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 As demand grows for true integrated multimedia campaigns, so can the customer service and operational complexities involved in fulfilling them. Interactive publishers are working hard to juggle an increasing number of multimedia campaign requests in an environment where the ability to both traffic and measure the combined results from all the moving parts is challenging at best, and overwhelming at worst.

Everyone knows that the bar has been set high for new media. So, how will our ambitious but challenged digital marketing and media industry deliver on such a promise? First, we have to know where we are, so the State of the Industry Survey on Ad Operations for DM2Media’s Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference focuses on the state of digital ad operations, primarily from the perspective of publishers and agencies – both the largest number of respondents and those most tasked with operational success.

Working with survey sponsor Operative, DM2PRO.com first interviewed several practitioners of digital ad operations, then reviewed the existing literature. We found surprisingly little first-person feedback on the difficulties involved in delivering an excellent customer experience to interactive advertising clients. Publishers themselves are surprisingly lax in gathering satisfaction data, but we’ll come back to that.

In just a week’s time, our industry survey, directed to the digital advertising and publishing pros who either frequent DIGIDAY’s topical shows or frequently read DIGIDAY:DAILY, drew more than 700 responses – nearly 400 from publishers, and more than 100 from digital ad agency pros.

The picture that emerges is one where the publisher’s ad operations team is increasingly on the front-lines of customer service – perhaps because only they are knowledgeable enough about the inner workings of any given multimedia campaign to be able to keep ad clients in the loop. Publishers so highly revere the in-house ad trafficker that only a fifth would consider outsourcing the function, while more than half of agencies do so regularly.

Reading a bit between the lines, the picture emerges of an industry on the cusp of maturity in executing on digital campaigns, yet still struggling with primitive tools like multiple Excel sheets and email to respond, measure and monetize.

Among the highlights: What publishers can’t deliver, but say they need to in order to profit in a hyper-competitive marketplace include:

·      Real-time inventory forecasting (29%)

·      Real-time campaign performance (28%)

·      Cross-media buys (25%)

·      Content integration (21%)

·      Targeting (17%)

·      Product package (12%) and

·      Creative tracking / iteration (11%)

Forecasting and audience analysis lead the list of things agencies would like to offer but can’t currently. The most popular answer in terms of what agencies will invest in this year to improve ad operations is an ad metrics and reporting solution or “ad serving solution/ software.” Both design and trafficking staff and internal technical ad operations staff topped DSP and “outsourced ad operations.”

Thanks to Operative’s support in this exercise, and the help of AdMonsters in driving participation, DM2PRO.com will make the full white paper and detailed PowerPoint available for download without a subscription for a limited time. As always, it’s just $20/month to be able to access all our State of the Industry surveys and analyses, case studies, expert interviews and more. 

You can also watch Operative's lighthearted delivery of the survey at DPAC.