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Stop the Ad Ops Grind: Cut Errors and Unlock Growth · Full Tech Ahead

• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Full Tech Ahead.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Amanda Razzani, and I'm excited to be here today with Michelle Bavitz.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: She is the Global Head of Account Management at Theorem.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hi.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, hi, Amanda.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm well.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Doing well.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, can you share a little bit about Theorem?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: What services does Theorem provide?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: So at Theorem, we are a digital media organization.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that we do for our clients is designed to help them scale.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: We work with publishers, streaming companies, agencies, in general, media owners.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And everything we do is related to helping our clients grow faster and drive better performance.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially, we we come across two key areas with our clients where we support.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: One is on the tech side, where we work to automate the ad operations process for them so they can do more work with less manual intervention.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the other side, we also do uh team augmentation.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we have teams that can provide additional support across every uh digital media channel out there.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And really, our model is a hybrid where with clients we are integrating the human element as well as the tech side to bring greater automation opportunity to their business processes.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, our topic of today is adopts and automation.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And to that note, let's start with why is adopts automation such an important conversation for business leaders today?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So automation within ad operations is a hot topic right now.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think automation and AI in general is really found its way into just about every business.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason why it's important within ad operations is ad operations processes across all different clients really vary by how that company works, but also the platforms that they're using.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So various platforms, various processes.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: But then finally, the third piece is multiple teams.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: So while a lot of organizations obviously have an ad operations team, the end-to-end process in delivering an ad campaign touches so many teams.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you're touching finance, you're touching some IT, you're touching ad ops, you're touching client management and success, as well as ad sales.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So because the campaigns move through multiple teams across different processes and platforms, it brings a lot of opportunity for things like error, friction with internal teams as well as client teams.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're looking at ad operations, you're talking about very, very high volumes, hundreds of thousands of campaigns going out.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So once you bring all of those pieces together, it gets very complex.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: So finding ways to automate pieces of this so that the teams can pull themselves out of the weeds and all that manual work enables the teams to be more strategic and thoughtful and honestly happier.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think most teams would prefer to be doing more strategic work versus some of the repetitive manual tasks that historically have just been part of the job when it comes to operations.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are some of the biggest benefits or outcomes when teams see uh more streamlined ad ops workflows?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there's so many benefits.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, I think number one, it's fewer errors.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, it's if there's fewer errors, there's fewer make goods, which means you're not having to pay out clients if a mistake happened here or there.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's also just happier clients.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: There are fewer errors, they are, there are fewer delays and issues.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So clients are happier with the work.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Additionally, the internal teams are able to work in a more efficient manner.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's less friction between sales, client success, operations, and finance when everything is streamlined and working in a seamless fashion.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so internal teams work better together.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Additionally, the um all teams then can pull themselves out of this very tedious manual work and do other things like take a deeper look into insights for performance, or think about how to position the next pitch, or even looking at like new platforms or different platforms or prospecting.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's just so much opportunity for teams to take on higher level skill sets once you pull them out of uh the operational tasks.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So those are really the benefits.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's freeing up the time, it's fewer errors and delays, happier clients, and internal teams working more efficiently.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And all of that translates to an increase in revenue because you have teams out there driving more discussion and more growth, but it also means reduced costs in operations.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you might have a hundred people dedicated to your operations today, but if you automate, you may be able to reduce your team size by, say, 50% and also take the workforce that's still with you and have them focus on the more strategic opportunities.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, despite that, from your experience, what are some of the misconceptions or the concerns that still exist in the workplace when it comes to automating ad ops?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that, you know, there is definitely the concern about job loss, but what I'm seeing, it's less about job loss and more about upskilling.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's what we've seen within our organization and elsewhere.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have an operations team that you've automated and you're able to reduce team size, we're able to now take those resources and upskill them to work on the tech side where you know, where they're supporting the automated solution, or even look at new areas within the organization.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, it's been more about upskilling.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I also think, you know, it's not something that happens overnight.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think one misconception is, oh, we bought this tool, now we're automating tomorrow.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've seen is the biggest blocker can be organizational culture and uh leadership alignment, actually.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So when you start to go down that path of wanting to automate, you need to make sure that everyone in that process that we just talked about, which is typically called the order to cash process, is aligned with this ultimate goal of being of bringing greater efficiency, lowering costs, freeing up teams.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to have that alignment internally, you're gonna need finance, you're gonna need IT, you're going to need head of ad ops, head of sales, head of client success.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what you want to do right out of the gate is make sure that everyone's aligned on the goal.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because what happens is as you start investigating something for your particular area, it's inevitable that it's either going to impact those upstream or downstream.