Staying the course

When I last wrote about the impact that of the Coronavirus on adops and digital media, I had just returned from Europe and moved in with my in-laws. Restaurants were still open and there was uncertainty as to what might happen next. My wife and I had been wearing a mask for several months, having been in Thailand when the virus hit, but was not accustomed to wearing it to the grocery store in suburban New Jersey. The publishers we work with on ad operations and monetization had yet to see drops in CPMs or budgets but the expectation of spending cuts was looming. Four months later and much has happened. The biggest media companies are laying off staff, there has been a reckoning in terms of how people of color are treated in the workforce and major advertisers have paused spending on Facebook in response to their inability to address hate speech on their platform.

I’ve written before about the importance of staying lean in business as well as establishing a strategy and sticking with it. Certainly an unforeseen crisis like the one currently in front of us requires adaptations and flexibility, but the companies that succeed in the long run are able to keep their eye on their long term objective while adjusting to current realities. This might mean making deeper cuts to operating cuts earlier than is required, or taking on clients that would not normally be considered a fit. It might mean testing ad formats that would be rejected in a normal environment in an effort to create incremental revenue. It might mean more regular calls with partners or a deeper focus on optimizations than ever before. As your team wades into this new territory, it is important that they maintain perspective. For leadership, it is critical to not panic and shift priorities toward the shiny object of the day.

For us, we will continue to focus on servicing our clients with a similar lens. We deal with the immediate actions that are in front of us while keeping the major projects that were on the roadmap pre-COVID top of mind and moving forward. The best organizations have a strategy in place and resulting projects and tasks with clear deadlines and assignees. It is easy for external pressures, especially revenue risks, to completely de-prioritize that roadmap and create short term distractions. Getting the balance of effort and focus right between immediate challenges and long term projects is incredibly difficult. Our goal is to help our clients find that balance, or at the very least handle the small tasks to allow them to focus on the things that matter most.

Ultimately, business will continue to be conducted and things will slowly return to what will be a new version of normal. SSPs are updating their technology and implementation requirements. Google continues its dominance across the advertising industry. Publishers struggle to balance monetization (more challenging than ever) and user experience (often with more traffic than ever). Creativity and execution are critical in this environment. The ability to filter out distractions is critical for leadership teams. Ironically, empathy and collaboration seem to be as high as ever, at least within the companies that we are privileged to work for. Everyone is dealing with a new set of challenges that are not always directly related to their daily responsibilities and this has brought us together. It is a moment to reflect on what we are doing right and what we could be doing better as organizations. Those that will have successfully navigated the pandemic environment when all is said and done will have leveraged their strengths and attacked their vulnerabilities to come out a better organization.

What does the Coronavirus mean for ad ops and digital publishers?

There are certain industries that are obviously and immediately affected by the Coronavirus outbreak. Travel would have to top any list, with airlines and cruise companies bracing for massive losses. Sports, entertainment and other activities which require large crowds are up there. Conferences are being canceled left and right. Restaurants and bars face an unprecedented crisis. At this point in mid-March, its safe to say that virtually every industry will be impacted in some way.

Our clients have understandably been coming to us for guidance on what this may mean for their businesses. Because we have the privilege of overseeing ad ops and yield management for publishers and digital media companies with diverse business models, we are watching things unfold and have a glimpse into what might be coming. Those publishers that have a significant portion of their revenue coming from direct-sold campaigns are likely to be most immediately impacted. An understandable reaction to the current situation for any advertiser - which ultimately are simply companies selling something to someone - is to put a hold on marketing and advertising budgets. This applies to any category. Those facing an existential risk such as airlines, hoteliers, restaurants are likely to have no choice but to pull budgets.

While PMP deals are a bit more “passive,” they still originate from specific budgets managed by the advertiser or designated agency. I expect these will decline in the short term as well. From a publisher perspective, it's important to have a system or process for monitoring trends across different deal types. Many buyers are likely to simply reduce or suspend bidding without even notifying publishers. If they aren’t watching closely, weeks or months can pass without notice.

