With 14 years in the digital media trenches, Kerel Cooper, Senior Director of Digital Ad Platform Strategies at Advance Digital, is a great resource for the whole AdMonsters community on a wealth of topics – most notably, audience extension. Not only has he witnessed ops’ transformation from cost center to revenue generator, he’s undeniably been a driving force in this change. In the video and interview below, he details why ops is a rewarding career path and the importance of keeping up to speed with a rapidly changing industry.
Rob Beeler: You mention in the video, the change of ad operations from cost center to profit center. Can you share with us how you were able to make that shift?
Kerel Cooper: To be clear I was speaking in more general terms of how I have seen the Ad Ops function change from where Ad Ops was in 1999 to where Ad Ops is in 2014. I think as technology has improved, more data is provided and the types of advertising opportunities have grown Ad Ops knowledge and expertise has become much more important to an organization. I think back in 1999 we were viewed as “here are the ads put them up” where as today we are much more involved in strategic conversations and required to help generate revenue.
RB: You’ve presented before at AdMonsters about audience extension, which is a big strategic move on your part. Can you outline how Advance Digital is using audience extension to help its clients?
KC: Audience Extension helps us find the right audience in the right environment and reach our advertisers prospects with a higher frequency. We pride ourselves on offering the best solutions to our clients and Audience Extension is one of the tools that allow us to do this.
Check out Kerel’s presentation on Audience Extension from Publisher Forum Sonoma.
RB: What’s the next big challenge you are taking on in 2014?
KC: In 2014, I am continuing to focus on providing tools and products that help our clients reach their target audience more effectively, as well as reporting [and] analytics that provide deeper insights that tell a story about their ad campaign.