Ad Monsters Publisher Forum US XXIII Event Summary

Ad. Monsters Publisher Forum US XXIII Event Summary Sonoma, CA August 15 - 18, 2010

What is Ad. Monsters? The global community of ad operations and technology leaders A community focused on hands-on, technical discussion, best practices and professional development. An informal, yet senior group for building personal, professional relationships

What is Ad. Monsters about? o o o o FOCUS SCALE INTEGRITY FORUM ACTION VALUE UNIQUE HUMANITY

What is Ad. Monsters about? A tight FOCUS on ad operations on a small SCALE combined with INTEGRITY to create a FORUM of peers which generates ACTION and provides VALUE that is UNIQUE. We are also about HUMANITY and about creating relationships within our industry.

Publisher Forum Goals • Competitive collaboration • Common pain points • Best practices • Pragmatic advice • Actionable solutions

Thank You Sponsors! Platinum Ruby Gold

Thank You Sponsors! Silver

Thank You Sponsors! Bronze

Top Themes That Emerged o Ad Operations needs to make sure to look beyond the day-to-day responsibilities of the department to help play a more strategic role in the company. o The online ad marketplace has major changes on the way – potentially from privacy regulation, potentially from convergence with video and mobile. Ad Ops needs to be a part of this change. o Publishers need to know what is happening on their sites; with their users and with their advertising. o Buy side tools and their impact on the industry, data and consumer privacy are issues that are top of mind.

Monday’s Agenda o o o o Introductions (Ad. Monsters, Members) Keynote: Ken Fisher, ars technica Platinum Sponsor Session: Double. Click by Google Three Sets of Half Group Sessions Day 1 Full Group Wrap Up Session Speed Dating with Sponsors Dinner with Sponsors

Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s Agenda o o Member Session: Chris Hart - NYT Digital Ruby Sponsor Session – Ben Barokas – Ad. Meld Ruby Sponsor Session – Tim Cadogan - Open. X Sponsor Breakouts: Double. Click by Google, Ad. Meld, Open. X, Pubmatic, Yu. Me o Offsite activity and dinner o Member Session: Joey Trotz - Turner o Member Breakouts o Reporting in and Wrap up

Ken Fisher Founder & Editor-in-Chief Ars Technica, us MEET THE NEW BOSS: NOT THE SAME AS THE OLD BOSS

Meet the New Boss: Not the Same as the Old Boss Ken Fisher • • • Users are the new boss: users decide how view ads, share links, subscribe, repurpose your content. Tech savvy users are good at blocking ads. Compare content to who's blocking ads - if you have those numbers you can see what people find interesting The Great Experiment – switching ads with content for a day to fool the ad blocking software. Results and reaction: a lot of people didn't know they were blocking ads. Publishers have to tell users how the business works; they didn't know they were hurting revenue. 2 outcomes: the audience removed ad block tools, they whitelisted ars Editorial and Ad Operations should work together – they both have unique perspectives on the audience and can work together for better content and for better advertising solutions. Malware threatens the entire industry and everyone should work to address malware issues.

Stephen Dove Product Manager, DFP Double. Click, us INVESTING IN DIGITAL, INVESTING IN PUBLISHERS

Investing in Digital, Investing in Publishers Stephen Dove • • • CTR decline is leveling off (market has matured in interacting with advertising). More people responding to rich media ads in 2009 but spend less time engaging Average interaction time dropped for rich media. Agencies have figured out how to apply data to buying and have the tools to scale. Ops spends time dealing with new vendors: Verification Services, Tag Managers, Networks, etc. Nail the CORE - basic ad ops functions need to be super efficient so you can find the time to spend on the other challenges. 1/3 of publisher volume is running the new DFP platform. Reach is important as we compete with TV for ad dollars. Real time analysis on inventory - you want to see now's numbers now. Impression Exchange: industry initiative that allows buy side members to show up in DFP. Micro-targeting your creative drives up performance metrics As yield managers you can expose the data to increase your CPMs – use several strategies

Thaddeus Hanscom Sr. Director, Global Operations, Analytics and Engineering Expedia ANSLATINGTRAY OPERATIONSAY: MAKING MAXIMUM IMPACT

Anslatingtray Operationsay: Making Maximum Impact Thaddeus Hanscom • • • Get executive level involvement/commitment early in project lifecycle. Translate benefits for the project in a way they will understand. Don’t make it “your” project. . . Get power users from the business. Get Agile (even if you don’t use Agile). Do usability sessions… LISTEN. Focus on the audience - How will this make their lives better? Find smart(er) partners - If you’re not getting serious about building it, get serious about buying it. Get very tight goals - What’s the first milestone? The second? You’ve launched! - Celebrate!