Publishers where the majority of their revenue comes from open market programmatic are likely to see the least impact. In fact, over the past month, we have seen the typical end-of-quarter CPM increase play out as if it were any normal year, albeit less dramatically. If you think about the mix of advertisers for a typical open market programmatic-reliant publisher, it might number in the thousands or tens of thousands. Certainly some - perhaps even a majority - are going to be reducing, pausing or canceling campaigns as the situation unfolds. Others - think beer brands, CPG companies, Amazon and the like - will remain steady or even take advantage of declining rates to secure more reach at a lower cost.

The above hints at one of the challenges in measuring the impact in the short-term: typical seasonality (rate increases as the quarter ends and a sharp decrease as the new quarter begins) is going to obscure or exacerbate the effects at the end of March and beginning of April. Publishers with sufficiently powerful BI tools will easily be able to make comparisons (year over year for example) to give them a better sense of what’s to come. I believe the beginning - and likely the first half - of Q2 will be as soft as it has been in years. Its possible that this lasts through the remainder of 2020. I choose to be an optimist and think that it will pass more quickly than the media will have us believe.

Ultimately, just like the stock market, digital media rates will recover. Publishers with positive cash flow that have chosen to remain lean will survive. Ad tech companies with real products and a unique value proposition will discover new opportunities. Others are likely to wither and die. There will be consolidation. We will continue to serve as advocates, advisors and partners to media companies looking to get the most out of their ad ops budgets. As a business that has been fully distributed for nearly a decade, we will remain productive during this time when many companies trying to “figure out” remote work. We will hope for the best and plan for the worst, as we always do.

Stay safe out there.

What a new year brings

For managers and executives at media companies, the end of one year and beginning of another brings a host of requirements. Ensuring that campaigns deliver in full. Creating wrap up reports to showcase performance. Establishing budgets for the following year. Conducting annual employee reviews. The holidays bring a welcome respite for many people but it can also be a time of stress and uncertainty. Going into a new year goals are set and most employees come back with a renewed sense of energy. This is an opportunity to hit the ground running and set the business up for success.

For 360ops, as an advocate for publishers, it means doing more of the same while trying to improve our processes and focusing on getting off to a strong start for the year. It also means evaluating where each of our clients is and where we think they need to go. We evaluate their current partner mix to ensure they are working with the current best companies in the business. We look at areas of opportunity and establish a roadmap for the year, focusing on those priorities that have the potential to produce a step change in their business. We try to identify challenges they are expected to face - such as the “cookieless” environment in 2020 - and create action plans for dealing with them. We also align our own roadmap with that of our clients. The growing need for actionable data means we will continue to build bespoke dashboards that save time and allow for faster decision making. With budgets for PMP deals growing, we will ensure that each of our clients is prepared to maximize those opportunities as they come up.

It is all too easy to slip into the groove of a new year and before you know it Q1 is coming to a close. By this time it feels like it’s too late to set goals. While early is ideal, late is better than never. Ultimately, goals that have been translated to action plans and communicated with employees have the best chance of being reached. In the world of ad ops and media sales, most of us have far more work to get done than there are hours in the day so the challenge is to make time for those things that are important but not urgent. Projects that are going to make life easier for multiple team members or accelerate the business in an exponential way. It is difficult enough to prioritize thinking and strategizing, creating the headspace for managers and team leads to come together to brainstorm such transformative projects. Perhaps even more difficult, and equally as important, is the time allocated to turn these priorities into specific actions. For example, if creating new ad units and formats to be sold is identified as a potential game changer, someone needs to speak to sales about what is likely to resonate best, create mockups, establish pricing, work with product to implement in a test environment and prepare for the first deal. If these tasks are not assigned and do not have specific deadlines, it is possible that a project that could take a matter of weeks could drag on for the entire year.

Consider this a call to action for 2020. Create the time to identify the most impactful opportunities (typically this means blocking calendars and often must occur outside the office to minimize distraction). Assign owners to the outcomes and hold them responsible for following up. Give them the authority to make decisions and make things happen and establish a way to escalate and get answers quickly. Project management is almost always an overlooked and under appreciated function. Bring outside partners like consultants and vendors into the process early on. If you can do these things within your organization, you have done what you can to create the best chance for success.

