When it comes to ad operations, nowhere is there a wider knowledge gap than between publishers and agencies. And I'm not just talking about discrepancies in third-party ad serving. That's the least of the issues. Over the past three to four years, I've had occasion to work on both sides of that fence. When I asked my publishing colleagues how ad operations works on the agency side, I received a shrug of the shoulders. When I asked my agency friends if they knew what went on behind the scenes on the publisher side, the response was "I don't understand why it is so difficult to deliver an ad campaign in full!"
Ladies and gentlemen, this is like living in a suburban community for 10 years and never getting to know your neighbor's first name. Really!
In this article, I'll start by discussing the trends taking place behind the scenes at agencies, why publishers need to know about them, and the future implications for their businesses. For some of you as readers, this is not new -- but for many on the publisher side, and specifically in ad operations departments, it has remained behind the veil for too long.
Publishers, don't be clueless
I am definitely a charter member of the "branding has value" club. A publisher's job is to supply quality content that attracts a valued audience and deliver that to an advertiser. But to ignore what is happening behind the scenes at agencies in terms of measurement and metrics is simply being clueless. Don't you want to get the license plate of that truck before it runs you over? Or are you intent on habitually crossing the street without looking both ways? Even while we continue beating the drum for branding (and rightfully so), we need to understand what happens on the buy side.
Let's take a look at some of the metrics at work, behind the scenes, in agency ad operations:
Attribution modeling
One of the more recent and advanced sets of metrics used on the advertiser side is attribution modeling (also called engagement mapping or "path to conversion"). This helps determine how many ad exposures preceded a conversion, when they happened, and what ad product they were associated with.
For instance, a unique consumer might have been exposed to a specific advertiser's creative (a retailer, perhaps, like Hugo Boss) in the following sequence, and produced the following results:
Tuesday > 12:15 p.m. > view a leaderboard ad > impression exposure
Tuesday > 5 p.m. > view a skyscraper ad > impression exposure
Wed > 8 a.m. > search Google, see text ad > click > welcome page of Hugo Boss, no further action
Wednesday > 5 p.m. > Navigate directly to welcome page of site > Men's suit section > shopping cart > $650 purchase
So in this sequence, the agency would see that several ad exposures influence a purchase, not just the click. All of this would be tracked by the initial cookie dropped on the user's browser when the person sees the first ad exposure. Branding may be contributing to more conversions when combined with search. And the final action by the consumer may be a result of the entire media mix, not just a single ad exposure.
Ironically, there is interest among agencies grounded in search engine marketing for this metric. They may actually try and get their clients to spend more money on display than they are used to because the ultimate mix that leads to a conversion includes several types of ad products, generating both impressions and clicks.
Is this model prevalent at every agency, with every client? Of course not. However, the data are being collected, analyzed, and presented. The more analytical agencies and staff will certainly present it as justification for a media plan, and that may actually be beneficial to publishers because the ultimate "mix" will include branding.
Long term implications? If this analysis catches on, it may mean more frequent campaign revisions as agencies start to define certain types of ad impressions as being contributors to a conversion -- and ask publishers to change a campaign to achieve the best blend. More frequent campaign revisions would call for applications on the ad operations side to process and document those changes more efficiently.
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