Tom Marciniak Product Manager, Online The Globe and Mail Ameet Shah Director, Ad Operations Gannett THE LOW DOWN ON REVENUE MANAGEMENT

The Low Down on Revenue Management Tom Marciniak and Ameet Shah • • Revenue management isn’t the same as yield mgmt – post-delivery analysis vs. time-of-sale. Delivered revenue is the golden egg. Analyze by position/location and by ad products that you sell. Automated systems for data extraction and tracking are not yet available, and not cheap to develop. You can very quickly fall down the rabbit hole, so use the intended report usage to guide your prioritization and amount of effort. Investment from your organization yields results; there can be no revenue management unless you're serious about it. Discipline and processes are key. Systems must be developed to capture and allow data mining - but you need banking or credit card levels of horsepower.

Amy Lehman SVP, Advertising United Online DATA: IT'S NOT JUST FOR AGENCIES AND NETWORKS ANYMORE

Data: It's not just for Agencies and Networks Anymore Amy Lehman • • • Agencies’ reclamation of value & profits previously undermined by ad networks, Need for transparency, Drive for efficiency and profitability Challenges for Publishers: Complex marketplace, Increased competition, Audience vs. content sell, Risks of channel conflict, Under-developed ad technology pipes, Limited data management tools. Publisher Audience Platform: Identified assets, Aggregated data, proprietary data cloud, Integrated 3 rd party data providers, Developed data syndication technology, Created media distribution partnerships, Rolled out new sales strategy. Scale is key. Market is still immature, so there is still a lot of learning to be done. Focus on “brand-like” metrics to move the conversation away from clicks. Broad audiences and look-a-likes give flexibility in product offerings. Be prepared to manage data costs. Expect 2 -5 x remnant CPMs.

Mark Verone Director, Partner Marketing Operations Orbitz SHAKING THINGS UP: KAIZEN IN ACTION…IT DOESN’T ALWAYS HAPPEN OVERNIGHT

Shaking Things Up: Kaizen in Action…it doesn’t always happen overnight Mark Verone • • • Kaizen= Continual improvement: Process and Results, Systemic thinking, Non-judgmental; non blaming. Find a process that needs improvement. Organize a team that knows the process. Clarify knowledge of the process through data collection. Uncover the underlying causes of variation or poor quality. Start the P-D-C-A cycle by choosing a single modification to the process. Plan a pilot to test the improvement. Do the improvement. Check that the process actually improved. Act to adopt, adjust or abandon the change. Annoying + Time Wasted x Redundant Activities = Opportunities for Improvement.

Derek Moulaison Director, Advertising Operations & Client Services Netshelter Technology Media Inc CONTEXTUAL/BEHAVIORAL TARGETING AND OPTIMIZATION: REACHING THE AUDIENCE THAT MATTERS

Contextual/Behavioral Targeting and Optimization Derek Moulaison • • • There are many providers in the market that allow integration of external data sources into standard ad serving platforms. Net. Shelter sought out a partner that supported categorization/integration of custom data sources into our DFP ad server. Targeting, reporting and inventory management then becomes standard ad server operational functionality. Innovation does not necessarily require a huge capital expenditure. Emergence of ad serving standards and growing list of technology providers = options for Publishers. Understand your core platform before searching out technology partnerships. Establish clear service/performance expectations for your ad platform. Check references (Ad. Monsters!) Make sure your priorities are aligned with your partners. Mitigate risk: have a short-term and long-term plan.

