Operative Blog

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.

Did you miss DPAC on June 24 at the Millennium Hotel? Are you interested in some of the results of the Operative and DM2PRO State of the Industry survey? Do you want a sneak peak into Operative.One?

No problem.

Download the Operative presentation by clicking on the below link. 

Operative at DPAC Conference_6-24-10

Also, for access to our white paper, State of the Industry: Digital Operations, CLICK HERE. Read more…

A lot of time is spent online, but we do not know exactly when and where.  Traditional information is moving from offline to online. 

Advertising models have not kept up with these changes.  Page views, impressions, friends, Tweets, buzz, uniques, etc are all ways in which people are buying media.   The Olympics has AS MANY mobile users as there are TV viewers!  The money in digital clearly has not caught up- 30% of time is spent online and 16% of the ad dollars are spent online. 

Why has ad spend not caught up?

It’s simple.  The ad buying process for online is VERY difficult.   There are roughly 30 steps to buying a single ad impression (ie: from RFP’s sent out, to email changes, to ad tag generation and testing and implementation….all of these tasks effect the marketplace).   And, for online video, standards are very different.  

7 predictions

1. Inventory should be frictionless.  is critical to success.  Marketers want to spend more time on creativity and less on paperwork.   28% of the costs for selling, executing and billing an online ad go to administrative work.  We need to do better.

2.  We could increase our revenue from gleaning better insights.  If the publisher had a more knowledge about the inventory, they could get a higher value.  It would also provide greater analysis for running the business. 

3.  More revenue from sophisticated yield management.  “If you are managing yield in an excel sheet, or managing it away from the ad server, you are losing money.”  If for example Michael Jackson’s death causes a spike, it should be sold at auction.

4. There are 1000′s of display advertisers.  Make it easier to create an online ad.  A site like www.issuu.com is a great example of self service ad creation. 

5. Have the perfect ad for your users.  Quality targeting makes for a quality experience. 

6.  Syndication is critical to having more people see your content.  It is not about having more content or page views.  It is about more premium content that lures advertisers.  Better syndication is critical for everyone. 

7.  Every campaign will have desktop, mobile and social elements.  Social does not mean Facebook, it is a mind set more than anything else. 

Innovation and implementation will lead to online advertising success.

For more information, please click here.

Bryan Wiener , CEO, 360I

Bryan is convinced that we are in the golden age of needing an agency for these 3 reasons:  

1. Consumers are in control

2. Content is everywhere

3. Innovation is critical

Yes, the current agency model is broken, but it can be fixed to become more relevant than ever before.  Currently, agencies (as a whole) are not servicing the client or the consumer in a relevant manner.  Think about this- 25k Tweets are sent out in 10 minutes and they are all about products and brands.  This consumer control is unprecedented.  Today, advertising is evolving from an interruption to providing more value and engagement.  Everyone in interactive advertising has to work together to create increased value. 

One major problem is the agency holding company structure.   Most traditional agencies are smart and well mannered, but the structure and compensation does not fit with today’s market.  The problem right now is the struggle between full service agencies and specialized agencies.  Too many agencies leads to chaos. 

3 ideas. 

1. The best defense is a good offense.  Allow consumers to be part of the brand.  Consumers are affecting brand reputations every day.  “A brand is what they say about you when you are NOT in the room.”  We can no longer protect our brand like we used to.  One person can change the vision of our brand, so as marketers, we need to allow the consumer to become one with the brand.

2. Committed relationships and not one night stand.   The wedding is not the end game.  We need to have continuous conversations to build a brand, not just one campaign.   If a brand represents a transaction, you are in trouble.  Any agency that wants to add value must foster relationship. 

3. The agency of the future needs the marketer of the future.  Both sides must help each other gain success.   If agencies want to radically impact the ecosystem, it will change the way marketers work. 

All of this brings us to the agency of the future.  It is all about the client needs.  The model with the most success does not exist today.  We should worry less about being the lead agency and more about the dream agency. 

The agency of the future will need to cultivate a core skill-set in order to win:

1. Excel at using the internet as a focus group.

2.  Search, social and mobile must be core.

3. Agencies must be willing to be platform agnostic.

Digital agencies are going to be extinct if nothing changes.  If you don’t like change, you are going to like irrelevance if even less.

For more information, please click here.

That seems to be the latest measurement buzz word.  Now…let me ask in a different way. 

Can your Ad Sales and Ad Ops teams scale to achieve the NEW technical demands of media buyers?

In 2010, digital publishers in the US and Europe that are not a top 20 site in their market, will leave more than $500,000,000 of ad revenue on the table.  In fact, if you divide that number into the top 300 publishers on the internet, that’s $1,600,000 per publisher.  Most of that money will go to the big publishers who can get the job done…the ones that can easily execute complicated marketing programs because they have the staff, systems and processes to support them.

In the last 6 months, custom integrations and specialized marketing programs have been in high demand. This has not only become a trendy ad buy in the US, but even more so in the UK because of the market’s ability to be more progressive than most on the creative side.  The end goal is the same- create ‘engagement’ with the consumer. 

For those who don’t know what a custom integration is, don’t worry, you’re not alone.  In fact, these were less than 1% of all digital ad spend only 1 year ago.  Custom integration are media buys that typically come from an agency who is looking for the “big idea” or from a brand/marketer who wants to really create engagement with the consumer.  Things like micro sites, custom video and social media widgets are all non-traditional ways to create engagement with the consumer…a way to be PART of the conversation, not an interrupter.  The first successful custom integration I can remember was a few years ago when you were able to “Friend the King” as a MySpace user to earn points. 

