Author Archives: dwintz1

In 2006 I wrote an article, outlining the challenges and benefits of utilizing behavioral targeting from the ad ops perspective. 

Recapping the piece, I started by saying:

“Whenever an ad technology comes along promising to attract new advertisers and higher CPMs, sales divisions begin to listen. If it claims to increase the supply of high value inventory, they listen a little bit more. When the technology actually begins to show up increasingly on RFPs it makes the leap from gimmick to serious consideration. Having reached this stage of serious consideration, ad operations is called in to evaluate the product and assess its value.”

Furthermore I discussed what a BT segment is, how to calculate its potential value, and how to manage the segments in the context of other ad inventory. Of course, there are challenges too….

With all the demands on inventory management ranging from demographic targeting to rich media to high sell-through of targeted areas, those of us in ad operations may feel that the last thing we need is to add more complexity to this matrix. It just makes us worry more. (Why can’t we just turn off the lights at 6 PM and head home?!)

In the end, because of demand, the potential value, and in spite of the challenges, BT was a technology worth leveraging:

“…..the indications are that this technique may be a useful part of your arsenal in ad operations. It may not be guaranteed to double your Mojo, but it’s no Doctor Evil, either.”

So yeah, looking back in time and in comparison, this looks like the good old days, when all we had to worry about in inventory management was calculating overlap for behavioral segments and third-party agency ad servers. How naïve can you get!?

Today (sigh) there is so much more to worry about. It’s not just about managing discrepancies between GAM and DCM, but between MOAT, DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Sciences  and other third party management firms. And don’t get me started on audience- based measurement. More than one broadcasting company has offered up a demo guarantee based on “seat of the pants” calculation, only to have a third party like ComScore or Nielsen say “your demo guarantee is off by X%”.

I’m going to give myself a grade of C on my initial article in 2006, if only because I was whining about the difficulties of managing behavioral targeting and inventory, when the challenge is exponentially more difficult today in 2020.

What does this say about the future? We’re in for bumpy ride. Continued disputes about demo targeting will persist. Now that we are getting into addressable inventory with video DAI, estimating inventory and managing delivery across multiple end points will be even more important. Companies that don’t already have an inventory analyst focused on discrepancies will hire them. Organizations will attempt to write policy to manage this process too, and who knows what additional technology will created over the next 14 years?

I’m marking my calendar for 2034, and I’ll make sure to provide you all with any update.

(Psyche!)

BT from the Ad Operations Perspective (Originally published for iMedia Connection 2/24/06)

Whenever an ad technology comes along promising to attract new advertisers and higher CPMs, sales divisions begin to listen. If it claims to increase the supply of high value inventory, they listen a little bit more. When the technology actually begins to show up increasingly on RFPs it makes the leap from gimmick to serious consideration. Having reached this stage of serious consideration, ad operations is called in to evaluate the product and assess its value. 

A lot has been written about behavioral targeting of late, and plenty of it in this publication. Having been involved with at least three companies in the consideration or implementation of the technology there are some interesting challenges as well as benefits from the ad operations standpoint. So hopefully this article will add some new dimension of interest from that perspective– and will reveal aspects of behavioral targeting not often brought to the surface.

Create a segment, watch what happens

First, so we don’t create any international incidents here, let me state what most of us in the business already know: behavioral targeting is based on anonymous information. We only know what groups or “segments” do– not who they are.

That being said, when you create a segment in behavioral targeting (for example, viewers of SUV product info who have looked at 10 content pages in the last two weeks) there is an interesting side benefit that goes beyond just serving it an ad. You can view where and how frequently the segment traverses other areas of your site, and that gives you a more complete picture of their profile as a user. It might interest you to know that out of the 600,000 pages viewed by people in this SUV segment, 50,000 page views were generated when they looked at content related to recreational road trips, 50,000 in local weather, 50,000 in motorsports, 100,000 in run of site (RON) pages, and the balance generated in pages devoted to SUV product information. So now you know that this group of SUV enthusiasts has other interests that take them to various areas of your site. This has implications both in making decisions on developing new content, new ad products and sponsorship opportunities.

Sounds like site analytics, you say? Well, yeah. In deploying behavioral targeting, you may even be using the same pixel as your site analytics product. What’s the difference? In this case, it’s your immediate accessibility to information not often in the control of ad operations. It’s the speed with which the information can be obtained (24 hours) and it’s the flexibility to create measurable segments on the fly. It can also help with managing inventory.

Impact on Inventory

With all the demands on inventory management ranging from demographic targeting to rich media to high sell-through of targeted areas, those of us in ad operations may feel that the last thing we need to add more complexity to this matrix. It just makes us worry more. (Why can’t we just turn off the lights at 6 PM and head home?!)

To reduce the complexity, I’m an advocate of creating the equivalent of “no-fly zones” in inventory. By that I mean exclude your most valuable content from behavioral targeting. You obviously don’t want to muck up inventory in those areas and cause under-delivery. Focus instead on RON or remnant inventory for the targeting of behavioral segments. Remember the SUV segment? Calculate how many page views they generate when they’re wandering through RON (which could include message boards, miscellaneous content, etc). Then, estimate the resulting ad impressions and use that as your behavioral inventory. Call it “premium remnant” if you want. But if the result is to significantly raise the effective CPM of your remnant inventory– this becomes a winner of a product.

What’s the Incremental Value?

Don’t look to behavioral companies to help define the value of this targeting product for your site. The truth is, only you know the intricacies of your site, your inventory, your content and the level of demand for the product.