Thoughts on the current media landscape

What a time to be in media. Refinery29 was recently acquired by VICE. VOX scooped up New York Media. Group Nine acquired PopSugar. Taboola and Outbrain finally merged. The Wall Street Journal published a story about Googles dominance across nearly every system used to maintain an ad-supported digital publishing business. Just this week DoubleVerify acquired Ad-juster, bringing together two of the oldest companies in the business. While several of these deals were rumored to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the majority were stock-based, an indication of the acquired companies' confidence in going it alone. Several had been unprofitable for years and the least fortunate even saw overall revenue shrink year over year.

These companies went through a period of explosive growth for several years, setting ever more aggressive revenue targets and hiring in order to support them. Venture capital money was easy to come by and they told a story of engaging a diversified audience across every platform they use. Unfortunately, many of those platforms were (and are) still figuring out their own business models and made it difficult or impossible for publishers to successfully monetize their audiences. The idea of building an audience first and monetizing it later (Facebook being the ultimate example) only works if you actually control the platform where the audience is being built.

As someone with an equity stake in the combined combined VICE/R29 entity, I am hoping for their success. In order to build long-term value, they are going to have to do a few things exceptionally well.

Produce content that a valuable audience seeks out. After all, is this not why media companies exist? As a consumer of media myself, I find myself seeking content that educates and inspires me as well as content that simply fills time where I might otherwise be bored. Creating content for a homogenous, undifferentiated audience, however, is not interesting unless you have hundreds of millions of users (which can then be segmented into differentiated audience). Establishing a brand, or brands, that focuses on serving specific communities means that advertisers will be interested in placing their messaging in front of that audience.

Execute on what is sold. It is very difficult to appropriately staff an advertising supported media business. Even more difficult is maintaining continuity across the teams, from sales to account management to ad operations. A common theme over the past year or two among the aforementioned companies is doing layoffs of 10-20% of their staff. A likely outcome of the combined entities will be further layoffs to eliminate redundancy created by bringing duplicative teams together.

Remain lean and efficient. When seeking to develop balanced resources across different revenue-related teams, well-funded companies tend to “over-hire” as they establish goals for the coming years. Smaller companies, or those with more conservative management, tend to maintain a lean staff and focus on creating workflow and operational efficiencies. As a former manager of several teams totaling over 65 people, I have been an advocate of staffing to levels that allow everyone to excel at their jobs. On the other hand, as a business owner, I have chosen to remain lean for reasons I have discussed previously. Unfortunately there is no universal right answer here - each company must make the best decision for their business.

Prove that what they do actually works. From a revenue standpoint, industry news tends to focus on the diversification of revenue streams for media companies. What largely gets excluded from the spotlight, perhaps because it is much less sexy (and often closely guarded) is their ability to actually prove what they do - providing access to a specific audience - actually works. These firms cannot simply assume that advertisers will pay, and continue to pay, to align with a publisher's brand and content. This is much easier said than done, but proving that advertising programs result in improvements to advertiser’s businesses is perhaps second only to attracting an audience in the first place.

What does world class look like

I’ve written previously on this blog about building world-class ad operations teams. However, just because you’ve hired the best doesn’t necessarily mean they will automatically rise to the occasion. In this post I am going to talk about what excellence in ad ops looks like. Here are a few tenants of world class teams.

Tidiness. The different systems ad ops and account management teams use to do their jobs are like a kitchen is to a team of line cooks and their head chef. Think about the kitchen at a restaurant with three Michelin stars versus a fast food kitchen run by employees who would rather be anywhere else. The former is likely to be clean, organized and efficient. The latter messy, chaotic and unsanitary in the worst case. Media professionals who take pride in their work have a natural degree of obsessive compulsiveness and are willing to spend the time to keep their systems, software and processes tidy and up to date.

Thoroughness. The media business is fast-paced and comes with a good deal of stress. Rare is the environment where there are ample or even enough team members to handle the workload. Advertisers and agencies could not care less about this fact and want things turned around with lightening speed. Cutting corners and skipping steps is a natural reaction in these situations. Proper QA, consistent naming conventions, regularly comparing discrepancies: these are all things that tend to go by the wayside when things get busy. The best of the best rise up and go the extra mile, despite the additional time and effort required.

