your questions. Only OpenX offers dedicated support for all its OpenX Enterprise clients.

Publishers do have other options.  Of course there are other ad servers on the market outside of the one’s described previously.  Publishers can also partner with Operative, and we can traffic, serve and manage campaigns for you.

To hear more of Barnaby’s suggestions for selecting the right ad server for your business, register for our upcoming webinar, which will take place on January 26 at noon ET.  Visit www.operative.com/adserver to register. 

About Barnaby Edwards, Product Manager, Operative

Barnaby Edwards is among our top ad serving experts here at Operative. Serving as Product Manager, he is responsible for all Operative.One integrations with ad servers, working to ensure that our software enables customers to seamlessly manage their orders in one place. He knows the ins and outs of all major ad servers, having previously worked on integrations for Donavan Data Systems. Barnaby is also a lifelong Doctor Who fan who runs a fan group in New York City, writes about the show for various fanzines and books, and volunteers at conventions nationwide.

For many publishers, extending the CRM system to incorporate the order management functions of digital ad sales seems like a good strategy (or at least an easier one than implementing a whole new system for booking campaigns). But as many publishers have learned, it’s an approach that’s filled with formidable obstacles – inability to scale, redundant data entry, and serious investments in software development – to name just a few.  To find out why CRM systems aren’t quite up to the task of managing the digital ad business, our blog editor, Amy Inlow, sat down with Geoff Petkus, Senior Director of Product Management, and asked him to share what he’s seen first-hand.

AI: Are publishers asking their CRM systems to do too much? Why?

GP: Yes. Over a 4 or 5-year period we’ve seen publishers attempt to extend their CRM system to handle their order management functions. But it’s way more than their CRM systems can handle. The digital advertising system is unique, and CRM systems are – by design – generic, since they need to support as many industries as possible.

There are many reasons why publishers have gone down this path. Most publishers with roots in traditional media already had a CRM system in place. Since digital ad sales initially only represented a small fraction of the company’s total revenue a dedicated digital order management system just didn’t seem necessary or justifiable. In addition, emerging Internet publishers often implement a CRM solution first because that is where the growing pains are first felt, plus the CRM vendors have done a good job of pitching a low barrier to entry and ultimate flexibility and customization.

AI: What are publishers discovering once they go down this path?

GP: A bunch of pain points, actually, starting with a lot of data-entry redundancy and manual errors.  Here’s why: at the very highest level, publishers have product, sales, trafficking and billing processes, which means a lot data entry is necessary to move a campaign from one process to another. A typical, multi-channel order can require as many as 10-20 data-entry redundancies moving a campaign through the CRM, ad servers, affiliate partner systems, financial systems and so on. You can see how there is a lot of room for error.

CRM companies have successfully created the perception their systems can accommodate any business requirements you have. But that’s a slippery slope. CRM systems don’t have the fields that are standard in our industry – CPM, CPC, CPD rates, targeting premiums, number of impressions – really basic stuff.  All of that requires custom configuration.

And there’s a host of other issues that will need custom-developed fixes.  Sales can’t respond to RFPs quickly if they don’t have real-time access to available inventory, so the publisher needs a custom integration with its inventory management process. And ad servers are completely different systems, which means ad ops personnel end up entering campaigns manually. And CRM systems haven’t been designed to handle the forecasting requirements that are so vital in our world.

So what publishers are finding, in a nutshell, is that the CRM-extension path necessarily entails a lot of time focusing on software development and managing its lifecycle to make-up for the CRM shortcomings.

AI: But that’s not to say CRM systems aren’t vital to publishers …

GP: Absolutely! CRM systems were designed to help companies manage the interactions with customers and prospects, and they do a very good job at those kinds of tasks. They make it easier for media companies to manage marketing and lead-generation programs, track account activity, view the revenue pipeline, and support ticket management. I see a lot of cases where publishers are spending so much time trying to get their CRM systems to do things it wasn’t meant to do, like order management, which they neglect to fully utilize the core competencies.

AI: So what do you recommend for publishers that are ramping up to enterprise-level digital ad sales?

GP: Publishers need to remember that CRM specializes in relationship management. In order to scale publishers will need to implement a more comprehensive solution that can bring their whole digital advertising value chain together. Advertising Business Management (ABM) platforms are a great solution for integrating all of their silos. These platforms provide the underlying business layer that brings together all of the people, processes and technologies required to package, sell, traffic, manage, optimize and bill ads.