In terms of finding the potential value, take a look at your RON (run of network) and remnant inventory. Here’s a sample equation for discovering the potential value for site “X”:

• Your site has RON/remnant inventory consisting of 50 million ad impressions
• The CPM of that inventory is $1.00, with a resulting $50,000 in media revenue
• Targeted content on the site sells for $10 per CPM
• Behavioral targeting can be sold for 75 percent of that, or $7.50 CPM
• Convert 20 percent of your RON inventory (10 million impressions) to behavioral
• The resulting media value from the 10 million impressions is $75,000
• You still have 40 million RON/remnant impressions left at $1.00 CPM, or $40,000
• Now, the total value of your RON/remnant inventory is $115,000 with an effective CPM of $2.30, more than double what you started with.

Granted, your site may or may not fit this profile and behavioral may or may not be a slam dunk for you. Like the disclaimers say, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results,” “See your doctor if there are persistent headaches or cramps” and “Keep away from small children.”

But the indications are that this technique may be a useful part of your arsenal in ad operations.

It may not be guaranteed to double your Mojo, but it’s no Doctor Evil, either.

“Burn Out in Ad Operations” was written 15 years ago. In it, I bemoaned the fact that ad traffickers were over-worked and under-appreciated. At the time, the article really hit a nerve, and it was clear from the many responses that this group of talented individuals was hurting and wanted recognition. Does this still apply today as it did 15 years ago?

In the 2005 article, I said that this was a group that deserved more respect:

“By far, the most over worked, under-appreciated, misunderstood resource in any online company is the ad trafficker. This is a job that can transform the most intelligent, rational, motivated and conscientious individual into a high-strung, irritable, error-prone employee. And THIS is the individual who is responsible for taking every bit of revenue your sales group generates and making sure it delivers as promised, on time, with accurate reporting.”

In fact, I now lead any current training with the statement that “not a single dollar of revenue can be realized unless an ad trafficker does their job”. If anything, the importance of the ad trafficker has only increased, there are several reasons for this:

“….the ad trafficker also bears the brunt of minute-to-minute problem solving. Orders are written in haste, and the trafficker is the one who needs to clarify and correct it so it can run. Creative is late, and the trafficker must make up the time and delivery. It doesn’t meet specifications and the trafficker becomes the intermediary between a confused salesperson and an irate advertiser.”

Today, the stakes are even higher. Ad code is now peppered with references to third party verification vendors who record their version of delivery based on specific geo targeting, viewability, or valid/invalid human trafficking. All of this means constant monitoring of delivery discrepancy.

How do you keep traffickers and for that matter digital media planners motivated? In 2005 I theorized that:

“One of the keys to keeping an ad operations organization fresh is to furnish a career path for your employees. An ad trafficker might graduate to a senior inventory analyst; or they can be put in charge of managing the development of new ad products.”

Thankfully some of the companies we work with have applied this approach. The concept of rotating employees through various positions seems to keep them stimulated and motivated. Moving from a linear focus to digital (or vice versa), from trafficking to planning, from creating placements or line item to troubleshooting sophisticated ad code – all of that creates more challenges, opportunity and satisfaction.

If anything, ad trafficking has become more difficult over the last 15 years. Nowhere else is this more evident than the convergence of digital and broadcast. In our work setting up a streaming DAI (digital ad insertion) network we know how crucial it is that each endpoint (from IOs phone to Roku) needs to be associated with a placement (line item) in the ad server. Additionally, each placement must have an ad tag, targeting and revenue allocations configured properly. Then all of this needs to be validated with testing across all devices and reporting.  Nothing complicated about that, right?

Between the proliferation of third party measurement and the growing number of devices and associated end points requiring maintenance, the trafficker must be even more of a multi-tasker and critical thinker than ever before.

In short, I’d say my observation from 2005 was pretty obvious. It was a no-brainer then and it is now. Take care of the folks that take care of your revenue.

Burn Out in Ad Operations (Originally Published for iMedia Connection 6/8/05)

By far, the most over worked, under-appreciated, misunderstood resource in any online company is the ad trafficker. This is a job that can transform the most intelligent, rational, motivated and conscientious individual into a high-strung, irritable, error-prone employee. And THIS is the individual who is responsible for taking every bit of revenue your sales group generates and making sure it delivers as promised, on time, with accurate reporting.

So, why is the position of ad trafficker so tough? And why is this position typically neglected and mismanaged? And finally, what can be done to make this crucial role and department more rewarding to the individual and more productive to your company?

First, let’s take a look at what traffickers do. They are smart, learning and operating ad serving systems with the requisite technical knowledge needed to schedule several different versions of target ad tags. They are troubleshooters, receiving creative, sending it back, making sure it clicks as it should. They are customer service people, often interacting with their peers in agencies, at publishers, et cetera in a manner that must reflect the best interests of your company.

Unfortunately, the ad trafficker also bears the brunt of minute-to-minute problem solving. Orders are written in haste, and the trafficker is the one who needs to clarify and correct it so it can run. Creative is late, and the trafficker must make up the time and delivery. It doesn’t meet specifications and the trafficker becomes the intermediary between a confused sales person and an irate advertiser. The publisher tells the client that there is a three- to five-day turnaround time for campaigns from receipt of creative. The sales organization can demand it be turned around in an hour. The work is stressful, relentless then ultimately mind numbing. The trafficker is frequently on the low end of the pay scale, gets no commission, but is responsible for making sure that all contractual commitments are delivered as specified.

This puts a sales/ops organization in a difficult predicament. Ad traffickers are not easy to come by — so the tendency is to keep the good ones where they are. Eventually, however, the repetition and stress outweigh the incentives to the employee and they become unmotivated, burned out and eventually leave.

So, what can be done about it?

One of the keys to keeping an ad operations organization fresh is to furnish a career path for your employees. An ad trafficker might graduate to a senior inventory analyst; or they can be put in charge of managing the development of new ad products.

If they have the mindset and make up, some can even migrate into sales and do well at it, since they know the business from the ground up.