Ownership. So many times, organizations lack clearly defined responsibilities for each team, which leads to finger pointing, shirking of responsibilities and ineffective execution. Great leaders are clear about the responsibilities for their team and challenge their peers to do the same. Great employees establish their own responsibilities and take ownership for everything in their purview.

Innovation. There are few things easier than maintaining the status quo. This is especially true in fast-paced environments with a lot of moving parts, overworked teams and looming deadlines. Focusing on the day-to-day tasks in front of us rather than major long term projects is understandable. Great teams, however, schedule time for thinking and planning and treat this as sacred. Trying new things and being unafraid to fail is a hallmark of businesses that find success in the long run.

Relentlessness. The best adops campaign managers, directors and VPs tend to have several traits in common. They often display more than a little obsessive compulsiveness. They are highly organized. They develop a process that works for them and stick to it. They hate making mistakes more than anything. They are relentless in their follow-ups, especially when it comes to colleagues and teams they rely on to get their work done.

While the traits of the best ad operations and media sales teams cannot be contained in a single list, I’ve attempted to capture some of the most important. Hiring the best people or best outsourcing vendors you can find is only one piece of the puzzle. Managers and leaders must also ensure they are working well with others, hitting KPIs and developing a reputation as one of the most reliable departments within the company.

6 questions to ask when considering outsourcing your ad operations

Outsourcing your ad operations is a major decision that should not be taken lightly. Finding the right partner for any type of project, from the basic nuts and bolts of ad ops to strategic consulting projects like adserver migrations, header implementations, custom dashboard creation is key to building long-term productive relationships. With that in mind, here are some questions to ask as you begin your search.

- What are their areas of expertise?

You want to find an ad ops firm that is focused on what you actually need. If your major challenge is monetizing display inventory via programmatic, you want a team with deep experience with technologies and vendors. If you are launching an OTT app and need help pricing out a video strategy, you would be best served by a firm that has launched, sold or managed OTT apps themselves. If you direct-sell large custom programs, you need a partner with an understanding of what it really takes to execute at a high level. You can gather this information from their website, by asking pointed questions and via references.

- Where are they based?

Today’s media world is largely distributed with many world-class teams working entirely remotely. However, you want to find a partner that is able to support the various time zones that your business operates in and is able to attend any required in-person meetings. In a remote environment, it is important to choose a partner with experience doing so, having access to all requisite technologies that facilitate such configurations.

- What is the experience of their team?

Not the salesperson trying to sign you as a client, but the actual people who will be doing the work. What is their experience? Does it align with your needs? Is the company bring run by someone with appropriate experience managing large projects and teams of employees? One of the most important things is to find people who have seen it all, so you spend less time having to manage them. If they are not able to respond with authority about the subjects most important to you, you may want to continue your search.

- Who are their current and past clients?

Have they worked with companies similar to yours before? While there is consistency across the publisher landscape, there are enough differences to be meaningful. If you are a high-end content business with a big sales team that sells most of your inventory as branded content and sponsorships, working with a company that works with mostly long tail publishers doesn’t make a lot of sense. Ask for referrals and speak with them. You’ll often be surprised about how helpful and candid people in similar positions can be.

- Do they focus on one thing or try to do it all?

You must try to strike a balance between companies that can expand their scope to meet your needs versus those that only do one thing. They need to be focused enough to excel at what they do but broad enough to address a wide range of publisher needs. It is a good idea to take the time to outline all of your requirements prior to engaging potential partners. A formal ad ops outsourcing RFP can be a great idea but even internal notes on pain points, key tasks, etc can go a long way.

- Is there cultural alignment?

If your company is a highly formal, structured, process-driven organization, you are more likely to find success with a partner that operates in a similar fashion. If you are a startup or a more fluid company, working with a firm that is willing to adapt to your process and style might make more sense. Day-to-day communication is the most important aspect of any outsourcing relationship so taking the time to optimize and align on this prior to any relationship is absolutely critical.