So, OK…big deal right?  How does that lose me $1,600,000 this year?  Well, if you want to offer custom programs, you need to have a certain type of infrastructure to be able to support them.  Most publishers do not have scalable teams or borrowed resources to help execute these types of buys.  In the first 6 months of 2009, almost $1.4B was spent on rich media, digital video, and sponsorship display-related advertising, and according to eMarketer, well over $1B is expected to be spent on social marketing this year. $500MM across digital sounds very reasonable. 

So, what does this mean for the digital publisher?

Challenges for Ad Sales Teams

Sales people are not experienced enough to sell these types of deals.  These buys usually come with a big ticket price and involve multiple decision-makers to sign off.  It also takes an enterprise level seller and a bit of solutioning to pull it off.

Most digital sellers (not all) who started in digital media typically start out as Sales Planners or Sales Assistant roles. This basically means completing RFPs and taking orders from agencies as a full time job.  You can develop poor habits this way.  This is much different than starting your sales career selling traditional media or other “feet on the street” Sales jobs that require you to hunt for your dinner to make a dime. 

Challenges for Ad Ops and Technology Teams

This part of your Operations isn’t the easiest thing to scale.  It’s hard to predict customer programs and big effort integrations because of the nature of the sale.  These deals can be asked for in a week’s notice (sometimes days) and this puts a lot of pressure on the Ad Ops team.  Custom integration deals can also take months to close due to complexity, so it’s hard to staff for something that “may” be coming soon.

If you don’t have a dedicated team for creative development, you are likely borrowing from other resources.  If that’s the case, there’s no way you can keep up with the demands in the market for these types of buys.  Furthermore, these borrowed resources don’t feel part of the sale.  They are oftentimes being dictated to by Sales people- a sure recipe for disaster.

Keep in mind, this isn’t your typical trafficking request either. Creating these types of ads requires multiple custom developers, project and vendor managers to get the ads live.  These buys take valuable resource time away from other high priority work that needs to get done, putting other campaigns and revenue at risk.

What can you do about all this???  Glad you asked. 

Over the last 3 week, I pooled together some ideas that came from other Sales/Ad Ops Executives in the US and UK. 

If you’re a CRO/EVP/VP of Sales, start looking for enterprise level talent.  You can’t win a complex deal with the same resources as you did a year ago.  This is the type and caliber of sales person that can get to the advertiser or brand, convincing the agency to make a direct introduction.

Move the custom development and key technical resources to the sales department.  It’s just like having Sales Engineers for Sales people at an enterprise software company.  They are involved in the sale from the beginning.  This will result in fewer issues when it comes time to getting the ad up since it was properly scoped from the get go.

Ad Ops needs to create a check and balance system to approve the ads before they are sold and QA them before they go live.  The role of campaign management would then be owned by Ad Ops. 

Free up those key trafficking resources that are very technical, either by automating parts of the process or partnering with another company to provide you ad ops services in your local time zone.

Get your sales forecasting process tight.  If you use Salesforce.com, get your ‘opportunities’ for these types of deals in sync with your booking system.  This will give Ad Ops longer lead times since the opportunity will start in Salesforce.com, and not when the order is about to come in.  It will also give sales a more accurate forecast report since your booking system automatically updates your pipeline in Salesforce.

Want to ask me a question?  Post a comment or email me at lbrown@operative.com

In the Operative-sponsored Industry Participant Breakfast on Monday morning at the iMedia Agency Summitin Scottsdale, Arizona, three Senior Sales Executives sat on a panel to discuss ways to drive digital advertising revenue in 2010.  Participants included:

Moderator:     Mike Leo, CEO and President, Operative

Panel:

• Cheryl Lucanegro, SVP Advertising Sales, Pandora
• Tom O’Regan, SVP Advertising Sales, The Street.com
• Andrew Snyder, Chief Revenue Officer, Associated Content

How do you make it easier for an agency to buy from you?

According to Tom O’Regan from The Street.com, highlighting the value of sponsorships versus impressions will help them better interact with buyers.  Once an agency puts your brand in the ‘direct response’ bucket, the potential for revenue opportunity becomes obsolete. Pricing must be a combination of efficiency AND value.  The cost of doing business in digital advertising comes down to the Ad Operations team, and a focused, well-oiled Ad Ops team  is a true asset. 

Andrew Snyder of Associated Content said, “We’ve never heard an agency say ‘I want to work with you because you are cheaper than your competitors’. In reality, the agency is looking for performance measurement of some sort. You need to create the perception that your property drives results.” 

Cheryl Lucanegro of Pandora emphasized that being ‘easy to do business with’ runs from sales to ad ops and even to finance. The integration and alignment of these functions are critical to a publishers ability to develop long term relationships with buyers.

Mike Leo then asked the room of 80+ publishers, “How many people think that NOT being easy to work with negatively affects revenue?”  Most of the room said yes. 

A few years ago, hiring more salespeople was easy. Measuring their results has been very difficult in the past.  What are you doing today to gain more knowledge?

Cheryl said that Pandora uses Salesforce to track most of the revenue. She has 3 different sales teams selling 3 different products.

Tom’s focused on creating more dashboards to be able to see his work in a different and more descriptive manner. 

Andrewis going through the data flow right now, and trying to figure out how to gain transparency and present the information more effectively. Sales Reps could use a lot more insight as far history, close rates, etc.  Visibility into these metrics can only HELP drive positive results and behavior.

For more coverage on the iMedia Agency Summit, who attended, what trends to look out for in 2010, check out the event website. 

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…