AI: And the CRM plugs into that …

GP: That’s right, the CRM system plugs into the ABM platform. What’s more, all of the people throughout the organization who need access to the data that’s stored in the CRM can access it through the ABM. So for instance, finance can get deal terms to generate invoices.  In that way, the ABM actually enhances the benefits of the CRM system by making its data more available.

AI: What are some of the operational efficiencies that result from ABMs?

GP: Publishers can streamline their catalog management and media-plan building processes. In order to sell, sales teams need a catalog of sellable products, and they need a process to sell those products quickly. But with a CRM system filling in for order management, there’s a huge amount of manual effort involved. ABM systems, on the other hand, are specifically designed to handle digital media products, so a lot of that manual intervention can be eliminated right off the bat. Sales won’t need to wade through spreadsheets attempting to find ad products that match their customers’ requirements. The ABM system also integrates with the front-end systems that agencies use, which makes it easier for sales to respond to RFPs with well-built media plans.

Ad Ops execution is another area where publishers will see huge gains in efficiency. CRM systems don’t integrate with ad servers, and that introduces a wrench for ad op teams. Without an integration a spider web of manual processes evolve between the CRM and ad servers, resulting in duplicate data entry, trafficking errors, delays in campaign launch and more. But an ABM platform provides the proper infrastructure to integrate CRM with ad servers, which means all that critical data can flow smoothly and automatically.

Another system critical to the publisher: Billing. CRM systems weren’t designed for the unique ways that campaigns are sold and launched. Nor can they connect to the financial systems that the billing department uses to generate invoices. So again, a lot of manual intervention is required, which means potential errors, and slower cash flows. An ABM platform, on the other hand, spans and compiles all of the information finance needs to generate invoices.

AI: To sum up, what are some of the benefits publishers can expect to realize by integrating their CRM system with an ABM platform?

GP: In addition to the significant operational efficiencies we just mentioned, they will benefit from reduced data entry and errors, better business transparency, and lower operating costs.

Note: Operative is hosting an EXCLUSIVE webinar on this topic Thursday, October 20th at 10:00 a.m. EST, featuring guest speaker Michael Goefron, Senior Director of Ad Operations for Alloy Digital.  To register for this event, please visit www.operative.com/crmmeetabm.

  About Geoff Petkus, Senior Director of Product Management, Operative

Operative’s Monday Mashup

A compilation of interesting news, articles and stories from the prior week…

PaidContent:  AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo Seeking to Form Ad Alliance

If there is a content play here, this “alliance” may make sense.  But it seems as if there are still a lot of details to be ironed out, such as how and why a sales person – at say Microsoft – would want to sell his/her competitors (Yahoo and/or AOL) inventory?  And how much additional value will each company generate by cutting out the ad networks?  At the end of the day, brands still need to reach their target audience for the best price possible.  Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL will need to ensure they are delivering more value to the brands if this alliance is going to work.  If all three had a central “hub” they could hook into to view one another’s available inventory, in real-time, and package that inventory in a unique way that delivers more value to the brand, this concept could work.  Alignment of goals and operations will be key here!

Digiday: Mediabrands’ George on Bridging the Silicon Valley – Madison Avenue Divide

As George said, “What we’re likely to see is that clients will hold agencies to be more efficient in what they do and the smart agencies are figuring out that technology can enable that.”  We work with many agencies today and we are hearing the same thing from them – they need to improve profit margins WHILE simultaneously improving customer satisfaction.  Brands want the next big thing – the biggest and best creative – with the most relevant eyeballs.  The agencies that are able to deliver both will have also embraced technology and improved efficiencies, freeing up their creative resources to deliver the next big thing.

ClickZ:  Walmart Buys Ad Targeting Firm OneRiot

It’s no surprise that more and more e-retailers are embracing and investing in ad technology – they have the eyeballs going directly to their sites, and can enable a highly engaging and social experience for shoppers.  Walmart is creating more value for their consumers and the brands they market and sell, by taking ownership of their site “audience” and data and creating a unique shopping experience.  Watch for more e-retailers to follow suit.