Making sense of your data

As someone who has spent an entire career working for advertising-supported digital media companies, I have spent more hours than I care to think about creating spreadsheets to answer questions. Why did our CPM go down this month? Did that campaign actually perform worse after we layered on an audience segment? What is our currently discrepancy rate on the Geico campaign? If we don’t increase traffic for the rest of the month, how much revenue is at risk of under-delivery? Typically, these questions would arise and I or someone on my team would go hunt down the answer. We would pull together the relevant data, get our answer, take action and move on. Eventually, we would get sick enough of answering the same question over and over that we would create a template or regularly updated report from which to view the data. More often than not these reports were created in Excel or more recently in Google Sheets.

This is a scenario that plays out across nearly every publisher, regardless of size. Many small to mid sized publishers will employ a full time individual who’s only job is to manually export and import data each day/week/month. Some large publishers invest in BI tools that purport to make all of their data available at their fingertips. I have seen organizations employ a full time individual just to manage the chosen BI tool, their responsibilities ranging from initial configuration to internal advocacy and troubleshooting. Unfortunately, these tools can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per year and were not built specifically for digital publishers. Inherent to this is a lack of understanding about how complex gathering and visualizing data for these companies truly is.

For direct-sell publishers, key KPIs include pacing, discrepancy comparisons, performance (CTR, viewability, interactions), fraud rates and more. This requires an association between their own adserver and any number of 3rd party adservers and systems. The fact that Google has a monopoly position for adservers for both publishers and advertisers doesn’t actually make this process any simpler. The most important thing for these companies is knowing that their campaigns are going to deliver in full by the contracted end date and that they are performing well throughout the flight.

For programmatic publishers, many of which also sell direct campaigns, the situation can be even more complex. There may be upwards of several dozen different systems from which data must be exported. Each of these data sources has a different label for the same parameter. Some will have APIs or allow for scheduling of automated reports. Others require that you log in and export the data directly from their system. There is typically at least one partner that doesn’t even have a UI from which to export data, their only solution being to manually send regular reports via email.

For years I have dreamed about building a publisher-specific dashboarding tool. Finally, that solution is here and we are calling it inSITE. This platform was built specifically for digital media companies based on decades of experience. Most critically, we understand that a one-size-fits-all solution, which is a requirement for most BI platforms in order to allow for scale, simply does not work. There are always going to be new data sources. The process of ingesting data is going to break when APIs change or automated reports expire. Different companies focus on different KPIs. This is why each dashboard is custom built from the ground up based on customer inputs and maintained directly by our team. Our legacy as an outsourcing and consulting business provides a logical foundation for delivering a world class product to each of our clients. We are able to address issues quickly. We can create new views easily. No more “feature requests” and long development cycles.

If this is a problem you or someone on your team faces, you are not alone. We would love to help. Click here to get in touch and schedule a demo.

How to build healthy partnerships

One of the challenges facing media companies today is the difficulty of building and maintaining a sustainable business while working with clients who are continuously looking for lower rates and increased performance at the same time. In many cases for direct-sold campaigns, while the senior level kickoff meeting is full of smiles and back slaps, the relationship between the front-line managers and executors on both sides turns into a combative environment devoid of ownership or accountability.

There are many reasons that this happens. Ad agencies are full of understaffed and overworked teams, which naturally leads them to offload as much work as possible to the companies they are paying for the placement of their client’s assets. With a spate of recent layoffs at major digital-only publishers, the same situation is often true at these companies. After all, its not as if the revenue goals are adjusted downward (at least not proportionally) despite the reduction in workforce. Everyone is simply expected to pick up the slack. Another reason is a lack of clear understanding on what was actually sold and/or an inability to translate this into terms that the executors can actually execute. Perhaps a conversation over beers leads to a big idea which is then turned into a media plan that doesn’t necessarily reflect something that is sellable, measurable, or scalable. In this case, internal marketing, account management and ad ops teams are left to invent solutions on the fly, begging colleagues to help them deliver the bare minimum of what was promised. Yet another possibility for why these relationships can disintegrate is a cultural lack of accountability throughout the organizations involved. When one individual or team feels like they are doing all of the hard work with no reciprocal effort, they are bound to become frustrated at minimum. When the people around them simply pass work (and responsibility) on to someone else as quickly as possible, their motivation to do their best work work evaporates.