Dennis Colon Director, Ad Operations CondéNast Digital, us A THREE PRONGED APPROACH TO THE IPAD AND APPS

A Three Pronged Approach to the IPad and Apps Dennis Colon • • • Digital Edition: Increase Circulation, this counts towards overall circulation. Wired’s first edition outsold newsstand, Integrate print with digital, Creating workflow when there is none. Apps: When do we add ads? , When is it time to work with a vendor? , How do we set specs when there are none, How do we handle workflow when Traffickers are not Trafficking ads, Reporting: internal system which count imps and clicks. Sites: In order to target ipad users we have our pages sniff the user agent and then we modify the ad calls on the page, tack on. ipad to the dart site- allows us to have full zone/key value targeting - allows us to remove flash and rich media ads, created packages for clients to sponsor ipad viewing of our sites. Never say no; Integration with other departments is good. Always demand a seat at the table - Figure out a way to get your group involved.

Christopher Hart Digital Ad Operations Project Manager New York Times Digital SIGNING 3 RD PARTY VENDOR CONTRACTS WITH CONFIDENCE

Signing 3 rd Party Vendor Contracts with Confidence Chris Hart • • • 2 types of contracts: 1) negotiation 2) contracts by proxy (already on your site because they are all connected to each other). Use ad ops tools to find out what’s going on our your site (Flash Cookies View, firebug, proxy switchers). Request material from vendors (do research; get legal involved early). Test for malware Everyone is going to say "our technology is propriety” – but that means they should actually have their own systems. Verification services maybe showing up as traffic in web analytics tools. Why are they beaconing our users and dropping cookies? How are they using data they are gathering on my audience? Bring in the tech contact from the vendors - hash it out in the meetings; get some real answers. Ad Ops - watch dogs on the front line

Ben Barokas CEO Ad. Meld, us ADMELD - TURNING DATA INTO REVENUE

Ad. Meld - Turning Data into Revenue Ben Barokas • • Offline databases being brought to online; they are very powerful but people need to use it responsibly. There is an atmosphere of FEAR of the unknown. When you sell someone an ad are you implicitly giving them access to your data? RTB puts this issue into hyper drive. Serve ads yourself; ban click tags; ban tracking; ban rich media; this is obviously not a great option. Use tools or a publisher side vendor to understand what’s going on Educate yourself on the advertisers needs - what do they need from data? How does it create ROI? How do we help sales sell what buyers want to buy? IAB 3. 0 terms and conditions – increases accountability and must be understood. What is the value of data? You can see the price differential between impressions with or without data.

Tim Cadogan Chief Executive Officer Open. X, us OPEN X - AD SERVING TRANSFORMED: A NEW FOUNDATION FOR REVENUE

Open X - Ad Serving Transformed: A New Foundation for Revenue Tim Cadogan • • Challenges - revenue pressure, sales channel control, optimization complexity, growing buyer side leverage. Ad server is at the core of a publisher's business - The ad server needs to run ad products like you sell ad products. Modular Platform: plug in framework allows people to change it to fit their needs; want to enable integrations by opening up framework. Ad exchanges if implemented correctly will drive CPMs up. Be in control of that; trying to give you the power to manage those media buying platforms; play the game but be in charge. Tech based on 2010 market: Rational channel management, automated optimization, systems give publisher leverage. Display is the next great explosion in online advertising.

Joey Trotz Sr. Director, Strategic Advertising & Digital Tech Turner Broadcasting AD OPS EVERYWHERE?

Ad Ops Everywhere? Joey Trotz • • • How does media consumption impact ad ops? Right ad to the right audience and the right time. Online video ad spend is still tiny despite more users of online video – buyers will have to follow the audience. Mobile video is going to double by 2014. TV sales are gaining traction in digital; are we ready? Audience measurement becomes currency. Traditional digital metrics lose values - impressions? TV doesn't work that way, Audience is the new black… does digital understand linear? The whole way it's bought and sold is going to change not only video but in all ad ops workflow. TV Everywhere is access to content through authentication - extend the reach of access through existing business models. Competing Process, Competing Sales Approaches, Reach (Audience) is the new impression - will our ad servers optimize for that?