MediaPost: Asian Allure: $123B Ad Spend Predicted For 2011

Operative is investing in the Asia-Pacific market as well.  We appointed a General Manager, Dean Jenkins, earlier this year to spearhead and lead business development and growth initiatives in the region.  Through the acquisition of Solbright in October 2010, Operative now estimates it manages nearly 60% of Australia’s display advertising spend. While our initial efforts will focus on Australia and Singapore, we are keeping our eye on the ever-expanding markets throughout the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. Southeast Asia is one of the fastest growing markets in the world for Internet usage. As usage increases and connectivity improves, we expect to see an increased demand for online advertising solutions. Having and developing further a local presence in the region will ensure we are able to support market growth as it unfolds.

AdExchanger: New Mediabrands CTO Wenzek Discusses The Agency and Technology Nexus

Wenzek – “When I look at the media industry, I see a lot of similarities to late 1990s to early 2000s, in the manufacturing industries, where many eTools on behalf of eBusiness were implemented. The media industry is still missing a lot of these tools and automated processes.”  Exactly – that’s what we’ve been saying for AGES now!  The media industry is missing the equivalent of enterprise resource planning (ERP) that many manufacturers began implementing in the late 1900s.  Advertising Business Management is the solution to this.  Let’s do lunch, Mr. Wenzek!

Hi all, I am Dean Jenkins, the new General Manager for Operative’s Asia-Pacific operations. I wanted to formerly introduce myself to the Operative blogosphere and tell you a little about my background and the opportunities we have within the region.

I recently joined Operative to drive and lead business development and customer support initiatives within Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. My appointment marks initial steps in Operative’s global expansion plans, as the company aims to simplify the way in which media companies around the globe operate. My responsibilities include expanding and further developing Operative’s Australia business, with a particular focus on growing existing accounts, as well as developing new business opportunities.

I bring to Operative more than 15 years of experience in the digital media industry, from Deloitte, Seek Limited, and most recently as General Manager for Sensis Media Network, a leading digital Publisher based in Melbourne, Australia. While at Sensis Media Network, I was responsible for the advertising platform, product development and growth of the network to more than 130 online and mobile sites, as well as delivery of behavioral and demographic targeting capabilities for over 14 million users across video, online and mobile inventory.

Through the acquisition of Solbright in October 2010, Operative now estimates it manages nearly 60% of Australia’s display advertising spend. With the market predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 10% over the next 4-5 years (according to Frost & Sullivan), expanding in the region makes a lot of sense from both a growth, as well as a client support standpoint.

Initially, we will focus our efforts in Australia and Singapore, while we keep our eye on ever-expanding markets throughout the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. Southeast Asia is one of the fastest growing markets in the world for Internet usage. As usage increases and connectivity improves, we expect to see an increased demand for online advertising solutions. Having and developing further a local presence in the region will ensure we are able to support market growth as it unfolds.

Since starting at Operative, I’ve enjoyed meeting and working with our local clients, including Cricket Australia and REA Media, both of whom were generous enough to participate in today’s press announcement. Clients are expressing a desire and need to simplify their advertising operations in this market, just as they are in the US and Europe. Complexities exist throughout the digital advertising ecosystem on a global basis – and now Operative can help media companies solve them – on a global basis.

I am heading to AdMonster’s Singapore tomorrow, to meet with both new and existing clients alike. If you are planning to be there, please drop me a line at djenkins@operative.com and we can schedule a time to connect.

Cheers! Dean

Operative attended the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting last week in Palm Springs, CA.  It was a great event and we enjoyed some thought-provoking conversations on the topic of data.  Afterall, the theme of this year’s event was people v. data. 

 Who owns the data?  How do we leverage it to offer better, more targeted products to advertisers?  How will it further transform our industry and the way consumers interact with brands?  And more…

In my personal conversations with several executives, a consistent theme emerged – that it’s difficult to run a business profitably in this fragmented, data-driven environment and nearly impossible to master inventory.  Many told me that they are losing sleep knowing that their business may not be optimized for maximum success. 

On the supply side of the equation, there is a ton of innovation that needs to be embraced, coming from companies such as Blue Kai, AppNexus, OpenX, Doubleclick and Freewheel.  These are best-in-breed players and, in some cases, tickets to the game.   On the other side of the equation are new demand-side solutions, creating a whole new dynamic and data situation. 

 As mentioned in my introduction to ‘The Greate Debate’ last Tuesday, if it were easier to integrate with the ecosystem that surrounds us, perhaps we could all sleep more soundly.  Let’s face it — we need to all just get along. 

