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Yield Stories: The Wrong House Ads · The Yield Doctor with James Deaker

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  hi I'm James Deika the yield doctor and
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  this is Yield Stories short anecdotes
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  that help illustrate some points that
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  can help you to optimize your digital
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  assets today's story actually comes from
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  a number of years ago but the lessons
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  are just as relevant today as they were
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  then we were working a project for a
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  newspaper publisher and the head of
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  sales who we'll call John called me in
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  and said that the problem was that they
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  had too many house ads as we dug into
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  the data we discovered something more
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  troubling than simply unsold inventory
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  but we to get there we had to peel back
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  the layers behind the scenes for the
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  full story to emerge when I first met
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  John he told me that when the team
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  wasn't doing a great job they were only
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  selling through 50% or less of the ads
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  on the site which meant that 50 60 70%
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  of the ads could be run as house ads
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  meaning ads for the the newspaper itself
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  and of course this was very obvious to
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  anybody looking at the site he told me
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  that they needed to understand since
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  they had enough inventory that if did
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  they have a problem with the rate card
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  were they packaging something wrong or
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  was there something else holding back
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  demand as we'll discover there was
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  actually a different issue that was
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  making the advertisers very unhappy in
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  starting a project like this you have a
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  series of hypotheses that you need to
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  look into and so we started digging into
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  all of the data that we could get our
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  hands on to understand the various
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  dynamics we were looking at how the ad
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  impressions were sold how many were
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  actually sold the price that they were
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  sold at but things started to get
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  interesting when we started analyzing
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  the data and discovered some anomalies
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  that we couldn't explain specifically
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  the number of ads that were running for
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  advertiser campaigns was much greater
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  than the number of ads that were
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  actually being paid for and as we dug
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  deeper it became apparent that they were
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  running for actual advertisers but no
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  revenue was being received for them it
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  was like they were house ads but instead
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  for genuine
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  advertisers at first in hearing this you
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  might think like I did that this was a
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  case of bad accounts receivable in other
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  words the campaigns were running but the
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  accounts receivable team was just not
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  properly billing the
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  advertisers however the true story came
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  to light when we talked to the
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  operations team it turned out that John
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  in a desperate attempt to save face and
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  make it look like the site was sold
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  through had directed the Adops team to
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  go in and get old ad creatives without
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  telling the
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  advertisers the message from John was
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  simply just run the old campaigns and
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  make it look like we are sold through
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  and it's important to note that the
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  advertisers weren't told that their
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  campaigns were running now if this was
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  done correctly it could potentially have
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  been a windfall to those advertisers
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  they could be essentially getting free
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  impressions for their campaign but the
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  problem was the creatives were well out
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  of date it wasn't just that they were
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  out of date in some cases there were
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  things like a 30% off Labor Day sale
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  well after Laborale so the com customers
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  were seeing these ads and seeing them
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  and worse again the advertisers had no
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  idea so they were getting complaints
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  from customers saying "We want that deal
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  that we just saw the ad for." So the
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  complaints started to roll in from the
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  advertisers the the quick fix had
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  backfired and now that the the trust
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  that the publisher had built up with the
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  advertisers was starting to crumble the
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  immediate impact of this practice was
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  that the company had to stop it
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  it put a bright shining spotlight on the
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  poor controls that this company had and
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  the operational procedures that were in
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  place namely that one executive could
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  make a decision like this that impacted
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  the advertising experience without
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  anybody else really knowing i don't
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  believe that there's anything illegal
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  about this practice it was definitely
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  annoying for the
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  advertisers confusing for the users on
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  the website and it masked the issues
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  that were really going on so with
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  stories like this I I try to link to
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  what is the lesson learned uh firstly as
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  a consultant we learned to assume that
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  you can't believe that the client is
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  adhering to standard business practices
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  from the publisher perspective the
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  lesson was clear don't rush to a quick
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  fix without thinking about the second
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  order consequences and the fact that you
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  may be doing more harm than good thanks
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  for watching i hope you enjoyed this
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  yield story
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  [Music]