My attitude has always been that I will not get frustrated about that which I cannot control. Additionally, I acknowledge that others may not put in the effort or quality of work that I do and that I will not slip to their level. This has served me well in these situations and I’d like to think that this thinking contributes to a culture where everyone does their best and takes ownership for everything within their domain. When companies instill this attitude in their employees, they are more likely to go the extra mile and do the right things when it counts.  

We run ad operations for publishers (and some agencies and advertisers) of all shapes and sizes, which gives us a wide view of how buyers and sellers of media work together. Regardless of the type of the relationship or deal, from long-term sponsorships to media-only direct campaigns to hybrid programmatic deals and full blown open market, the healthy partnerships are always built on a foundation of mutual respect. This must be established early on and carried through the life of the deal. The buyer should feel as if they are getting a fair return for their money and a team that will work hard on their behalf. They should believe that they are buying something of value that will drive results for their client. The seller should feel like they are working with counterparts that are not out to take advantage of them. Aligning on expectations early on is the single most critical step publishers can take to build these healthy relationships going into any campaign.

The rest is blocking and tackling, things that any high functioning organization should be able to handle with relative ease. This includes being responsive, available, thorough and transparent. Clarity in communication and eliminating middlemen is key. We often see multiple layers in place where the outcome is effectively a game of phone tag where the day-to-day contact, often an Account Manager, is simply a translator for other people within the organization who actually have answers and the context behind them. As difficult as it is, eliminating these additional layers by putting the appropriate people in touch directly typically results in a greater understanding and level of empathy on both sides. The argument against this, that the buyer needs a single point of contact for simplicity, is based on a lack of understanding of the nuances of what happens in the weeds. If the trafficker or ad ops manager has the relevant information, let them speak to the client. They must be able to develop this skillset and the client will appreciate the expertise. If the creative person needs to advise the client on an important change to a program, facilitate a direct conversation. The client will understand what is going on and the creative lead will be able to do something with the feedback that is provided.

Of course campaigns need to launch quickly, pace appropriately and deliver in full. These are tablestakes. Making proactive optimization suggestions based on agreed upon KPIs and building a compelling wrap presentation should be as well. Anyone with a desire to excel at their job will prioritize these tasks accordingly. I used to tell employees on my team that the best gauge of their professional performance in a sales-driven media organization is the level of desire (or lack thereof) that their colleagues have to work with them. Because teams are often structured into cross-functional “pods,” these feelings become very apparent when shifts in alignments happen. If someone is moved onto another team and there is major backlash, that is a good indication that that person is doing an exemplary job. On the other hand, if there is silence or even a sense of relief, it typically means that the person getting re-aligned is falling short. If organizations can develop employees that everyone is fighting over, they will be set up for long-term success.

Relying on external forces and chasing shiny objects

As I’ve written about before, we’re living in uncertain times for media companies with business models that rely on traffic to their website. If you are to read the mainstream news, you understandably might think the entire online publishing industry is doomed. Recent headlines include the fire sale of Mic to the suggestion that the VC-backed cohort of companies including Buzzfeed, VOX and Refinery29 should merge in order to have a better chance of competing with Google and Facebook. Long-overdue charges for criminals exploiting technological gaps erode consumer confidence and make advertisers, who foot the bill for much of the professionally-created content on the internet, wary of the value they are getting for their investment. Under this backdrop, it has probably never been more difficult to build a scaled digital publishing business. I have been fortunate (or unfortunate depending on how you look at it) to have worked for or with publishers large and small, across various categories, some of which have succeeded and some of which have failed. A common theme for those that have struggled is an over-reliance on outside forces for traffic, revenue or both.

Over the past several years, many publishers have ridden a social-media fueled roller coaster in which they sought (and many still are) to reverse-engineer the algorithms that reward winners with a high volume of clicks. Similar to an obsession with search engine optimization in the early days of the web, these publishers pour over engagement data and double down on what works, pouring resources into creating more of that content. More often than not this results in a degradation of the quality and standards that the brand has become known for and users start to notice. Traditionally, more clicks equals more page views which equals more ad impressions which equals more revenue. Once you become accustomed to these sources of traffic and build goals around them, it is all but impossible change course.

