Total application breakdown
Publishers often spend months, even years, contemplating the addition of a contract management solution, video player, behavioral targeting solution, yield optimization engine -- you name it. Finally, the day arrives. The contract with the vendor is signed. Everyone feels good about the decision.
The problems begin when the publisher fails to assign an "owner" to the new application, someone who can devote 100 percent of their time to its implementation and maintenance. The result is that contract management systems can't push contracts to the ad server, the ad server can't send delivery information to the billing module, and at the end of the month all hell breaks loose because there is no way to match contracts and budgeted revenue to what was actually delivered. This can go on for months, simply because adequate resources have not been allocated on the publisher side.
Solution
Don't throw away all the time, energy and money spent choosing and deploying the tools that run ad operations by failing to devote a project manager to implementation of the product. It is not a part-time job -- and the vendor most likely will not hold your hand in perpetuity. Publisher, take the responsibility of ownership or your ship will run aground.
