How AI Is Making Ad Ops Teams More Strategic–And Media Businesses More Profitable

Four ways new technology is helping publishers improve performance through AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is driving a revolution in the global advertising and publishing industries. Some leaders, like Mark Reid, the chief executive of agency holding company WPP, are even calling it “fundamental” to the future of any media business.  

Ad Ops is poised to reap the benefits of automation and optimizations made possible through AI. These teams can leverage AI to increase efficiency in workflows and maximize the potential of every campaign budget while identifying opportunities to reduce costs and drive higher ROI for the organization. 

Tasked with delivering on their business’s ad commitments, the work of Ad Ops is essential, but it has grown increasingly difficult to manage. “Technology has significantly impacted ad operations,” explains Kavita Shenoy, founder of software company Voiro. “Ad stacks are elaborate and complex—often with multiple or custom ad servers, multiple programmatic partners, data partners, and more.” The volume of campaigns that must be managed means that growth and profitability are only truly possible with the help of technology. 

That’s where AI comes in. At Boostr, we have front-row seats to how the world’s most successful publishers are leveraging technology to stay ahead of the game. Here are the top four ways these teams are already leveraging AI to become more strategic and capture new revenue opportunities. 

#1 Put busywork on autopilot

“There are certain ‘dirty jobs’ that human beings don’t like doing,” Jason White, co-founder of Jiffy.ai, told AdExchanger. Whether it is simply input of data, campaign setup, or tagging, Ad Ops was once bogged down by repetitive tasks that weren’t just boring—they also opened up the possibility for human errors with real consequences down the line. 

AI can automate workflows that used to eat up hours, freeing up time to focus on the tasks that support innovation. Some CRMs are even auto-capturing content details for prospects and clients—and auto-updating as necessary. That’s the power of AI. When Ad Ops teams are liberated from menial work, companies also see a boost in retention and job satisfaction, further increasing bottom lines and the overall efficacy of Ad Ops efforts. 

#2 Campaign optimization 

AI can do what no human can—keep an eye on performance data 24/7 and make the needed tweaks to improve campaign performance. AI can handily optimize basic settings, budget allocations, bids, and targeting while simultaneously managing smaller (but important!) tasks such as mapping agency media plans to a publisher’s internal OMS. 

By multiplying optimizations and staying attuned to every change in performance, AI has been known to dramatically reduce cost per acquisition and improve conversion rates. 

This doesn’t all happen behind the scenes, however. AI can deliver real-time insights to Ad Ops teams, allowing them to make smart, data-driven decisions and adjust campaigns themselves as needed. This doesn’t just improve performance; it empowers and educates team members while creating a better client experience. 

#3 A crystal ball 

Predictive analytics has become a recent industry buzzword, but AI has finally reached a point where it is helping Ad Ops teams deliver on the promise of this new technology. Predictive analytics fine-tunes targeting, leveraging data to build predictive models based on psychographic and demographic factors. “The enormous amount of both real-time and historical data available about consumer behavior means that markers are using predictive technology to anticipate customer needs instead of just responding to them,” data scientist HanSheng Chiu wrote recently in The Drum. 

It can also facilitate Ad Ops’ strategic planning by generating useful reports such as customer lifetime value predictions, which can guide budget allocation and maximize possibilities for bundling and cross-selling—ultimately creating sustainable long-term growth. After all, it is always cheaper to grow a business with an existing customer than to acquire new ones. (Learn more about the importance of net revenue retention, or NRR, here.) 

#4 Fraud detection 

Publishers increasingly grapple with ad fraud, leading to mounting losses across the industry. The estimated global cost of ad fraud is a staggeringly high $65 billion—more than the entire amount spent on linear TV advertising in the US. 

Today, ad fraud is increasingly sophisticated, with methods that go beyond simple bots. “Click injection” can be used to steal credit for app installs or ad stacking, which generates impressions for multiple ads. All of this bad behavior undermines the value publishers offer their advertisers and the trust that is necessary to build the business.  

Since Ad Ops is responsible for ensuring booked business performs well—and soundly—teams can use AI to reverse the tide on ad fraud. Traditionally, ad fraud detection leaned on human-defined rules and monitoring. Now, AI can adapt and advance from a set of fixed rules, using machine learning (ML) to evolve alongside ad fraud techniques to flag potential issues before they become problems and provide verifiable quality assurance to advertising partners. 

Leveraging AI for your business

For publishers interested in integrating more AI into their Ad Ops and beyond, the process can seem overwhelming. While digital transformation is a big project, assessing the need in various areas of business and identifying concrete problems to solve is a great jumping-off point. The search for solutions that follow may include trial projects to help leaders avoid taking on too much too soon. 

In the search for Ad Ops solutions, ease of use and out-of-box configuration is critical to adoption, taking teams from bogged down to strategic in a matter of months instead of years. Additionally, publishers can make innovations sustainable by minimizing the number of new software and platforms—which can create silos—and instead opting for Ad Ops partners that unify their data for greater visibility during times of change (and well beyond).

Want to find out how Boostr can help accelerate your digital transformation? Drop us a line here.