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This post was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse by Aditya Bhelande.
It’s that time of the year… Q’4 is arriving soon… Snow, Christmas and rush to deliver campaigns! Budget is ‘use it or lose it’ and there’s the pressure to reach the audience of your choice. Here are the few things you can do to better prepare for the Q’4 rush:
1. Ad Ops Process
Ensure that you get the Ad Operations process review done so that you can make any changes done in the process before the busy season starts. Implement and follow the process so that any wrinkles can be ironed out.
2. Site Tagging Review
If any tagging on the website is changed then ensure that supply is as expected, especially if you deal with guaranteed sales. Sudden dip in supply can put damper on sales planning.
3. Approvals
Make sure that most of your campaign set is done ahead of time for direct campaigns. Get set-up and creative reviewed and approved. Get sites approved ahead of time.
4. Forecasting
Project your inventory needs. Identify look alike sites and audiences, in case the sites and audiences that you are planning to use see a drastic drop in supply. Have options ready in case so that you can shift your budgets.
5. Reporting & Analytics
Ensure that your reporting and analytics is ready to run like a well-oiled machine. Identify all your key decision-making reports ahead of time and ensure that they are working as expected.
- Campaign pacing – Make sure that you have added some grace period while trafficking campaigns on ad servers. It helps to successfully complete your campaigns before time.
- Performance tracking – Pacing and performance are correlated. Hence, make sure to target the campaign to right audience and right amount of inventory. This will help you to deliver campaigns with good performance as well.
- Discrepancy tracking – Fast pacing of the campaigns may lead to problems like discrepancy for third party campaigns.
6. Holiday Schedule
Plan for team holidays and bandwidth to ensure complete coverage during the holiday period, especially starting Thanksgiving. Keep a simple scheduling xls to get a visual view of coverage. At any given time there must a key decision maker available with the execution team to ensure in-time decision-making.
7. Checklist
Make a checklist of things that should be followed in case of various situations. That way when things are getting done in crunch time, aspects critical to execution are not missed, thereby reducing errors.
8. Back up Plan
Perform impact analysis to get a better understanding in case delivery commitments are not met due to competing priorities and trade offs. Keep the decision matrix ready to ensure the decisions are made quickly and everyone understands customer and financial impacts.
9. Partners
Work with Supply and Demand partners and help them understand your needs. If possible, pre-book buy and sales deals at certain price. Inventory can get expensive in Q’4 as it’s the peak-buying season for most. Having such arrangements may help
10. Experts & Help On Call
Keep additional help on hand. Call on experts as needed to ensure smooth operations in Q’4. Avoid waiting till the last minute to get help. Involve experts ahead of time.
If there are things you do for successful Q’4, then feel free to share!
Good luck for great a Q’4 and May the Force be with you!
Does your Q’4 rush checklist cover these 10 important checks? Please share your insights in the comments section below, as we learn just as much from you as you do from us.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S):
Aditya Bhelande is Founder and CEO of YuktaMedia, provider of automated Ad and Revenue Operations platform for Publisher, Agencies and Advertisers across Display, Video and Mobile advertising. Aditya’s rich experience over the last 15 years fuels the entrepreneur inside him to build winning teams and innovative products. In his spare time Aditya works on non-profit focused initiatives for under-privileged kids education in India.
And
Pravin Girigosavi drives the Ad Operations practice at YuktaMedia. His in-depth knowledge of various ad servers such as DFP, DFA, Revive, ADTECH and others prove a big benefit for Publishers. He has also worked with various View-ability systems such as DFP, MOAT, comScore and others and help Publishers and Advertisers select the right one for their needs.