In the meantime, while you’re keeping your current staff motivated by moving them into more challenging positions, make it a point to actively keep a pipeline open with new ad traffickers — in fact, you might consider graduating one of your current staff to be a trainer!

Finally, recognition among peers is a highly underestimated incentive. Don’t discount “star” awards for work above and beyond the call — with a monetary value. Engage both the sales and operations groups to create the sense that “we’re all in this together” instead of “us versus them.”

The key to keeping this valuable talent motivated is to give them something to look forward to. Furnishing recognition and a career path is vital to preventing burnout among this important resource, which after all is responsible for delivering the revenue your company lives on.

Here’s another article from the archives, nearly 15 years old. At the time, I was crying the blues over vendors who did a great job selling their services but had limited success executing. Simultaneously, I cautioned publishers that these projects don’t run themselves.

What has changed over the years? In general I see more effort on both sides to ensure that ad platforms are launched successfully. I think this is primarily due to a heightened awareness among publishers and vendors, who understand that anytime you change the platforms that control revenue you are playing with fire, so best to have an orderly game plan.

If there is a more common theme I see in recent years, it would be the importance of realistic expectations. In evaluating any vendor, you are going to discover gaps. The focus should be on surfacing those gaps, so that in selecting your vendor of choice, you do so with eyes wide open. If your corporate culture works better with “out of the box solutions”- which can be less flexible but are at least a known quantity – be prepared to live with that scenario. If your priorities lean in the direction of a more customized build, make sure you have the patience to accept a more agile, improvised deployment.

If you’re interested to see how observations on this topic have changed, and how they have remained the same, feel free to read on…..

Fatal Flaws in Ad Operations (Originally Published for iMedia Connection 11/02/06)

The ad operations business is living in a state of denial which cuts both ways.

On the publisher side, there is often the belief that contract management systems, ad servers and all manner of related applications can install and run themselves. Here’s a news flash: Ad operations is not a part-time job– and yet many companies treat it as if it is.

On the vendor side, customer service is held to a bare minimum with limited consultative account management after the initial training. That’s counterproductive and a good way to lose business.

The back story

There is more activity in the selection and installation of ad operations applications than you might think. Seemingly overnight, the market turned around and the increased demand for inventory has made the management of it more crucial. The enviable problem of more sales activity has led to the need to manage contracts more efficiently. Advertisers are becoming more discriminating and demanding about ad products. So whether you’re a publisher entering this world for the first time, or a veteran on the scene simply re-evaluating options, chances are there’s a lot of introspection going on about what to do– and with whom.

Fatal flaws in publishing

Even when publishers make wise choices in ad operations applications, they can sometime make the fatal mistake of failing to support the initiatives internally. I’ve seen several instances where the “right” vendors have been selected and deployed, only to be neglected when it comes to the crucial QA function of making sure they operate as intended. If the systems are not set up properly, you are essentially throwing your money away. In some cases, the end-to-end integrity of data passing from a contract management solution to an ad server is never checked, causing inaccuracies that render the applications useless. It’s the old “garbage in, garbage out” syndrome.

Why does this happen? After all, you would never find this occurring when it comes to other publishing applications like the content management systems (CMS) that enable publishers to manage and display content. Of course, in that case, if your CMS system breaks down, everyone from the CEO to the janitor can see it screw up online.

In ad operations, however, you may never find out how badly things are functioning until you try to do your financial books at the end of the quarter. After all, ad operations is boring, detail ridden and it should be automatic. Right? Wrong! And this attitude leads to publishers virtually snatching defeat from the jaws of victory– making the right choices in applications but never making it to the finish line of implementation.

Vendor heal thyself

Of course, we all know these things cut both ways. I’m constantly amazed at the arms-length approach to customer service employed by most vendors in our business. I believe the reason is that with margins in variable and fixed fees being squeezed, the only way to keep the books balanced on the vendor side is to control costs. Fair enough. Without these businesses existing to serve ads, process contracts, run advanced ad targeting, manage yield and price optimize, you the ad operations professional would not have a job. And I would not be writing this column. (I would probably be earning $50 a night playing trombone in a salsa band.)

However, I am again amazed at a crucial disconnect. Vendors classically wait until their business with a client is in jeopardy before getting involved on a proactive basis. This is despite the fact that client dissatisfaction is painfully obvious. Many times, the signs are about as subtle as an oncoming train.

Vendors, how about asking your publishing client a few questions: “How is the integration with our application working out for you? Can we help you make sure that the data files are being passed between your systems are correct? Let me walk you through a solution we have for inventory management that would solve this specific problem you seem to be having. I would like to schedule a visit to your business to see how things are going, and see if there is anything we can do to help it become more successful. Do you mind if I interview some of your traffickers to see if there are any pain points?”

There’s not enough of this type of proactive activity on the side of vendors. And in the interest of keeping customers, there should be. On the publisher side, a lack of ownership and responsibility for key ad operations processes often leads to a physical breakdown in key systems. That lack of oversight should be remedied. But wait. On second thought, perhaps both sides should just keep doing business as usual. It will keep folks like me busy for the next decade

• For some things in life, being too fast is not a fulfilling experience. For programmatic, however, faster IS better.

Publishers frequently lay a poor foundation for programmatic, then expect demand partners, manipulation of pricing floors, and pass-backs to do all the work. In today’s world, if you don’t start with a good foundation you’ll always be handicapped. It is extremely difficult to diagnose a problem when you don’t understand the root causes.

The foundation I’m referring to relates to the speed at which content pages and ads load. How often have you been in a situation where someone (editorial, executive management, etc.) says “our pages and ads are taking too long to load.” Without some quantitative data to back it up, it’s just another urban legend. But you CAN quantify that with various tools, charting the ads “journey” starting with page load and ad request, measuring that load in seconds (or milliseconds). Furthermore, comparing that to competitors in your space can be revealing. For example, if it takes your site (or app) 2 seconds to complete an ad call and your competition 200 MILISECONDS that instantly tells that you are operating at a disadvantage.

