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.

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

The end of a decade.  A time for prediction, review and a double dose of ‘best of’ lists.   So, let’s think… just what does the future hold?

Well, Spain will win the World Cup.  In the UK, Conservatives will win the General Election.  And, according to this Government commissioned report, we’re set for fewer butchers but more prosthetic limbs.

As for the Online Advertising world, it seems as if just about everyone has thrown their hat into the ring.  There was one announcement which caught my eye in Q4 I which feel might impact in 2010.  Google announced a new tool for advertisers called ‘Insights’.  This analytics suite is similar to Atlas’ own ‘Engagement Mapping’ tool and helps measure the effectiveness of display campaigns by examining the entire conversion funnel. This technology hasn’t quite hit its stride, so if you’ve not encountered this as yet: It’s time for a quick primer.  A ‘review’ if you will.

Since the online equivalent of the big-bang, the capacity for advertising on the internet has expanded into some boundless ether.  This constant state of change means that the cost of online ad space has also had to evolve.

Now there are a vast number of variables that determine the price of this inventory.  But despite what an Ad Sales Executive might tell you, this price is ultimately driven by the bar graphs on the advertiser’s report.  As the old adage goes – “It’s only worth what someone is willing to pay”.

The early adoption of buying a number of ad impressions (CPM) proved to be self-defeating in some respects.  As more web pages appeared online, advertisers witnessed diminishing returns and demanded more proof that campaigns were performing.  Establishing a cost model based on the numbers of user clicks (CPC) helps to validate an ROI.  But whilst this kept the acronym fanboys happy, it also raises as many questions as it answers.  Essentially this amounted to a glut of resellers tripping over themselves to get to the front of the queue to register your click and take your order online.  Cue the rise and rise of Search Engine Marketing (read: Google).

Post-click tracking has helped advertisers validate these clicks by identifying (anonymously of course) which users actually ‘converted’ e.g. went on to buy a book, sign up for the newsletter etc.  Here we can see a real correlation between the ad and the sale.  As a result online inventory is now commonly sold on a CPA basis (cost per action) i.e. a website will display your banners ‘for free’ but will take a payment based on resulting sales performance.  CPA deals represent a guaranteed return for your advertising budget.  Everyone’s happy right? <shakes head>.

This pricing scenario has thrown up its own unique conundrum.  When an online ad campaign appears across several websites, it’s possible that a user may see, or click the ad more than once.  Now should the user ‘convert’ (i.e. make the jump from clicking an ad to purchasing a product) which website should take payment for a successful sale?

Currently the general consensus is as follows: A successful sale will be acknowledged to the last / most recent click as this is assumed to be the most valid.

This ‘last click’ methodology is flawed as it ignores user engagement.  A user could see a banner displaying a ‘half price sale’ promotion on 5 different occasions – each in premium positions across several publisher sites.  It’s possible the promotional message has successfully registered with the user via highly interactive rich media ads.  If / when they decide it’s time to make a purchase, what do they do?  What would you do?  Well it’s pretty common to ‘google’ the advertiser’s website and purchase.  Payment for the conversion is therefore collected by Google/the reseller and not the websites who originally displayed the ads.

These new tools help calculate the value of all media exposure, allowing marketers to uncover deeper insights into each touch point.  Thus potentially giving credit (and by that I mean payment, not just a smile and nod) to the publishers displaying the ads.  Given that the analysis of user engagement is a complicated one, there will be no simple replacement for the ‘last click’ methodology.  I don’t expect Publishers/Advertisers/IAB to unanimously agree a ‘one-size fits all’ solution – but it does arm advertisers and agencies with more information to make purchasing decisions, and ultimately this will reflect in the price of the ad space.

So that’s it, a prediction, a review… I don’t have a ‘best of’ list.  There are too many of them anyway (but if I did Mamma Mia wouldn’t be anywhere near it!).

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Blogged by Jonathan Hall

Operative provides outsourced Ad Operations not only for publishers, but for a number of major Agencies across the globe. Jonathan Hall is one of Operative’s senior technical experts for all things Agency, providing advice to agency clients on a variety of subject matters including campaign planning and execution to report generation and troubleshooting.

Thanks to RJ Lewis’s post on Friday of last week, I found an awesome video.

Last week at the WPP/24/7 Real Media Summit in NYC, they kicked off the conference with a 9 minute video parodying the death of traditional media.  Sir Martin Sorrell clearly focusing the company on digital media suggesting that they currently spend 12% on digital media but that will increase dramatically.

