Invision: Transforming Ops to Ops: Ad "Op"erations to "Op"timization & "Op"portunities - Michael Stoeckel - MediaBizBloggers

If you are a media seller in any field many support functions are provided to you by a dedicated ad operations team Unfortunately several of the primary ad operations tasks such as trafficking or ad production can be quite mundane Depending on the way your sales and sales support teams are organized the ad operations team might also expand into functions such as account management order management stewardship and even some reporting Beyond that ad operations groups often serve as the bridge between Ad Sales and other departments such as Ad TechnologyEngineering and Finance As such many typical ad operations roles are narrowly focused on workflow and collaborationThere will always be sales organizations where the ad operations role is viewed as nothing more than a blunt tool required to bring in the money However the most successful ad sales organizations to which I39ve been exposed have been led by visionaries who utilized ad operations as a weapon to optimize existing products and create unique opportunitiesGrunt work is an inevitable and hefty portion of ad operations responsibilities However through performing many of these mundane tasks the elite members of your ad operations teams will learn the intricacies and inner workings of your ad products and properties better than anyone As a means of rewarding these top players and maximizing your revenue potential allow them to concentrate on value driven tasks such as inventory optimization yield management product packaging and dynamic supplydemand driven pricing Provide these peak performers with the proper systems so that they can apply some of the science they pick up hanging around the engineers and vendors by recommending optimized prices and controlling over and underselling The returnoninvestment will be both immediate and by intelligently maximizing inventory availability longtermIn addition to these optimization opportunities there are emerging advertising dilemmas inducing the need for operational upgrades As the world of advertising is becoming increasingly complicated due to crossplatform selling and the introduction of advanced capabilities such as interactivity and addressability into your traditional ad offerings consolidate the workflow into a single suite of ad operations tools Such consolidation is one of the few ways to counter the new complexity by providing familiarity and simplicity to your salespeopleAs I mentioned in an earlier blog the first two golden rules of ad operations are1 Make it easy for buyers to buy2 Make it easy for sellers to sellThe third less quoted rule is If it has to be difficult for anyone it will be ad operations However this should not preclude your sales organization from striving for quotuniversal easequot By automating many core ad operations processes you can free gifted staff to work on the more strategic aspects of your businessAs we creep out of a fierce ad recession which in hopes of saving as much revenueproducing headcount as possible may have led you to cut deep into your ad operations staff it is a critical time to evaluate your ad operations tools If you find Excel or cutandpaste at the heart of any critical processes you are in trouble Prepare a checklist now for upgrading your sales management systems Then as business starts to pick up you can move quickly to make the technology changes and minimize your need for additional ad operations headcount Then as these more efficient workflow tools are put into place redeploy your best and brightest ad operations players into the optimizationfocused roles mentioned aboveMichael Stoeckel is Vice President Digital Products for INVISION IncRead all Mike39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Invision MediaBizBloggersFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBlogger

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Invision: Transforming Ops to Ops: Ad "Op"erations to "Op"timization & "Op"portunities - Michael Stoeckel - MediaBizBloggers

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Invision: Transforming Ops to Ops: Ad "Op"erations to "Op"timization & "Op"portunities - Michael Stoeckel - MediaBizBloggers

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