So why does that even matter?

In case you missed the memo, advertisers think of ad viewability as a requirement. If it doesn’t meet their standards, it’s not worth the pixel its painted on. And what plays a large role in the viewability of ads? Answer: The speed at which they are displayed. In a bidding situation, if a buyer’s DSP thinks the ad is taking too long to load, it won’t recognize it as viewable, and assign a lower bid price to the ad.

Throughout our engagements with publishers, we’ve seen that low viewability is linked to bid prices that are frequently 25% – 50% lower than what their competition is receiving. Guess who gets the higher bids in that scenario? The higher eCPM? The most revenue?  

So take a good look at your foundation. What are the quantifiable metrics for the speed of page and ad loads? How is the placement of the ad code on the page contributing to that speed? Are delays in loading for header bidding causing time outs? If lazy loading is used, is it implemented so the buyer’s standards for viewability are met?

Having laid a good foundation, NOW you are ready to implement and evaluate demand partners, pricing and pass-back strategies.

• Dynamic  Ad Insertion, what could be more straightforward? However, unless you put all your ducks in a row, you’ll be in for a bumpy ride.

There are apps everywhere, podcasts everywhere, video streaming everywhere. As a result, it makes sense to transpose some of the basic functions of ad serving to those platforms by implementing dynamic ad insertion (DAI). This provides businesses with the ability to intersperse content with advertising while consumers are streaming on their devices. As DAI has become more common in ad ops the numerous challenges of executing it need to be highlighted, embraced, and applied in order for a campaign to succeed from start to finish.

The Moving Target Challenge

In digital advertising, we are constantly changing the tires on the bus while it is speeding down the road at 70 miles an hour. Today, we need to deliver targeted advertising to IOs phones and tablets, Android phones and tablets, Apple TV, FireTV, Roku and Web. That’s just for the present combination of devices, next year there will be others. Not only will today’s delivery issues persist but we are going to constantly be figuring out how ad code will work with the next device that launches.

The Testing Challenge.

Think you can implement DAI on an iPhone and just call it a day? Think again. Each device has slightly different characteristics when it comes to requesting the ad call and receiving the ad. This means that 1) you should have all these physical devices on hand 2) all major browsers 3) you should test on all these devices prior to launch 4) you should test on them in a dev environment and then 5) move to production.

The Ad Delivery Challenge

Google and Freewheel provide the ability to support DAI. But just as we’ve seen with digital advertising of years past, third party ad servers support it as well. This means that discrepancy tracking between ad servers and testing of ad code will be extremely important. Nothing says “oh s—.” like disrupting a live stream because of an issue with a video ad.

The Measurement Challenge

As with “traditional” digital advertising, advertisers will want to subject DAI to the same third-party measurement standards as their more common ad units. We have to consider these crucial aspects of measurement throughout including viewability, verification of delivery (did the ads display to the U.S. viewers, or Belarus?), and whether or not your inferred demographic distribution synchs up with measurement as supplied by Nielsen and Comscore. Neglecting these important factors can lead to a very unhappy client.

The Blackout Challenge

For some live events, particularly sports-related, preventing ad display to specific geo markets is a contractual commitment. Know your SCTE markers. Now layer on what we’ve discussed about end-points, testing, ad delivery and measurement to this requirement, and we have another multi-faceted challenge for ad operations.

Whenever I teach classes in media operations I always say, “if you like a business that is always changing, where you constantly need to figure out solutions to new problems, then media operations provides a great career. You will NEVER look the clock at Noon and say ‘when will this day be over’. Instead you will look up at the clock at 6 and say “wtf – how did this day go by so fast!?” For DAI, it’s like that.

• Wait, what?! There’s a print revolution going on? Is it possible that rethinking newspaper operations can help save journalism?

For those of us who have worked in the digital world for decades, efficient ad operations meant improving the way digital ads were managed. What has surprised me over the last 5 years is how many newspapers are rethinking how print advertising will be managed.

Newspapers have historically had a lot on their plate. Managing print display ads. Managing classified ads in several formats. Managing newspaper inserts. Managing the targeting and distribution of ads across a network of publications. Managing the pagination and layout of those systems and the associated print production across several regional plants. Now pile on digital, programmatic and social media as well as subscriber management and the landscape can be overwhelming. We see the consequences of this now, as many newspapers are indeed hamstrung by a plethora of applications.

What happens when you rely on several unique platforms to manage operations? It adds complexity, including the implementation and maintenance of several integrations. Quite often, manual re-entry of data is required. This creates a bloated staffing infrastructure, because of the need for subject matter experts to operate each system. Lastly, it adds expense, because there’s no pricing efficiency – every platform necessitates a discrete negotiation of licenses.

The print revolution I’m referring to is happening behind the scenes. If you can combine CRM, order management for print display and inserts, classified, digital advertising, programmatic, audio, and as a net result save millions of dollars – why wouldn’t you do it? In fact, this is happening across the globe among several newspaper empires because there are now software vendors who legitimately supply all these services in a single package.

What’s the big deal, you say? Why worry about this? Isn’t print in decline?

Hey boomers, get out of your coastal bubbles! There’s still a wide swarth of the country that gets its news and information from print. If operations could save enough money to keep 10 journalists on staff reporting legitimate news – that would be a contribution even an ad operations staffer could feel good about.

What’s missing? The only additional feature I would personally ask for is a filter that scans each digital news story. A filter for sources that are legitimate starting with the name of the publication and reporter. An algorithm that identifies foreign propaganda and screens it out. An algorithm that scores each story based on the use of language and inclusion of basic journalistic precepts which is applied to each news search and social media feed.

