Our media strategies editor talks about why the operational component of online media is far more complex than with other media, and wonders about possible solutions.

The practice of marketing and advertising has always had a variety of disciplines upon which it has relied.

In order to be done well, it’s necessary to have experts in media -- research, planning, buying -- to determine where, and how much, advertising will be most effective. You’ve got to have creative folks -- designers, writers, artists -- to ensure that what is being created is what is going to best satisfy the communications objectives of the client. And you’ve got to have account people -- communications experts, project managers, relationship-makers -- to make sure that the different moving pieces move as smoothly as possible.

There are other parts of advertising that we very rarely see, however; the parts that deal with actual moving pieces. Ad materials need to get to where they need to go, and then those materials need to be put in the right place at the right time.

In traditional media, those moving parts are typically handled by a traffic department, on both the agency side and the media side.

But -- relatively speaking -- the number of moving parts is really quite small for traditional media. For TV, I can upload a digital version of my ad and have it downloaded by each and every station that ad is running on. For print, I can send out materials digitally and have them reach multiple destinations in one fell swoop.

Online media is a different monster. With online media, we have many, many more moving parts. Interactive messaging has changed the operations of the marketing business quite significantly. Where there once were but a few transactions necessary to create multiple advertising events (ad delivery and it’s exposure to audience), there are now many magnitudes more transactions than there once were.

Add to this the fact that the bulk of those moving parts are the advertising inventory itself, and we really start to see stress fractures in the part of the system of online advertising that typically remains behind the curtain.

Problem
A problem inherent in moving from a low-transaction media environment to a high-transaction media environment is, first and foremost, the room for error.

With so much inventory and so many ways for it to be accessed, processed and delivered, there is more opportunity for something to go wrong.

As Mike Leo, CEO of Operative has said, “The number of steps from initiation to completion is more opportunity for error." Operative provides consulting services and develops software products that streamline online advertising operations.

For publishers, this increase in the number of transactions necessary to get from point A to point Z from an operational standpoint (RFP, proposal, negotiation, agreement, buy, execution… the list goes on) means inefficiency, which is money lost; and error, which is money lost twice, because error leads to more inefficiency.

The kinds of errors we’re talking about are missed proposals, lost inventory, incorrect inventory allocation to a buy, incorrect pricing, under delivery, et cetera.

For example, it is due primarily to a lack of inventory control that a lot of publishers are getting rid of left-over inventory. That inventory is remnant only because there is a problem with control.

For agencies, this means exactly the same thing, only from the other side of the mirror. Agencies’ processes have to take into account publishers’ processes and account for the errors possible coming from the vendor.

Both sides end up creating systems that are not based on the elimination of the errors that erode efficiencies and result in seat-of-the-pants media processing, but rather on dealing with those errors, which in turns takes more time away from what the business should be focusing on: marketing and advertising solutions for clients.

Solution
One solution, of course, would simply be to allow media to run in unspecified locations and make everything work on guestimates.

“I want about a million impressions to run wherever you can put ‘em and I’ll pay you $10,000 for them.”

This would make things very simple. IOs could read “1MM impressions for $10,000” and agencies could just pay it.

But I don’t think clients would like that very much.

Another solution would be to find ways of implementing processes that reduce error. The idea isn’t necessarily about making process better, but “reducing deviation,” says Operative's Leo.

As Mr. Leo pointed out in a conversation I had with him recently, mistakes cost more now than they once did for online publishers. When there were few advertisers but increasing amounts of inventory, publishers could let errors related to inventory management slide because there was excess to burn.

“There is more activity and less inventory,” Mr. Leo says. Because of this, systems that are dedicated to dealing with errors rather than eliminating them are important for increasing efficiencies and, thus, revenue.

Automation is another possible solution, and some of the problems with inefficiencies in online media can be addressed this way. But software and machines can’t made decisions or solve problems that require interpretive skills. Human beings are still going to be necessary for solutions. As Mr. Leo told me, “Process first, software second.”

It’s time to pull back the curtain and get to work on what’s back there.

Jim Meskauskas is media strategies editor for iMedia Connection. Read his full bio.