A slave to your applications
Now, we'll come full circle -- back to the common challenges facing publishers and their ad operations groups. Even though they are common, when they become ignored in the extreme, disasters can ensue.
Many ad operations groups become slaves to their applications. They believe they must work with the cards they are dealt. They are fatalistic. If there is any organization that would identify with the Stockholm Syndrome -- identifying with the ideologies of their captors (which would be ad servers, inventory management apps, etc.) -- then ad operations would be that group.
Complacency and stagnation in a company are disasters in and of themselves. When companies are in the doldrums for an extended period of time, hopelessness is the emotion of the day. Operations become increasingly inefficient, and that has a negative effect on sales, marketing their clients. When that happens, beware of mutiny on board.
Solution
The best practice here is to assign a project manager whose specific role is to own the applications that run your business, and make them better. It is far easier than you think to leverage the API (application program interface) of your ad server to access all contract and delivery data, creating custom inventory and revenue reports. Keep abreast of new technologies -- don't be the last on your block to know that automated solutions exist to manage and optimize dozens of remnant networks on a turnkey basis. Don't settle for a video player that can't dynamically rotate ads or schedule on an impression basis. In short, don't be held hostage to the limitations of out of the box applications.
Conclusion
The warning signs of impending disasters are most often hiding in plain sight. A few strolls around the office and personal conversations with the people that run your business are frequently more productive than a 60-page PowerPoint deck. Lead your staff so they can navigate around the hazards and -- pardon the repeated metaphors -- you will have much smoother sailing.
Doug Wintz is principal and founder of DMW MediaWorks.
