Digital Ad Operations for publishers

What are Digital Ad Operations (Ad Ops)

Simply put, Ad Ops refers to a range of activities carried out to plan, create, test, and enhance an ad campaign. This process involves helping in ad selling or/and buying. Such processes can be managed in-home, with the help of dedicated tools, but can also be outsourced. Ad Ops professionals work closely with either publishers or advertisers to ensure the success of their clients. They must know a lot about different systems and processes, particularly about technicalities such as ad platforms, ad agencies, ad servers, ad exchanges, ad networks, as well as SSP and DSP platforms. Importantly, it doesn’t matter whether it’s web or mobile advertising – it’s still in the scope of Digital Operations. In this article, we will mainly focus on Ad Ops for publishers – the ones selling their advertising space.

What are Ad Ops for publishers?

While Ad Ops specialists from the buyers’ side concentrate on digital marketing techniques like setting up, monitoring and optimizing advertising campaigns, publishers’ Ad Operations professionals have a different focus. Their primary concern is managing the advertising inventory on websites and in mobile apps and finding ways to maximize the sale of ad space, with the ultimate goal of increasing ad revenue. To do that, Ad Operations have to balance publisher and audience satisfaction, so the User Experience stays intact, but ads are still visible. There is a wide array of techniques that can be used to maximize revenue generation, such as mixing direct deals with programmatic or incorporating different ad formats, such as native ads, Interstitials, rich media, or video ads. However, these two sides of the coin add up to the mutual success of both advertiser and publisher. That’s why, in the next paragraph, we will delve into the details of all Ad Ops endeavors.

Aspects of Ad Operations (Ad Ops)

Tasks performed by the Ad Operations team contribute to the success of both advertising sellers and buyers. Their work includes:

• Trafficking – during which ad traffickers, whose primary responsibility is coordinating and managing ad campaigns, deliver ads across multiple ad exchanges, monitor third-party ad tags from various vendors, or increase ad referrals to publishers’ websites. It’s worth noting that such specialists perform these tasks with the help of an ad server (such as Google Ad Manager, which is also an ad exchange platform);
• Time management, which mostly means ad scheduling. It includes taking into account many factors, such as seasonality (it’s proven that, for instance, at the end of the year, sales tend to go up due to festivities like Christmas or New Year’s Eve) but also simple, everyday habits of the audience. Ad Ops specialists consider such factors to ensure that the ad is presented to the targeted audience;
• Reporting should be an essential activity of an Ad Ops specialist because “knowledge is power”. It helps in analyzing, predicting, and optimizing the efforts of both advertisers and publishers;
• Optimization – there is a lot of scope for the Ad Ops team here – all to make ads reach the right audience and, on the other side, to let digital content creators earn more. When it comes to publishers, such a team can, among other things, analyze visibility and number of impressions and improve their ad layout. Advanced technology can also be utilized to tackle this challenge, such as Revenue Booster, which introduces new ad formats in areas with higher user activity, resulting in increased audience engagement. Advertisers, on the other hand, among others, hope for high Click-Through Rates (CTR), which can be achieved thanks to good CTA, copy, or interesting ad type;
• Demand management (especially when it comes to direct deals) – helping publishers find valuable business contacts and then assisting in a whole process as a way to help publishers grow. It can be a pretty complex procedure, including ad selling consultation considering Insertion Order (IO). However, it’s worth remembering that often, the best results can be achieved through mixing direct deals with programmatic ad selling;
• Yield management aims to implement a flexible pricing strategy that takes into account significant factors that affect user behavior and advertising demand. Importantly, these strategies – advertising operations – may differ due to time and industry. Typically, it’s advisable to analyze statistics regarding a given field but also include seasonal trends in calculations and run some A/B tests. By following these measures, it’s possible to obtain improved rates for ad impressions and a greater fill rate;
• Troubleshooting – there are many issues that may affect advertisers and publishers. On the publisher’s side, any problems with displaying ads should be addressed promptly to minimize potential revenue loss. For these types of errors, the Recovery Tool may come in handy, as it helps to find ad units that failed to load (due to, for instance, broken ad chains) and fills them.

Ad Ops vs. programmatic

It’s crucial to differentiate that Ad Ops and programmatic advertising fall into two separate categories. As mentioned before, Ad Operations is a set of tasks whose aim is managing digital ad sales. On the other hand, programmatic is a system that helps in buying and selling ads, just like direct deals do. Ad Ops specialists should assist in handling both of these monetization methods.

Even though automatization lies in a programmatic nature, many aspects still need to be taken care of in order to initiate ad monetization processes. Additionally, work doesn’t stop there, as constant optimization is a proven way of increasing earnings. Fortunately, there are ways to make things easier for you. One of them – is optAd360 AI Engine, which helps to start monetization seamlessly and almost immediately with One Tag Programmatic Solution. It also assists in adjusting the layout to achieve significant increases in revenue, up to 35%!

Tools and platforms to use for Ad Operations

Besides the help of the outsourced Ad Operations specialist, you can also try out various platforms to manage Ad Ops for yourself:

• Google Publisher Console is a Google Ad Manager debugging platform that can help you ensure that line items deliver ads as intended (even verify what the ad delivery’s speed was) and whether tagging errors occurred. In addition to that, you can debug line items and see data considering each ad slot. What’s vital is that Google Publisher Console requires GPT tags to be implemented on your site. Of course, you need access to GAM in order to be able to use the Console;
• IMA HTML5 Video Suite Inspector enables you to monitor the performance of your video ads. You can do that by simply inserting a VAST ad tag or VAST ad response;
• Video Tag Validators – the aim of using them is to check whether video ads on your site perform well. You can choose from a variety of solutions, for instance, VAST/VPAID Tag Validator by Tremor, with which assistance you can verify the behavior of an individual ad tag. It’s useful for many kinds of video players;
• HTML Code Cleaners – their purpose is to clean “untidy” HTML code that has many ad snippets. This way, the site’s layout and presentation can remain neat. You might check out tools like DirtyMarkUp or HTMLTidy.

Get started with trusted Ad Ops partners

Relying on an experienced and trustworthy Ad Ops partner to set up the necessary settings is a wise decision – once established, you don’t have to put in any effort and just enjoy hard-earned profits. A good indicator that might help you choose the best option possible is to look for the renowned organization’s approval, like a GCPP badge or, even better – a GCPP Premier one. Such collaboration will ensure that your ad inventory is being managed by a trustworthy and reliable network!