Ok, this last part is totally not ad operations but it’s my blog, my editorial comment. In the meantime, I’ll have to focus on what I can influence and control on the operations side. That seems to be going pretty well.

• A carefully crafted, well-defined process in media-operations is equally-if not more important-than the technology itself. It’s as much a truth today as it was 15 years ago.

In 2005 I wrote an article with a simple yet crucial premise, “Technology Means Nothing”. Within the piece, I elaborated on this claim by stating:

“It’s heresy to say that in our business, right? But the truth of the matter is that when it comes to some aspects of media operations it is the process that means everything. Without a well-defined process, technology means nothing.”

While much of the original article lobbied for the adoption of contract (order) management systems to control process, it also highlighted their overarching significance.  This specific technology imposes an order of operations on human beings, which can be jarring if not implemented with care.

“If (this) process alters your business so significantly, why do it? Why? Because you need to know, accurately, what’s booked as revenue every minute of the day. The current business climate mandates this. You adopt it because, when it is finally operational, you’ll have real time data comparing booked to delivered revenue. You’ll have accurate up-to-the-minute stats on sales performance against quota. You’ll have better business intelligence on which segments of your online business yield the best return. Depending on the system you choose, inventory management may also improve dramatically.”

How does the original article from 2005 hold up? Pretty well I think. Order management systems are now a staple among publishers of any appreciable size. Today, order management systems can centralize creation of digital and print orders – or digital and linear orders. Setting up the right process and workflow is still as essential as it was 15 years ago, and with proper training, a critical step in project planning for deployment.

A recent development in this topic is the growing trend toward consolidation in ad platforms. Now, there are vendors who can help consolidate CRM (in place of Salesforce), order management and business intelligence functions, across digital, print and broadcast, in a single system. What that doesn’t change is the importance of defining who handles which function in an organization and where the “handoff” occurs from one sales or operations stage to another. Even as technology offers improved solutions in our business, it will still break down unless the right business processes are applied across the entire organization.

Doug Wintz is founder and principle of DMW MediaWorks, a consultancy in media operations and project management, with long-term clients that include the market leaders in online health, entertainment, national and local journalism, streaming platforms and travel

Doug Wintz began his interactive career with Prodigy in 1988. During that time, he pioneered the sales and development of online applications for automotive clients Toyota, Ford and Autobytel, brokerage firm DLJ Direct and grocers Dominick’s and D’Agostino. He led the development of one of the first online ad networks for Softbank, managed sales/operations for gamesite Uproar and served as VP of Digital Media Solutions for Lycos.

“Technology Means Nothing”

(Originally Published for iMediaconnection 07/13/05)

Say it slowly. Repeat it a couple of times. “Technology means nothing. Technology means nothing.”

It’s heresy to say that in our business, right? But the truth of the matter is that when it comes to some aspects of media operations it is the process that means everything. Without a well-defined process, technology means nothing. In this column, I’ll spend some time specifically talking about contract management systems and how the mantra above applies to this function — a function that is attaining more importance in how established companies conduct media operations in the online world.

For the purposes of clarity, a contract management system enables online publishers to create a central database of booked insertion orders. In the best of all possible worlds this data is correct to the hour, includes all revisions and changes, and provides a real time answer to the simple question “how much revenue do we have booked through x date?”

There are two major events that are driving the consideration of contract management systems. First, the online media business is good. In fact, it is very good. The frequency and complexity of online orders is increasing. Overall media budgets are beginning to shift to online and even a slight shift is enough to create record sales quarters. In this environment, keeping track of booked revenue complete with multiple revisions during the course of a multitude of campaigns can be staggering.

The second event that is driving consideration for this media ops function is the bill called Sarbanes Oxley (SOX). This is the federal law that requires public companies to document their internal controls and processes designed to accurately report revenue — and companies and executives are now bound by it. So, if you tell your CFO that you know an online order is worth $55,123.25 because you kept the 10 emails that Joe in sales sent you –don’t be surprised if the color drains from his face. That’s not a disciplined process.

In reality, how many media operations groups have a contract database that can easily give immediate, clear insight on the contracts that are “booked” even before they get entered or pushed into an ad server for delivery? How many publishers still process the insertion orders they receive from sales using a series of free-form emails? How many keep track of insertion orders with a manually maintained spreadsheet? Finally, how many companies have actually adopted a contract management system only to wonder why it doesn’t do all that was expected. Come on — raise your hands — I know you’re out there.

So, fine. Technology means nothing. Contract management systems are important. But those systems ARE technology. So, what’s the deal?

The “rub” as Shakespeare would say, is that these applications impose a rigid process on sales and operations groups. That’s right, it is a rigid, disciplined and imposed process. There is no sugar coating this. It can easily change the dynamics of your company from a free-spirited start up to that of a disciplined corporate entity. It is incredibly important that the adoption of contract management systems and the associated process be communicated and supported at the highest executive level of your company — and that the expectations on how process will change be set up front.

Let’s think about how the process changes. First, forget about communicating that an order has been sold through a series of free form emails. Every element of the contract will be entered into a standard (!) contract form. The form itself imposes discipline. It can’t be completed unless even mundane client information is included such as address, phone number. Each line item needs to be described in detail. Revisions need to be re-entered in the standard contract form. No more ad hoc visits from sales to their favorite ad operations contact asking them to book another 100,000 impressions directly in the ad server as a favor. It needs to be input in the contract management system first — and that may very well need the approval of their manager. Even when a contract is cancelled, that is a change that needs to be documented. 

