Nick Denton, CEO of Gawker Media, has his own take on what online ad spend will look like in 2009 and it’s not pretty. It’s a compelling argument and gloomier than anything else I’ve read. But with this bad news, Denton also provides a plan – something most ad spend projections do not have. Denton outlines six levers for publishers to use to weather the storm ahead and while his intended audience is at the CEO/owner level, ad operations should consider each of his points and develop strategies around them. Here is my interpretation of what Denton recommends from an ad operations perspective:
Get out of advertiser-adverse content: Editorial and Sales departments all have their view of what content belongs on the site. Ad Operations typically is the one sitting on the data. With the resources you have at your disposal, you should be working to bring to light what sections are performing and which ones are not so that the appropriate content can be focused on or cut. Help make these decisions.
Renegotiate vendor contracts: This one is pretty straightforward. You should have complete understanding of your vendor contracts and be comfortable with the rates you pay.
Consolidate Titles: While it isn’t an ad operations role to consolidate websites, the fact remains that if you are running operations for a network of sites, you should be looking to increase efficiencies across properties, especially the better performing ones. Help make your products easier to sell.
Offshore More: Whether or not it’s a good idea to offshore operational functions is something you should at least have an internal discussion about and formulate a strategy around.
Variable Compensation: Designing new compensation programs for ad traffickers has come up at several AdMonsters events and many publishers have already implemented. I won’t hazard a guess on how the economy will impact the ad operations talent pool, but you should plan to have conversations with Human Resources about what lies ahead. If departments will be running leaner, it makes each person more important and more costly to replace.
More value for Marketers: How ad operations can help provide more value to clients- and therefore revenue to the company – will be a continuing theme of AdMonsters. What I’m particularly excited about is Denton’s move beyond the standard ad units. The standards were developed to help dollars flow online. If the dollars aren’t flowing as much as they should, shouldn’t we be exploring new sizes? I don’t know if Denton’s recommended sizes should be the new standard, but I’d like to see new options explored.
This list is only a sample of what ad operations should be doing now as we head into the new year and into some challenging times. Expect the flurry of online ad spend projections to continue, and expect them to forecast some grim news. But is this really helpful for ad operations? I’m not recommending that you start ignoring all the dire news about our industry, I’m recommending only that you look to find out what others are doing about this situation. Nick Denton has a plan. What is your company’s plan? Jordan Rohan from Clearmeadow Partners speaking at DPAC II made the point that we’ll know we’ve hit bottom when we’ve stopped asking if we’ve hit bottom. For publishers who move quickly and act, they’ll have stopped asking about the bottom and will be on their way up well before those who do nothing or delay.
Rob Beeler is Vice President of Content and Media for AdMonsters and has worked in Ad Operations for over ten years. Rob started attending AdMonster events in 2004 as a member and will be in New Orleans on March 8th for Publisher Forum US XX.