 Media companies are at a crossroad, they either innovate or, dare I say, stop growing (and yes, it is that extreme).  Major Banks are creating new ‘media & technology’ groups to capitalize on the anticipated M&A activity that is about to take off.  Remaining a media leader means finding a way to capitalize on the new opportunities presented by all of this digital innovation. Otherwise, former leaders will likely end up a case study in some future business school course.

It’s not just the demand for data that has brought us to this crossroad, nor is it pitting the people against data.   It has much to do with our long-standing systems and processes for doing business – how we operate and function on a daily basis. This, too, must evolve. 

It’s true, for the last 15 years, the industry has seen massive amounts of digital innovation leading to severe fragmentation, but if we look inside the walls of our own businesses, we’ll find fragmentation exists there as well – within and amongst our critical advertising teams as they continue to work in silos – unable to communicate effectively or efficiently.  We have created a classic supply chain management issue for ourselves that is now holding us back from capitalizing on all the innovation around us. 

If media companies were able to get their operational house in order – the walls “inside” our own businesses – they could more effectively harness and channel the innovation occurring within the exterior spaces around us.  Publishers would have the time and resources to aggregate their data, separate it from its native production system, and place it in the hands of the business in the form of new inventory and product.  They would have more balance and new sources of revenue with which to compete, as opposed to sitting on the sidelines continuing to play defensive blocking and tackling. 

So how do we better manage our businesses – the walls within – in order to harness the power of innovation and help us sleep better at night?  The answer or solution is simple:  an end-to-end advertising business management platform that brings together both supply-side and demand-side systems, processes and people.  With greater cross-organization transparency into the operations, your business will be free to explore the realms and possibilities available through and from innovation.  Enabling our own internal processes and people to “get along” will enable us to then “get along” with the greater digital advertising ecosystem. 

Can’t we all just get along?

David Kaplan

Online ad management provider Operative Media has raised a $10 million funding round from ORIX Venture Finance and a private investment firm, as the company looks to expand its international presence. The company plans to make a series of “sales talent acquisition” moves throughout North America, the UK, Australia and Brazil over the next few months.

The funding follows the recent Solbright acquisition and launch of Operative.One and will support further growth and expansion initiatives. Secondly, Operative will also use the new capital to enhance its offerings to both supply side platforms (in other words, publishers) and demand side platforms (agency trading desks and their intermediaries).

“Ten years ago, Operative was an advertising services company, then we became a product company, and now, we’re a platform company,” said Operative CEO Mike Leo in an interview with paidContent. “We don’t compete with anybody and we’re platform agnostic. We don’t ever want to be an ad network. We serve agencies, publishers and networks.”

The premise of Operative’s services is to make transaction costs lower. Along with the lack of a standard metric, that’s the primary cause for the gap between offline and online ad spending, Leo said. “The biggest challenge is that everyone is working in production systems and this is a space that has been utterly disrupted. Companies are spending 30 percent of their revenue on transaction costs. The question we hear from our prospects is how do you reduce those costs to between 5- and 10 percent. It’s the reason why agencies don’t spend more on digital. And we aim to solve that.”

As part of the evolution of Operative into a “platform services” company, in October, it launched Operative.One, which integrates all the processes and systems necessary to package, sell, traffic, manage, optimize and bill ads. After that, Operative bought Solbright, which was its main competitor, as a bid to increase its marketshare. As a result of that deal, Operative now claims to have 30 percent of US digital ad spend running, 50 percent of the top 50 online publishers which includes 60 percent of the Australian online publisher market.

The company will likely look for additional funding in the latter half of next year to help support larger acquisition plans.

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.

Successful campaign management is essential to generating current and future revenue for all publishers, large and small. Fulfilling the terms of your contract(s) with the advertiser will ensure you have a shot at the total media buy and develop good standing for future IO’s. In addition to full delivery, reaching or exceeding the advertiser’s expected performance metrics will improve the chances of winning recurring revenue with the advertiser. Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions and poor habits in online advertising that lead publishers to ruin their campaigns — sometimes before they even begin. Through many years of experience, the Operative Managed Services team has developed numerous time-tested pre and post-sale campaign management strategies which, if used correctly, can guarantee the successful delivery of all online campaigns.