The adoption of a contract management system calls for a gatekeeper. Please, don’t ask a salesperson whose job it is to be on the street 99 percent of the time to be their own point person in entering contracts and any subsequent changes into this system. Don’t ask the ad trafficker who is trying to figure out how to fix a broken ad tag to be the policeman either. The process calls for an owner whose primary role is to make sure contracts are entered into the system and changed when called for.

If the process alters your business so significantly, why do it? Why? Because you need to know, accurately, what’s booked as revenue every minute of the day. The current business climate mandates this. You adopt it because, when it is finally operational, you’ll have real time data comparing booked to delivered revenue. You’ll have accurate up-to-the-minute stats on sales performance against quota. You’ll have better business intelligence on which segments of your online business yield the best return. Depending on the system you choose, inventory management may also improve dramatically.

None of the considerations above have anything to do with technology. It’s all about process. Make no mistake about it, you will be changing the way your company runs and the way divisions interact with one another. The more time you put into managing this change, setting expectations and describing the benefits, the better off you’ll be in terms of day-to-day operations.

Without the process in place, the leadership willing to communicate it and the people willing to follow it, the technology means nothing.

 “Here’s Looking at Your Future, Kid” was originally published in October 2005. The article depicted the daily work activity of Toshiko Jones, a fictionalized character whom single-handedly managed media buying across multiple channels-digital, linear, outdoor, print-all from a single desktop.

This question is, a decade and a half later what did I get right and what did I get wrong?

Upon first glance, my initial reaction to going back in time to this article was “OMG. I can’t believe I had the nerve to prognosticate about programmatic buying in 2004 and use 2020 as the benchmark for the future.” …And here we are…

In my overly optimistic view of the future, ALL media type from digital, to print, to outdoor, and linear – was trading on one single marketplace. This was helped by the prediction that:

“Measurement of branding effectiveness was now real-time…. The methodology included measuring the number of subscribers who viewed the commercial messages, the potential number of family members viewing, the duration and attention paid to the message, and their value to the product in terms their demographics. It was a kind of EKG for the brand.”

In order to prove her point and win over a client, our hero sits them down and on a real-time basis, demonstrates how a test budget of $250,000 could yield a better response using her centralized buying platform:

 “On a minute by minute basis, Toshiko shifted the balance and placement of media in reaction the performance of each distribution channel…Sometimes the change in a broadcaster’s programming influenced results, sometimes a local breaking news story diverted a metro population’s attention, necessitating a shift of media to an adjacent market. Changes in distribution material (creatives) could be made as well, by sending subtle changes to brochures or telemarketing scripts electronically. Thus, conversion could be impacted as well.”

Within an hour, Toshiko’s system had the following results:

                  “…we increased the (brand recognition) by 45 percent over traditional static placements and increased measurable response by 25 percent. Put into numbers, we just generated an additional $500,000 in leads and projected sales for your services in the one hour I’ve been sitting here.”

So what do you, the reader, think? In the original article, did I lay an egg? Or was I an oracle?

 I think the answer lies somewhere in between…

Yes, programmatic is now a staple of any media budget. Yes, the use of exchanges helps feed supply and demand. Yes, there are branding studies and metrics that help prove the effectiveness of programmatic media. Programmatic TV buying is now available. A buyer using a platform like Media Ocean can do a lot of research and buying more efficiently. And yet……

Our industry is still incredibly fragmented. Digital, linear, print and out of home exist in media silos more often than not. Standardized measurement and management of discrepancies in delivery are the bane of our business. Programmatic itself has made a huge impact, but it augments the efforts of publisher direct sales efforts, as opposed to replacing them.

Part of this mess is technology, part of it lies in the institutions. Agencies and Publishers alike are not ready to throw up their hands in surrender to fully automated buying and selling, when so much of what they do and so many of their resources, are dedicated to direct relationships.

So today in 2020, do I see a world where Toshiko Jones, media-buying wizard, can single-handedly manage a massive budget, and pull all the levers within a single application, the same way a day trader would? Sadly, no. Which leads me to the conclusion that the automated future for our industry will be a more gradual evolution than we expected, and not an instantaneous revolution.

If you are reading this, you are as curious about the future of our industry as I am. If you have your own thoughts on where we will be 5, 10, 15 years from now feel free to write to me below:

“Here’s Looking at Your Future, Kid”

(Originally published in iMediaConnection 10/4/05)

Technology gives birth to applications that measure activity and make decisions at an increasingly accelerated pace. Examples are numerous, ranging from the computer in your car that regulates engine performance, braking and passive safety systems, to the systems that drive the financial markets of the NYSE and NASDAQ.

As these systems are introduced, they change the way businesses are structured, create the need for new skill sets and force companies to rethink how they approach traditional markets.

The media business is not exempt from this effect. Measuring online activity is becoming more sophisticated. As this trend continues the traditional roles of marketing directors, media planners, buyers, media operations execs and staffers will change.

The following is a look at an alternative future that might be the result of these changes to our business.

Welcome to the year 2020

At 6:00AM on May 4, of 2020, Toshiko Jones took the elevator down to the ground floor of her residence and waited patiently for her car service. While she waited, she surveyed the horizon of lush green mangroves on one side and an expanse of placid, slate-grey ocean on the other. Her Gulf Coast home was located in an exclusive development, a retreat occupied by the elite and wealthy.

Toshiko could afford it. Her firm, Media Asset Management (MAM), handled the purchasing and distribution of advertising for the top 10 corporations in the United States. She was one of a handful of individuals with expertise in the real-time purchase, placement, optimization and measurement of multi-media campaigns. The roles of the media planner, buyer, trafficker and marketing manager had converged into a new function — a Media Asset Manager.

Like the most prestigious financial asset management firms of the past (Fidelity, SmithBarney, et al), media asset firms now had corporate clients who entrusted them with exorbitant budgets and relied on them to generate the highest return on their investments. So MAM was responsible for buying, selling and placing media on a minute by minute basis across all media channels including Vidline, Satradio and Print.

