5 campaign management challenges - how can a media operations platform help?

With a media operations platform, advertising companies and agencies can significantly simplify their campaign management and thus save costs and time. To find the right tool, companies should analyze their needs, which means identifying their major inefficiencies in campaign management and determining which solutions a media operations platform must offer to improve performance. 

Content

• Problem 1:  No single source of truth

• Problem 2: Too much manual work

• Problem 3: Intransparent workflows

• Problem 4: Lack of traceability

• Problem 5: Working in silos

• 3 Tips: from selection to implementation

• Conclusion

Problem 1: No single source of truth

Campaign execution relies on multiple isolated systems (e.g. ad servers, 3rd party verification tools, and DSPs). That means, the data that is necessary for measuring success and performing campaign optimization comes from different sources and, in the worst case, is available in different formats. Keeping track of and evaluating all these sources, some of which might even be manually maintained, is a time-consuming task. As a result, marketers lack a consolidated view of their campaigns.

An effective media operations platform must provide an overarching view across all campaigns and categories. The data from all relevant sources must be accurately consolidated and available for analysis by drilling down all the way to the lowest level of detail. This enables marketers to make data-driven decisions.

Problem 2: Too much manual work

Despite increasing digitization and increasing automation, manual work still takes place on a large scale in many processes: from briefing to final evaluation. Such manual processes are extremely error-prone. Scaled to other process steps, this can lead to a chain reaction. Resolving this chain of errors is a very labor-intensive and time-consuming task.

In addition to automating processes, a media operations platform also facilitates the onboarding of new employees as it provides clear standards and accurate documentation.

To select the right solutions, companies should examine which manual processes are the biggest time wasters and should be automated if possible. It’s important to take into account not only the time required for the actual work process but also the effort across the entire process chain if an error occurs at one point.

Problem 3: Intransparent workflows

When several people are working on different campaign processes, they often lack insight into other teams’ work processes. Most of the time this leads to unnecessarily long coordination loops and extra work. A simple combined visualization of the workflows of all participating teams can provide the necessary transparency.

In this case, it's also important to evaluate the current status and analyze the needs: Which processes are mapped to which tools, and which aspects can perhaps be combined in one tool?

Problem 4: Lack of traceability

An individual marketing campaign is often a small-scale process with different workflows and responsibilities. As a result, it's hard to trace all the steps that have taken place: Which approvals were given? Who implemented which optimizations and when? Who sent out a particular booking? These steps can be reflected anonymously in Excel spreadsheets, agreed via email or in messengers, or requested by client, and are not traceable.

A media operations platform must provide functions to centrally process and document all steps of a campaign and keep track of all the actions and changes.

Problem 5: Working in silos

Working in fragmented teams not only leads to unclear workflows, as described above. It also results in expertise silos and unrealized potential. In agencies, for example, the operations team that executes campaigns is not the same team that consults clients. But if the client team merely passes customers' wishes to the planners, optimization is inhibited.

Working in one tool helps break down these silos, so that the operations team, for example, can use its expertise to help better analyze the client's needs in order to enable optimal consulting.

3 Tips: from selection to implementation of a media operations platform 

1. Evaluate resources

Once the company's own needs have been identified, it's time to explore which expertise and resources are already available in-house, which are to be built up in the future, and which can be outsourced.

2. Invest in the selection process

In order for technology to make an impact, companies need to be clear about the purpose of the tools they are going to implement. It is therefore worth investing not only in the tool itself but also in the selection process, with companies drawing up their specific needs or having them defined together with external consultants.

3. Get the whole team involved

To make the investment in technology truly worthwhile, companies have to make sure that its potential is fully realized. Every team involved should therefore be able to see the added value that justifies the effort of switching from existing processes to a new tool. And everyone working with the tool should be able to understand and use all of its features. An investment in a MarTech solution therefore always includes an investment into onboarding.

Conclusion

For media operations platforms to achieve the desired success, it's not enough that companies not only know their needs. They should also be willing to evaluate, question, and clean up their own processes. Simply transferring old processes to a new tool won't work because time wasters and efficiency inhibitors will stay there. Considering implementation of a media operations platform is always a good reason to critically examine existing processes and, if necessary, optimize and automate them with the help of the tool.

How MMT can help you:

MMT offers a media operations platform for agencies, advertisers and publishers, that enables campaign management, either alone or in collaboration. This platform makes it possible to map the entire media process, from briefing to planning, booking, monitoring and reporting. In addition to the reduction of manual effort, it helps significantly reduce the error rate. MMT's tools make it possible to link together various data sources and compare target and actual data for omni-channel campaigns. Comprehensive role and rights management for users ensures that all activities and interactions can be transparently tracked. Integrated communication tools offer users the possibility to exchange information within the media operations platform.