Breakout: Responsive Design

Key takeaway: Ad strategy. Let your ad strategy dictate how you approach RD

When you go from more ads to fewer, do you up your CPM? If you can, you should.

·       CBS Peter Yared has several articles on RD

·       New term out of CBS: RDSS Responsive Web Design with Server Side components

o   Built into your content management system

·       Helps facilitate RD

o   Need the ability to inject dynamic all assets from content to ads

o   Javascript-based solution seems to be the agreed upon standard

o   Should find a way to dynamically place the correct ad call based on the user agent/viewport detection

·       Email based RD is a challenge here

o   DFP’s Unified tag solution (smart tags with variable creative sizes and device detection) is still new, technology isn’t quite there yet.

·       Once tech is ready, we may be a shift with the google unified tag in the way inventory is sold

o   Non-tech challenges include educating sales teams and getting agencies to provide a wide range of creatives

o   DFP Unified tags would help with RD, but many businesses are solving low tech – they are handling the operational heavy lifting on their end

·       Multiple line items/creative sizes/goal breakouts – operational debt

·       Can RM vendors help with a one-tag solution?

§  Tech is still evolving

§  Mixpo has some promising options

o   Move towards standardization:

·       Yahoo has come out and said “if you are not able to interoperate in a safe frame environment, we will not use your tags”

·       This is something that helps get RM vendors agree with a standard

o   Declining inventory

·       Publishers have seen 17%-50% decreases in inventory with RD

o    Trends: some sites have seen a 30% increase in mobile traffic

·       Some up to 45% increase across tablet and mobile

·       Less revenue being generated on desktop than ever before

·       This spurs the sales strategy to move more and more towards the RD mindset

o   It’s been a challenge from sales to craft a story about the better experience Responsive Design has on advertisers.

o   Being smart about how you look at responsive design

·       You will not be able to port your exact desktop site and attribution across mobile devices

·       300x250s are a good focal point since they work across many environments

·       970×66 and 728x90s become problematic due to screensizes

o   If the sizes that advertisers are demanding are challenging to incorporate into your site design from an RD perspective, work with your team to change the strategy

o   Who is hosting your mobile site? Mobify? Internal? Other? Many are using external solutions

o   Apps

·       How does this affect apps?

§  Do you work with partners to build them? Most do.

§  Do you have a separate sales strategy for apps? Mixed feelings.

o   Some have a separate trafficking teams for the apps vs. desktop vs. video

·       Different competencies for each platform

·       Will RD increase the workload on ops? Or will it make things easier?

o   Oftentimes there are unforeseen issues that crop up which creates challenges.

o   Some feel there’s no checklist of what to look for because this is new

·       Reporting

o   How is this handled?

·       How do you true up impressions?

§  Creative Size? Platform? A combination of the two?

§  Can be difficult to parse out with current tech

·       Pricing

o   Sell on one flat CPM across these platforms

o   Will the agencies try to disrupt this strategy?

o   Publishers need to band together

·       Products

o   Rich media in responsive ad units?

·       Are we using expands? Pushdowns? These create challenges

·       In app is a particular challenge, SDKs are sometimes are required and can limit flexibility

·       A standardized product set is key to maintain control

§  Can easily become unwieldy if you spread yourself to thin

·       A dedicated product team can help navigate this

·       Communication with sales can be difficult

·       Test and learn approach

o   How we market this, sell it, etc.

o   Even if your sites are responsive, you may not work that into your sales strategy

·       First steps towards RD:

o   How much money can you invest in this?

·       Let strategy dictate

§  Have a mobile, video, display strategy

§  It won’t solve all your problems, but in the short term it can help guide where your business goes

o   Development

·       Can be a challenge

·       A brand new CMS is often needed in order to move to responsive design

·       DFP GPT introduced an aspect ratio on their tags, which created real roadblocks to responsive design, and the DFP universal tag is still being refined, may not be ready for primetime.

§  GPT issues on endless scroll

·       New tech: BatchSRA may be able to help solve for this

·       Buggy for now

§  Dynamic ad resizing

§  DFPP – Callback functionality doesn’t exist

·       Cannot load the ads when you want them

·       OAS DX tag

§  Allows you to quasi pre-fetch all your creatives, can control which creative goes into which DIV/position and record when an impression is tracked.

o   Ads in responsive design email

·       Cannot make a user agent detection work in an email environment.

·       Many brands use LiveIntent to help with email ad management

o   Action Steps

·       Developing sales and technology strategy before jumping headlong into responsive design is sound advice

·       Work in lockstep with your tech, editorial, sales and strategy team when implemented RD

·       Inform execs that inventory may shrink, but increased usability may help offset this

·       Sales needs to know that they should become smarter about how they sell to this reduced pool

·       Clients need to be informed on assets that will be requested

·       Peter Yared has a lot of good writings on this subject that may help guide the discussion

·       New term out of CBS: RESS Responsive Web Design with Server Side components