This video is worth a watch, especially if you buy or sell digital media.  Thanks RJ!

Lorne

From:  E-HeathCareSolutions

…they could all force publishers to change the way they sell and operate in the near future.

Have you ever had one of those digital media moments where you thought, “cmon, really?!”  Well, on Monday morning I attended Digiday at the W Hotel in NYC and for a moment, thought exactly that… for a minute.  I think it was brought up numerous times that it’s no longer appropriate to call your inventory sold and unsold, but more like ‘reserved and non-reserved’ as Darren Herman put it.  I thought to myself, hmmm, ok, let’s go with that…it sounds better than remnant for sure…but then later that day, it was then proclaimed ‘premium and sub-premium’…I guess because ‘non-premium’ sounds too much like a fake Louis Vuitton handbag sold on 5th Avenue next to the hot dog vendor – you might buy one, but you’ll feel a little icky after.

Believe it or not, all this renaming and debating over what to call unused inventory went on all morning.  All of a sudden, these silly proclamations started to make me think.  If people are spending all this effort debating over what a specific category is called, there must be a disturbance in the force; the growth of this ‘sub-premium’ inventory is growing exponentially.  Jason Kelly from Time, Inc agrees that with “…the growth of  Twitter and other social media, non-premium inventory is growing at a rapid pace, which also means finding premium inventory is getting harder.”  He also added that “non premium display has great opportunity for growth.” 

So as sub-premium inventory grows at such a rapid pace, the dynamic of how advertisers interact with consumers is changes along with it. 

French children are told a story in which they imagine having a pond with water lily leaves floating on the surface.  The lily population doubles in size every day and, if left unchecked, will smother the pond in 30 days, killing all the other living things in the water.  Could the growth of sub-premium inventory threaten publishers ability to compete in the future?  The answer is yes - if you don’t take action.  Here are some thoughts on how agencies are looking to innovate and some action items publishers can take to keep competitive in this newly evolving landscape.

1. Agencies are Buying Audience:  You may say, “duh” to that, but with all the impressions available on the Internet,  coupled with new technologies, there are more and more ways for agencies to buy audiences.  Darren Herman, who runs digital media at the Media Kitchen and is also President of Varick Media Management, talked about their own data initiatives and is working with 27 different data providers to mine data for audience segments. 

2. I also traded some emails with Steve Katelman from OMD and when I asked him what the next big initiatives were for agencies, he said “It’s all about audiences and the evolution of real time bidding.”  These activities signal that agencies are pushing the envelope and taking media buying to the next level since brands are getting smarter about which agencies they work with. 

3. To make things even more interesting, GroupM decided to go against the IAB initiatives for Ts and Cs by claiming ownership of data it collects.  According to GroupM’s COO, John Montgomery, this is a way to “…protect the confidentiality of our clients’ campaign data and information.”  One does wonder if this becomes a trend, how it could create a dynamic  of publishers competing against their own customers OR new price pressures down the road.

So now what?

As a publisher, you need to start to understand your audience.  Quantcast is  great way to take a first step at understanding the segments you can offer – but that won’t be enough.  Taking action on that data and integrating it into your product catalog so it’s easily findable by your ad sales team, will ensure you are ready to sell the way agencies want to buy. Now, that’scompetitive advantage.  This was echoed at Digiday by Janet Balis, President of Digital Media Strategies, who spoke on the importance of, at the very least, keeping an up to date “product catalog and sound inventory management strategy” as the industry looks towards more advanced ways to reach consumers.

Industry vet and pal of mine, Nick Johnson from NBCU mentioned that “mining data and looking for specific audience segments is a big focus for us…we are in the business of unlocking data to create value for our clients and their clients.”  In order to do this, Nick added, “You need to operate more efficiently and look for places in your business that don’t scale and fix them.”  If you want to elevate your game, you need to fix the basic data fragmentation issues in order to solve for the future.

Even if you can get your house in order for this audience revolution, there is still a miss-match in terms of how you set up your resources.  Currently, “50% of ad ops time is focused on 15% of the revenue,” says Josh Wetzelfrom Pubmatic.  Basically, this means that in addition to getting your data in order, you may have to find ways to free up your ad ops resources to stay focused on big ticket integrations and less on the more repeatable, low CPM, ‘sub-premium’ tasks.

I look forward to your comments.

Lorne