Other publishers may find that their revenue mix is dominated by a single platform. As the incumbent adserver for display and video advertising, Google is the most common of these given their demand is built into the system. That Google yields the lions share of a publishers revenue is understandable as it is incredibly easy simply to turn on Adsense or Adexchange and let the dollars roll in. There are two risks in allowing this to happen to an extreme degree. First, the publisher is undoubtedly leaving money on the table by not including a greater diversity of demand. In the absence of sufficient competition, Google will simply deliver the lowest CPMs required to “win" the impressions. Second, Google is notorious for changing policies and algorithms without warning, leaving the publisher stranded without other options. For example, they may require the publishers to remove Google ads from an entire section of their site (user generated content perhaps) that has historically been a reliable moneymaker. A better approach is to diversify the revenue mix by adding unique demand. When the pie chart displaying different programmatic revenue sources becomes more colorful, external changes within individual platforms will have much less impact on the business.

Despite the aforementioned headlines, I continue to work with digital publishers every day that are thriving in the current environment. Among this cohort, there are some common threads. They have often chosen to remain lean and are extremely judicious about hiring. They evaluate new vendors and partners carefully and only add ones that will truly create value. They set realistic goals and clearly articulate the necessary steps for achieving them. They control their own destiny wherever possible. Most importantly, they create good content in their brand voice that resonates with their audience. By following this playbook, success is not guaranteed but the odds become much more favorable.

Full service or service based? The importance of retaining control

I was speaking to a publisher the other day who was considering a transition from their current outsourced adops vendor and as I dug deeper into their business with qualifying questions, it became apparent how painful such a decision would be. Years ago, they selected a vendor that essentially owns the entire ad stack technology and every relationship with their programmatic demand sources. Because of this, changing vendors (or building an in-house team) would basically require them to start over from scratch. They are at the mercy of this vendor for adserving, programmatic revenue and historical data on direct-sold campaigns. Over time, this compounds to make the thought of any significant change to resources or workflow - which is often required for continued growth - so overwhelming that it becomes abandoned before it even grows legs.

Despite the attractiveness of reselling software and establishing preferred (paid) relationships with demand sources and other platforms, we have chosen to remain independent of these for one simple reason: we put the needs of our customers ahead of our own (see our principles). In many ways, this decision puts us at a disadvantage, especially when it comes to publishers looking for “full service” solutions. They want a firm that will implement and manage everything end-to-end, from adserver selection to ad tag implementation to choosing demand partners to collecting payments. All these publishers want to see is ad revenue hit their bank account on a monthly basis. At least this is what they think they want. But what happens two, three, or five years later, when they have grown to the point where they are investing in their future and place a greater emphasis on controlling their own destiny? If they own the relationships, they have a much greater selection of options in front of them, regardless of where they choose to go.

With software, you can charge the customer while you are sleeping. What a great model! SaaS companies have the multiples they do for a reason. With a service business, you have to hustle, plain and simple. Its hard work. If you can’t deliver what you say you’re going to deliver, you won’t have a business for very long. On the other hand, this allows us to recommend whatever software, services, platforms and partners are most appropriate for our clients’ businesses. We have no incentive to recommend one solution over another unless they are best in class and best-suited for the situation. This also allows us to focus all of our energy and attention on the needs of our clients and not spend time supporting software and platforms that we ultimately did not build ourselves.

This decision has also allowed us to remain small. Modern business culture has indoctrinated us to revere growth and scale and almost scoff at businesses that are smaller, either by necessity or by choice. As I’ve written about before, remaining lean has its advantages. It allows us to live our values without compromise. We move quickly and adjust to rapid fluctuations in our business and the industry. Over time, I have learned to filter out the noise and focusing on what is really important: adding value for our clients. If we can do that, everything else will take care of itself. They will retain us over long periods of time, refer us to other publishers and allow us to innovate as the market evolves. These things will result in more business, and more business means the opportunity to be selective about the projects and clients we work with. If we do that, just like our clients, we will be able to control our own destiny.