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um so to be really effective, I think the alignment, the internal alignment and knowing if your business is ready for it culturally is the number one thing in making sure you have set.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: So once a company has decided they're ready, they want to automate their ad ops, what pre-planning steps or advice can you give?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like what's step one most important?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, step one is looking at your pain points.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to take a look at the order to cash process within ad operations.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And essentially what that means is bringing each stakeholder to the table.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So sales, find success, finance, IT, everybody.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you talk about how these campaigns flow from start to finish through the end-to-end process.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: In that conversation, you start to identify what the most significant pain points are.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So a common pain point for a sales team might be, you know, I'm spending a lot of time in Salesforce updating my deals, and I could be out pounding the pavement, getting new deals.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: A common uh issue within the ad operations team could be I'm in platform all day, you know, uploading creative assets and it takes hours, or there's frequent mistakes on this type of campaign.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you go to finance, it could be billing and reconciliation is highly manual and takes a really long time.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of different pieces, but essentially you want to understand all of the pain points within the order to cash process.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then you want to prioritize which ones you want to focus on first.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the way you determine which one to focus on is you want to pick the least complex process with the highest impact.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Within our experience, we've found that the trafficking process within ad operations is the one that has the highest impact.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: It actually is highly complex, but it's highly repeatable.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, that has been a great place to start because you're able to free up the highest volume of teams and time and really streamline processes.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really what I would suggest is all the stakeholders get in a room, align on your primary pain points, and decide on a roadmap for we're gonna begin with highest volume, lowest complexity, and work through.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the, you know, having the complete picture of that order to cash process is really helpful.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and hearing out each stakeholder is important too.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's really where you want to start getting set up.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: So now let's fast forward.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're in the middle of this project.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: What are some common bottlenecks or challenges that company leaders can expect to face during this project?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, there's definitely things that pop up.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes you'll you'll find out that a platform is going to change in three months, and that might impact your roadmap.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you had that as your second priority.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: You might need to shuffle and move things around that way.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: There have been times where when you're working with lots of different platforms, you have to make sure that their APIs can connect and speak to one another.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: There has been time where you have to do some development work behind the scenes with third-party platforms as well as internal solution teams to make sure that they're talking.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So those are probably the two biggest things that pop up in terms of things that are gonna happen.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like there are gonna be moments where you think, okay, I did not foresee this.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: But as long as you have that cross-functional alignment and relationships with those third-party partners, you can get through it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And um, what we've also found is that in working with the third-party platforms, they're as excited about these solutions as we are.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we've had a great experience with collaboration and figuring out how to streamline for ad operations teams.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So looking toward the future, technology is advancing so rapidly.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think it's gonna affect ad ops moving forward?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And what should companies be looking at next?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good question.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think what's gonna happen is the the roles are gonna change.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: So in the past, where you might have had a large trafficking team, you will probably shift to having a really large, not a really large, a QA team.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: You may not need the trafficking team because you've automated those processes, but given the complexity within advertising, you're still gonna want a set of human eyes on these campaigns before they go live.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, what we've seen in our experience is trafficking teams moving to QA teams.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: There, I think there will also be a greater focus on sales and innovation, looking at efficiencies across team.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're even seeing now, with all of the new tools that companies are adopting from an LLM perspective, Chat GPT, Gemini, Claude, most of our clients now have an enterprise solution in that way.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And even that is helping to improve even the automation pieces, because if there are certain things that you may not be able to automate, the LLM tools are able to help speed up some of that efficiency before the projects flow into the solution.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really interesting.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: I do think it's going to change a lot.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's going to be more customer focused, more sales focused.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think there will be a heavy QA component.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: We really don't see automation as a flip of the switch where now we don't need any.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: We absolutely need hybrid teams and that human touch to be successful.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if there was one key takeaway you could leave our audience with today, what would that be?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: The key takeaway is a lot internal alignment.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think there are times where you get one team very excited about a solution, but the truth is you need every stakeholder that touches every leader within that group that touches the order to cash process to be aligned to the goal because everyone will be impacted as a campaign travels through that process.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: So internal alignment is the 100% takeaway.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And identifying as a group, where's our biggest challenge, you know, and and where can we make the the greatest impact fastest?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your insights today.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was great to meet you and um yeah, a lot of fun.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Amanda.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and thank you to our audience.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you have any comments or questions, leave them below and I'll try to respond back as soon as possible.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Have a wonderful day.