Should You Outsource Your Ad Ops?

Advertising Operations (aka Ad Ops) is critical to both the buy- and sell-side of digital media. A well-oiled Ad Ops team with technical expertise and the ability to turn  campaigns around quickly helps an organization run seamless operations and in turn achieve revenue goals.

Over the years, Ad Operations has evolved from being a highly technical task to a more process-driven activity requiring diligence and meticulousness as its most important skills. This of course has been driven by the simplified UI’s and workflows of most of the Ad Servers used today (barring a few, I should say).

Managing an Ad Ops team however, presents its  own challenges. From ever-increasing costs to employee retention, many issues grab the time and attention of upper management. Some of these challenges though can be mitigated by outsourcing your Ad Operations activities.

Although there are many advantages to outsourcing Ad Ops, there are a few important ones. The most important of these is cost effectiveness; it’s usually less expensive to outsource. Based on the Ad Monsters Salary survey for 2013, an organization can save up to 50% in salaries when it outsources a regular Ad Trafficker position. Savings can be greater if you include the “burden” — almost a third more than the salary for benefits, management costs, infrastructure and other miscellaneous expenses. In addition, a typical outsourcing partner would not charge you for resources during the training period, which means you will receive a productive resource from day one.

But in addition to cost, there’s the matter of technical expertise.   Yes, this may sound a bit odd, but in my experience of managing outsourced Ad Operations over the past seven years,  I ‘ve noticed that certain outsourcing partners can provide excellent technical resources with experience on multiple Ad servers, and in many different environments. This is especially true if you select an ad tech company rather than a business process outsourcing company as your outsourcing partner. Ad tech companies have the advantage of having both technology and services expertise in-house, and  the experience of working with multiple clients and ad servers adds to the expertise.

Next is quality assurance. With the advantages of technical expertise and optimized processes on their side, outsourcing partners are armed to provide excellent quality. Processes are well defined, documented and followed, which ensures that errors are nearly eliminated.

Last, but certainly not least, is coverage. Websites run 24×7,  and so do users who come to the websites, so advertising also needs to be monitored 24×7. If your operations are large enough and requirements justified, outsourcing partners usually have the ability to provide 24×7 operations. They also provide coverage during national holidays or backups for leaves and vacations, which ensures seamless coverage.