Member Breakouts o o o Mobile QA & Creative Testing - Matthew Katz Dealing With Malware - Geoff Wolinetz Social Media - Bri Odle IAB T&Cs - Midge Brown Data Protection - Melissa Bertram Staffing & Salary Report Review - Oleg Korenfeld

Member Breakouts o o o Video - VAST & VPAID - Joey Trotz Multi-Adserver Environments - John Gomez Verification Services - Chris Hart Remnant Strategies - Mike Hagley Working with Apps - Donna Clark Monetizing Data - Monique Watford-Prim

Mobile QA & Creative Testing • • Tracking pixels from desktop not always compatible in mobile; create a black list of tracking pixels that don't work. URLs may break in mobile due to string length; use bit. ly. Rich media ads may work on one mobile OS, but not others. Rich media companies may have separate mobile solutions (e. g. , Ringleader is Eye. Wonder for mobile). Sales team questions for advertisers: Do you have a mobile website or assets you can provide to build an ad hoc landing page? Are you using rich media? Who? Are you using third party tracking pixels? Be upfront about limitations: frequency capping, geo-targeting not possible on mobile. QA: Analytics to identify top handsets used by site users. Traffic ad to a test page and view on each device. QA on devices in house or through a vendor like Device Anywhere, Monitor web logs to check mobile ad calls.

Dealing With Malware • • • The majority of publishers are looking for tools to measure compliance across their sites. Most folks are seeing Malware come in through remnant. Join the Google Advertising Malware Group-Newsletter. Educate your salespeople. Check the domain registry. Sales people - if they don’t know the contact, ask who they work with. Work with IASH in the UK - Internet Advertising Sales Houses. Credit Check Campaigns launching close to the weekend. Look for deal at really high cpms/signing publisher terms and conditions. Akamai is tracking where/when Malware attacks pop. Is the IAB working toward any kind of verification of advertisers/networks? How quickly do verification systems catch malware? Within two hours (Media. Trust).

Social Media • • What’s being used - Custom Solutions, Facebook Connect, Quora, Stumble Upon, Linked. In, Twitter, Formspring, You. Tube Partner Ads Program offered through Free. Wheel integration. Created a UGC Zone in DFP. Monetization Not the primary goal of Social Media. Driving traffic is more relevant, small social groups can be monetized by being attractive users to advertisers, There seems like there is no strategy. Facebook – Not a strong belief that the data out of FB is not quality. Broader education & control – to prevent privacy issues. When does your message or “like” gets used in platforms/sites and seen outside your friend group. Measurement - A/B testing on buttons/social widgets, Social Graph, Radian 6, Likes, Chailes Editorial/Community Manager - Editorial is responsible for the lift in audience and driving traffic, Hootsuite or Tweet. Deck – Helps manage all of the networks, hire a Community Manager.

IAB T&Cs • • • Most of us bill on 3 rd party; some of us are asked to pay RM fees. , Setup agreements with 3 rd party serving vendors in advance, before requested. New vendors need 2+ weeks for testing. Cancellation: Agency - if low CTR / poor performance, Shorter outs; Publisher - if spec violations. Payment Terms: Publisher = if 4 th party served, bill on 4 th party numbers, most bill on third party. Ad Serving: Tags received to be billable numbers, Publishers are not responsible for RM fees; most don't get the ad serving vendor on the IO. Data restrictions: No 4 th party pixels, define what the agency can do, not what they cannot do, no reselling data, no retargeting, no look-a-like targeting, add Survey/Research provision. Update definitions for better publisher coverage.

Data Protection • • • Data = Anything collected off of our site, site or user. New IAB Guidelines on Data are available. IP, User, Agent, header. Tools to Detect pixels/calls: Clickfax, Media Trust, Krux Digital, HTTPWatch, Ghostery, Keynote (with hack), Firebug Risks: CPM Erosion, Tool Vendors/Free Value Add services, Non ad vendor relationships, Cross cookie integration, Vendors who are also networks, Gathering content data, Creating site latency. Use tools to find pixels, calls, etc. , agreements with vendors, include in T&C’s, enforce by pulling campaigns. Request the analytics pulled/generated (advertiser/agency and vendor). Execute a Vendor Vetting/Certification process. Educate Sales/Legal/Execs/Sales Planners. Publishers should actively asses current contracts prior to IAB 3. 0. Look for source=blank - it’s what the verification groups are using to scan pages, static image dropping multiple cookies.

