Delivery Issues Explained

Let’s say you’re on a crowded subway platform and everyone starts elbowing their way onto the train. You hear an announcement over the intercom that there are unexpected delays and the train dispatcher is working as quickly as possible to fix the situation. It’s a frustrating feeling, but one you understand all too well because you’re an ad ops manager who solves problems like this all the time. Whether you work for the MTA or you’re an ad ops manager trying to deliver a struggling campaign, you need to move a large volume through a limited space, and there are only so many options at your disposal.

1. Send more trains (increase page views). As the train dispatcher calls for more trains, the ad ops manager requests more page views. Perhaps the editorial team can post some evergreen content that’s likely to get some clicks, or maybe you just have to buy the traffic, but however you get it done, you simply need more page views to deliver a higher volume of impressions.

2. Suggest a detour (revise the media plan). Sorry, L train service is down, please take the J line or shuttle bus service to Marcy Avenue. As the train dispatcher tells passengers to take an alternate route, the ad ops manager tells the client to buy something else. Maybe they can use some lookalike modeling to target the same audience on a different section of the site, or maybe they can swap their banner impressions for some podcast spots, but either way, this campaign is taking a different direction than originally planned.

3. Let some passengers cut the line (increase priority in the ad server). This solution isn’t one you’re likely going to see in the subway (at least not in New York!), but the ad ops manager does have priority controls as a last resort. Of course, the ad server is already trying to prioritize campaigns evenly and optimize for yield, so increasing priority for one campaign will necessarily jeopardize delivery for another campaign, but increasing priority (i.e., cutting the line) can be a short-term solution if you know inventory will free up at a later date and there are no other options available.

4. Just wait it out (extend the flight date). If you give it enough time, the subway will eventually clear out, and if you have the option, extending the flight date of your campaign will have the same result.

So, the next time your sales rep comes to you in a panic and asks you to “optimize” campaign delivery, you can explain these options. There is no “easy button.” You’ve simply sold more impressions than you can deliver, so you need to find a way to increase your supply.

However, there is one last way to prevent under-delivery, which is to avoid this situation altogether. Plan smarter. Allocate your impression goals to the areas that have inventory and avoid overbooking in areas that don’t. You’ll often find that advertiser’s are open to your suggestions, but they don’t like unexpected changes in the middle of the campaign, so get it right from the start. It’s easier said than done, especially if you’re working in Excel and using disparate resources to build your media plans, but if you’re using a modern OMS that makes these calculations for you, you’ll have a much better chance of reaching your destination without verbal abuse or an elbow to the back.