Many times a campaign is destined to fail even before it begins. There are a few main causes for this situation. One reason is that a website can be improperly tagged and whoever is responsible for determining available inventory simply is not aware of this. Many times it is the sales team’s responsibility to determine available inventory and it is very likely that the sales team has no idea how to validate the tags in a particular section of the site. For example, it’s possible that the section listed in a RFP is Entertainment, but in actuality the Entertainment section on the site includes tags for the homepage. In this case availability may be extremely understated and the campaign will not even deliver to the intended sections, which could lead the advertiser to cancel the IO. Another more common pre-sale problem is overselling the site. Overselling often is the result of numerous sales people selling the same product at the same time. If there is no real-time central record of what has been booked, it is very likely that two different sales people could book a large campaign for the same product for the same run dates. Many times this isn’t recognized until it is too late and when it’s impossible to recover from the mistake. In order to prevent overselling Operative has developed an Advertising Revenue Management (ARM) software solution called Dashboard, which acts as a real-time central record of total and booked inventory enabling all sales people to have accurate inventory avails along with other invaluable information about their campaigns at their fingertips.

Once a website has been overbooked it is the job of the campaign manager to try and resolve the predicament. Campaign managers often believe that adjusting the priorities of the campaigns will resolve the issue, but making these adjustments can begin an endless cycle of priority modifications which ultimately do not solve anything. To explain further, imagine an overbooked website with one campaign that has a higher CPM than the rest. A campaign manager will typically set this campaign to ‘priority one.’ After this increase in priority is made the priority one campaign may begin to perform well and ultimately deliver in full, but the other lower CPM campaigns will continue to under deliver simply because there is not enough inventory. Many times the campaign manager will begin to increase the priority of the lower CPM campaigns thinking they will experience the same improvement, but this is the beginning of the cycle which could eventually result in all campaigns being prioritized at the same level. Making these so-called “optimizations” can effectively undermine the usefulness of the ad server’s pacing algorithm and result in multiple under delivered campaigns.

A successful campaign begins with accurate inventory availability forecasting. In order to accurately assess inventory it is essential that the website is tagged properly and that there is a real-time central record of total and booked inventory. If inventory is assessed properly then overbooking should be avoided; however, this is often not the case and the following post sale campaign management solutions should be considered if the advertiser will permit the change.

• If there is inventory available for another ad size, then reallocate impressions to this ad size
• If the campaign is targeted to a specific portion of the site, then open the targeting to additional similar content or even ROS
• If the campaign is geo-targeted, then open the campaign to more geographical regions
• Extend the end date of the campaign
• Increase traffic using house ads, which redirect to the targeted areas of the site
• Increase marketing spend to drive more traffic to the site

Prioritization should typically be avoided if you are not an expert in deciphering the complicated algorithms used by various ad servers (virtually all of them are proprietary and shrouded in a veil of ambiguity and secrecy), but can be used if done correctly. This approach should only be used if there is one ad under-delivering for a particular ad size per target. Again this approach will not work if a section of the site has been oversold. Instead try using the suggested solutions above and let the ad server do its job, which is to pace the campaigns according to On-Schedule Indicator’s (OSI) and end dates. Another option, which should only be used if necessary, is to change the ad types to “Sponsorship” or set the ads to deliver “As Fast As Possible” (DFP). These solutions must be monitored very carefully because they could easily cause over delivery and eat away at precious inventory that could be allocated to other campaigns.

Likewise, there are other campaign performance techniques that can be executed during the life of a campaign. The following methods can be used to improve click through rates (CTR’s) as well as other performance metrics.

• Generate reports to determine the best performing sections of the site and direct more traffic to these sections of the site. Tools like DART Adapt and others can be a good technological aid.
• Target banner positions above the fold, which are seen by the user more frequently than the banners below the fold. This can reduce wasted impressions and improve CTR’s.
• Implement frequency caps – large numbers of the same ad displayed to the same user do not necessarily correlate to higher CTR’s. Reducing overall impressions potentially results in lower cost and higher CTR (Clicks/Impressions).

If used properly together, these pre and post sale campaign management techniques can greatly reduce the likelihood that campaigns will under deliver. It almost goes without saying that successful delivery of all campaigns is critical to gaining and keeping the goodwill of advertisers. Techniques that depend upon endless cycles of reprioritization are rarely effective. On the contrary, they are usually counterproductive, resulting in digging the grave of poor performance across the entire site even deeper.

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Blogged by Matthew Collins

Matthew Collins is an Operations Manager in Operative’s Managed Services group. Matthew manages one of our crack teams of enthusiastic online pros responsible for providing trafficking, campaign management and best practice recommendations to a wide variety of publisher clients.