Even conservative clients who balked at this model eventually saw the value in granting a company or individual the aggregated responsibility and authority to plan, buy, sell, traffic, measure and optimize media in the same way that stock portfolios were managed.

After all, it was done real-time now. Companies who insisted on giving their permission on each and every aspect of media buys and placement quickly found that they didn’t have the time, attention or expertise to evaluate and optimize every five minutes. Companies who refused to get in the game found that their brand, their sales and their futures where outflanked by competitors who felt perfectly comfortable letting control freaks like Toshiko and MAM take the reigns of their media budgets.

Toshiko grabbed a handful of jet black hair, pushed it away from her neck and held it for a moment. The sea breeze was warm, and heavy with humidity. She heard the whir of the hybrid from the frontage road, anticipating the arrival of the limousine. She let her hair fall and collected her bags, eager as always to make the trip to New York and present her media strategy to a new prospect — in this case, Danbury Genetic Enhancements.

As she often did, she reflected during the outbound trip on events that took her from being a simple ad trafficker to CEO of MAM — a company that leveraged the enormous change in media to achieve a valuation that rivaled old school edifices like Chase, Microsoft and Google. Again, the same question arose in her mind…

The past evolves into the future

How did the dysfunctional mediascape of 2005 evolve so rapidly into a real-time marketplace whose sophistication in trading rivaled the New York Stock Exchange?

After all, 2005, the media landscape was a mess. A large corporation could look forward to working with a creative agency, a media buying agency, an interactive agency, a direct marketing agency. Yes, yes, there were large global agencies who gave the appearance of doing it all, but at best their internal divisions seldom knew what each other was doing. At worse, the agency was a virtually a shell that outsourced to dozens of independents.

In 2005, the operations landscape fared no better. You could expect to traffic scores of creative files and equal number of media outlets. Video was sent to broadcast companies. Audio to radio. Gifs and rich media to hundreds of websites. Bluelines were messengered back and forth to print vendors.

The change for the better was precipitated by the following breakthroughs that took place over the last fifteen years:

• Broadcast, online, ecommerce and direct marketing were consolidated into a single subscriber service dubbed “Vidline.” This was the realization of convergence. The old-style TV went the way of the eight-track. The PC as a stand-alone device fared only slightly better — it was used by the same types of curmudgeonly Luddites who once said the CD would never replace the cassette deck.
• Media operations converged into a single application that supporting all media, brought about by the rollup of companies who once were focused exclusively on ad serving, or video content management, or email distribution, or audio, or ecommerce transactions, or print. A single application now handled that distribution and reporting task across all media. Toshiko’s MAM was one of three companies who accomplished the rollup of these operational functions.
• Buying media gradually changed from a process that focused on a largely manual process of matching audience with programming, to a real-time trading exchange whose buyers and sellers could shift media dollars on a minute by minute basis, depending on their goals in branding, cost per lead, ecommerce, et cetera. Up-front buys still existed, but the basis for negotiation had adapted to the changing marketplace.
• Measurement of branding effectiveness was now real-time. The creation of the Rickert Branding Scale gave companies like Toshiko’s the ability to gauge not only the direct response aspects of media, but the branding effectiveness as well and with the same real-time reporting. The methodology included measuring the number of subscribers who viewed the commercial messages, the potential number of family members viewing, the duration and attention paid to the message, and their value to the product in terms their demographics. It was a kind of EKG for the brand.

Lost in thought and reflection, the time passed quickly and Toshiko found herself at her destination at 53rd and Park. The old Lever Brothers building still had an elegance that enabled it to withstand the test of time. The fact that Danbury Genetic chose it for the corporate headquarters was, perhaps, a good omen.

The presentation was held in the boardroom — a massive room that seemed out of proportion to the total number of attendees. Rice Hopkins, CEO and Heather Williams, SVP of Marketing were the attendees, both seated at the head of a rich, mahogany conference table. Toshiko positioned herself a couple of seats away. Close enough that she could still see her audience, far enough to establish a distance that hinted at the exclusive expertise she brought to the table.

“Toshiko, thanks for your time,” began Rice. “We’ve had a lot of discussions and I
see this as the decision making meeting. To recap, we’re old school when it comes to marketing. In the past we’ve exercised a lot of control. We use agencies who present the creative ideas, separate media groups that present strategy and tell us where, when and how our name will be presented. We really can’t assess the results until well after a flight has concluded. It’s a very hands-on process that, frankly, is time intensive and manual”

“As we’ve discussed, Mr. Hopkins, that eats a lot of your time,” Toshiko said. “True enough,” he said. “But it’s hard to give up control. Part of that is me; part of it is our product. We engineer genetic changes in utero for parents who want to customize their kid the same way their grandparents customized their cars. All of our marketing is heavily regulated by Federal guidelines, and we ourselves have to make sure our claims are balanced with disclosure on the risks.”

“Understood,” Toshiko said. “And that’s one area we don’t want to get involved in– the creative.

“Listen, can we cut to the chase?” Heather asked. She shifted in her chair with visible impatience. Toshiko couldn’t blame her. Heather was about to cede control of a valuable marketing function. Her role would be diminished. Rice gave her a good glare, and then nodded at Toshiko.

The media maven as media trader

Toshiko plugged in her laptop, toggled the display so that the MAM Control
Screen filled up the 8 x 6 foot flat screen at the end of the conference room. “Great. Let’s go.” Toshiko rose to her feet. She always felt better presenting on her feet, pacing and gesturing to stress her points. “You’ve given me a test budget of $250,000 to prove that MAM can do better than your traditional methods. You would spend that money anyway, and it’s a fraction of the $75 million you’ll spend on various media this year. It’s a small price to pay for a test that will change the way you do business forever. So, I’m going to take that money and invest it now in your vidline schedule. It’s 5:45 PM now, and over the next couple of hours we’ll put that money to work for you.”