Staffing & Salary Report Review • • • Ops team size compared to sales team and what roles fall into ops. When does it makes sense to outsource to help fight turnover and save costs? Compensation: Company culture/job comfort sometimes is more important for an ops person than compensation. Raises: Company wide policy based on yearly review and nothing can be done about trying to adjust for market. Matt’s study: Some people asked for a Recount!!! Bigger markets are closer to the research done. Retention: Based on the geographical location of the company and how close they are to bigger markets like NY, SF. Make case to the Executives/how to speak their language? Quantification for traffic types of roles where its clear how many campaigns are trafficked and how much revenue they generate. How does career pathing function in digital? Redefining ops roles to adjust to new needs like data policing.

Multi-Adserver Environments • • • Types discussed: Display | Video | Mobile | Other | Email Do you get the centralized suite of products with limited functionality or do you get the best of breed with multiple adservers? How do you integrate with contract management systems. Not possible to become an expert in all the areas (traffic/support). Creative requirements different across the board; increased need for documentation/training. Need your executive management to understand the increasing complexity, integration with rich media vendors, reporting, forecasting, invoicing, trafficking process, different cookies, no shared data. Data warehouse and reporting seems like a necessity to make reporting easier for client services. TV Everywhere impact: not able to set up one preroll flight to run across mobile video, display video and tv video. Can you point to a KPI for decreased productivity?

Verification Services • • • Companies include: Double. Verify, Ad. XPOSE, Media. Trust, Real. Vu, Perform. Line, Adometry, Ad. Pepper, Proximic Frequency of verifications? Who verifies the verification services? Lots of advertisers bought into this without fully understanding it. Demands to revise billing are based on small samples. Verification services say everyone is doing it, but who? Not widely secure, can cause potential legal issues, certification needed to address these issues. Verification services collect data. What do they do with it? Need to agree to push cost to advertisers. These services are attempting to push CPM to view-time. Action: Education, awareness, new staff positions, ask questions, push back when necessary. How much time do you spend on it if its not on the contract?

Remnant Strategies • • Hope that higher CPMs from networks force direct sales to raise rates. Weighting system – need to calculate ecpm based on network delivery. Ad. Sense integrated into DFP – competition between networks increases CPMs and yield. Setting floor at optimal price is critical, this is difficult to monitor as inventory demands constantly change. RTB ultimately provides the most accurate “real” price due to competition - Are exchanges/RTB the future of remnant optimization? A smaller site needs an adserver in order to effectively optimize rather than hard coding adsense tags. Be able to analyze and understand what is happening to your remnant value. Approach: Group Tags , test groups of tags , understand value, then test network aggregators at low frequencies, increasing frequency until you reach an optimal value/setup and continue to optimize.

Working with Apps • • • Challenges: Monetization Strategy, Multiple Platforms, Offline Impressions, Where does mobile live in the org? Dynamic ad served/for mobile or hard coding into app? Do you charge for apps - premium elements vs. free apps? Rich media - is it worth it? Tracking is a challenge. Sales does not understand platform constraints. Timeline for developing or reacting is longer than web. Solutions: use mobile ad network, design app with a browser frame that pulls in html content, outsourced development/vendors, dedicated mobile/app team. Consider re-inventing ad approach for apps. Build an ad experience appropriate for the app. Ensure ease for advertiser to use standard sizes.

Monetizing Data • • Selling cookies to cookie company on a per cookie basis. BT Technology / Barter - Vendor uses your site data to sell inventory on your network. You will need to implement advertiser black list. Registration Data – Includes sell lists, email sales, targeting on site. Sell data to Exchange/Network. Put your inventory in RTB / Data could be captured via ad tags. Site extension - Retargeting to users off your site. Create On-Site Behavioral Targeting ad products.

Upcoming events o OPS n September 30, 2010 New York, NY o Network Forum US III n December 9, 2010 New York, NY o Publisher Forum EU XV n October 10, 2010 Brighton, UK o Leadership Forum EU VI n November 4, 2010 London, UK

Thank you, Members! Photo: Joey Trotz

Thank you, sponsors and attendees! We thank everyone for attending the US Publisher Forum in Sonoma, CA! As you know, we strive to make each event better than the last and we hope you agree that is the case. The information contained in this document is intended only for people who have attended the event and for their managers to help summarize what was learned at the event. Do not distribute! Additional information from the forum is located on the wiki (www. admonsters. org/wiki). Information posted on twitter can be found by going to http: //search. twitter. com/ and searching on Ad. Monsters or following @Ad. Monsters.