From video monetization to viewability and marketing attribution, the list of challenges in the Ad Ops space seems endless. For one, the competition for audience attention spans is fierce: now more than ever, advertisers need to reach their target buyers with messages that are tailored to each stage of the buyer journey. Timing is everything. Not to mention, digital audiences are getting tougher to reach.
But these challenges are also the advertising industry’s silver lining. There’s a strong opportunity for Ad Ops to become a leading force in the digital media industry ecosystem. Consider these three tips as you build your organization’s strategy:
1. Be Committed to Testing
One of the biggest trends that Marshall Massey, Head of Audience & Programmatic Solutions at Thomson Reuters, has noticed is that there’s a window of opportunity for innovation in Ad Ops. The reason? Advertisers and marketers are looking for more transparency in their paid programs.
But innovation doesn’t just happen overnight. It requires hard work, following a process of trial and error.
“Line items, multiple creative sizes, etc., always have testing involved, and many times will require troubleshooting,” explains Massey. “Testing and troubleshooting require attention to detail and organization to figure out what works and what doesn’t. It is often one small issue that causes a line item to serve incorrectly, and solutions can take time and patience.”
With a front row seat to ad tech’s many intricacies, Ad Ops leaders are in the best possible position to create high-impact, high-performance solutions. The best path forward? “Fall in love with the challenge,” recommends Massey.
“An innovator needs to know the basics and the foundation of what Ad Ops are,” says Massey. “From there, one can know that easy to use reporting is not only a time saver, but also eliminates challenges around human error, which is a common problem that causes delivery or ad performance issues.”
2. Focus on Improving Speed
One of the biggest ways to challenge the status quo in Ad Ops is to focus on speed.
“I think that VPAID (Video Player-Ad Interface Definition) is the biggest challenge that I have been facing lately,” says Yael Wenner, Ad Ops Product Specialist at GeoEdge.
“There is a huge latency in the rendering of the ad, the ping pongs of the waterfall are so long that ads sometimes take two minutes to load, which of course is unacceptable. In addition, each company builds their XML response the way they want, leaving nearly no commonality in the responses of each of the networks, making this much more complicated to analyze and verify, and eventually finding the culprit of the violations.”
A straightforward approach to tackling this challenge, says Wenner, is to create a shared response template within teams. But this solution is piecemeal at best. With video advertising emerging as a foundational strategy for reaching audiences, there’s a strong opportunity to build new technology products.
“Each new format that is added requires a lot of development and accurate reporting, and companies that pull this off are the innovators in my book,” says Wenner.
3. Invest in Team Education
What’s the single most valuable ingredient for innovation? Confidence. Ad Ops leaders need to be assured that they’re making the best recommendations possible.
“Both colleagues and clients want to know that they are in good hands when it comes to ad ops,” says Massey.
He recommends the IAB Digital Ad Operations Certification program as a valuable solution for meeting employees’ learning needs. Massey and Wenner have both earned IAB Certification.
“The IAB Ad Ops Certification test covers everything from the basics to more technical aspects of the job,” says Massey. “ I was surprised that the test was 100 questions, but realized that with all of the different ad ops responsibilities, 100 questions were needed. And the test does a good job focusing on the most important areas that come with a day-to-day ad operations role.”
Education is the key to innovation in Ad Ops. Make sure that your team members come to the table with a strong footing and knowledge base. IAB Digital Ad Operations Certification can help empower teams with the edge that they need.
Learn more at iab.com/certification/