“As you can see, I’ve taken the money and allocated it to the traditional media you
currently use. See the tab marked ‘vidline’? You’ll see there are placements that are scheduled for 6 PM airing — two minutes from now — across NewsCorp, GoogleVision, YaNews and BBC.” She let it sink in. “In sixty seconds, we’re going to view the initial results of those placements.”

Toshiko focused on the media dashboard. Selecting the “vidline” tab transformed the screen into a series of four separate grids, one for each distribution channel. In the corner of each grid, a bar pulsated as if waiting for something to happen. At 5:59, something did. Toshiko click on a rapidly flashing, blue asterisk labeled “Distribute” and at once each grid sprang to life filling the screen with bars and lines that took on a life of their own.

Toshiko’s expert eyes translated the activity in an instant and she narrated for Rice and Heather. “We just distributed your creative to the four target networks and now we’re viewing the responses to your marketing campaigns. We can measure the response to your video commercial by counting the requests for additional downloaded information packets as well as increases in your call center activity. In addition, the line traveling along the “y” axis shows the changes to the Rickert Branding Scale.”

“Let’s see what the impact is from these first placements,” she continued. The NewsCorp placements have done extremely well, generating 25 percent more leads and increasing the Rickert Scale from the baseline by 35 percent. That’s a relatively high index for your category and product — and it means that both response and branding have increased. But the YaNews placement really bombed. Let’s see why… ah… they’re promoting the Amor Awards with graphic video segments. No wonder the attention is off your product. Nice of them to keep that programming change a secret.”

“So, what do we do? I want to sell your YaNews flight on the open spot market. Someone will snatch it up with a product that is a better fit for the programming. Let’s heavy up on the NewsCorp placements by trading or purchasing on same media marketplace and see the effect. I’ve initiated that change now. Next placement airs in five, four, three, two, one.” And so it went for the next hour. On a minute by minute basis, Toshiko shifted the balance and placement of media in reaction the performance of each distribution channel. Both the increase in the Rickert Scale for branding and the actual response were important. Sometimes the change in a broadcaster’s programming influenced results, sometimes a local breaking news story diverted a metro population’s attention, necessitating a shift of media to an adjacent market. Changes in distribution material could be made as well, by sending subtle changes to brochures or telemarketing scripts electronically. Thus, conversion could be impacted as well.

The demonstration came to an end. Toshiko took her hands off the keyboard,
wiped her brow with the back of her shirtsleeve and faced her prospects, letting it all sink in.

“Well, what did that prove?” spoke Heather. Toshiko couldn’t have set it up any
better if she supplied Heather with the script.

“Good question, and here’s the answer,” said Toshiko as she toggled the screen
display. “You’re now looking at two screens. The first screen shows the projected results of your marketing campaign if you had allowed the placements to go on unchanged over the course of a full week. At best, results flatlined, and in general, their effectiveness diminished over time. The second screen shows the projection given MAM’s active management of your media assets. In just the first hour alone, we increased the Rickert Scale by 45 percent over traditional static placement and increased measurable response by 25 percent. Put into numbers, we just generated an additional $500,000 in leads and projected sales for your services in the one hour I’ve been sitting here.”

“So,” summarized Toshiko, “you can either continue to do things old school and
have your competition overrun you, or you can give up control and let the experts in media buying, distribution and operations actively manage your account on a minute by minute basis. You give up your financial assets to SmithBarneyWatch –you’d be just as smart to give your media assets up to MAM.”

And with that, Toshiko closed the display and calmly stared at her newest clients.

So is this science fiction or science future?

I believe this is a plausible future. The internet has driven a measurement revolution in media that won’t go away. As media converges, that same accountability will become as much a part of the traditional vernacular as GRPs are today. Decision making will be fast and furious, and — like the fund managers who manipulate stock portfolios today — a new class of experts will be responsible for getting the best yield out of a media budget.

Minute-by-minute.

Hour-by-hour.

Day-by-day.

In 2004, I worked with digital colleagues at a prominent search engine company to architect the outsourcing of sales and ad operations, thereby making my position irrelevant and changing my status to “in between jobs.”. Long story short, I found a vacuum waiting to be filled – consulting on media operations. One of the key accelerants to my business was writing a series of 20+ articles on various aspects of media ops – not because I was paid to do it, but because I’m the type of geek that loves the intersection between technology and human beings. I saw flaws that made good people unhappy and I wanted to write about how to improve that state and build a business around it.

In 2020, 16 years later, I think enough time has passed to engage in some reflection, if only because nothing induces reflection like a pandemic, right? How right or wrong were my opinions and forecasts on our business? How has the business changed, or has it? And what does all that say about the future?

This series will resurrect those articles and opinions and either revel in their accuracy or mercilessly show how shortsighted an individual can be. Lucky for you I wasn’t writing when I started in digital media in 1988, because inscribing on stone tables just doesn’t translate well to the digital medium.

Doug Wintz is the founder and principal of DMW MediaWorks, a consultancy focused on media operations, technology and project management. Our services range from workflow and gap analysis to vendor assessment and recommendations. Additional specializations include configuration and deployment of ad platforms and a data management practice that provides ETL services for digital media companies.

“We help emerging companies set up their media operations departments, we help established companies improve them”

Doug Wintz began his interactive career with Prodigy in 1988. During that time, he pioneered the sales and development of online applications for automotive clients Toyota, Ford and Autobytel, brokerage firm DLJ Direct and grocers Dominick’s and D’Agostino. He led the development of one of the first online ad networks for Softbank, managed sales/operations for game site Uproar and served as VP of Digital Media Solutions for Lycos.