Navigating the world of ad servers and digital media contracts is often a challenge.

Aligning contracted information to what was delivered and what performed is extremely time consuming and difficult. And because there are so many changes throughout the process, contracts and ad server data rarely matches. Not to mention, changes or updates made to a campaign often don’t make their way to the server or vice versa (sometimes agencies just update the campaign in the server, but don’t change the IO). In the end, there’s a lack of accurate, centralized information.

Additionally, optimizing or revising campaigns can be a painful process without being able to visualize how that effort is going. In order to make this process more manageable for their users and more meaningful for their clients, many agencies have resorted to partnerships with separate data visualization systems that pull the information from servers.

In other words: digital media operations workflow doesn’t run end-to-end, yet our processes and the very nature of digital media campaigns require insight and understanding from start to finish.

Snapshot: Reconciling contracts and ad server data is difficult, which makes optimizing and reporting on performance even harder. It’s become such a challenge that many agencies are paying data visualization systems to pull server data – adding another point solution to the already long list of partners.

Real Concerns from Real Digital Media Professionals

If you’re a campaign manager or campaign analyst, you know a large part of your job is to ensure that once a campaign is live, it performs well. Ideally, you’re consistently drawing lines between performance and client goals, and then suggesting or enacting changes to make sure the campaign is moving toward those KPIs. However, working with the ad server can be tricky, and often campaigns are set up incorrectly or don’t go live on time. Wouldn’t it be great to have a digital media operations workflow in place that streamlined and supported your efforts all the way through the revision process?

The Solution: Centro Platform

Centro Platform’s organized workflow reduces time spent on menial tasks throughout campaign execution. Bi-directional integration with leading ad servers DCM and Sizmek, integrations with Facebook and Google, as well as a data ingestion module save you valuable time and energy on set up, launch, and analysis. Optimizations and revisions are done in the same system, providing you with updates to contracted data together in one helpful view. Additionally, alerts during the process keep team members informed if a campaign launch is delayed or if delivery is unbalanced (anything below 90% and over 110% triggers an automatic notification).

This is smarter digital campaign execution. This is Centro Platform.

Platform Features

Automated Ad Operations

• Set up campaigns in major ad servers with the click of a button. Send contracted campaigns and receive data back automatically – minimizing the amount of manual entry and reducing errors.
• Centro Platform receives daily delivery and performance information automatically, and pairs it with your contracted lines for daily access to campaign performance metrics and a clean, centralized look at optimizations.

Data Integrations

• Bi-directional integration with major ad servers, DCM and Sizmek, help you get campaigns live quickly and easily.
• Dynamically priced tactics are easier to use than ever, because performance information is pulled directly from AdWords, Facebook, and Instagram for seamless review and optimization.
• Regardless of the third party tracking you’re using, Centro Platform makes it possible to align delivery and performance data against the contracted information. The data ingestion module reinforces centralization of data, leaving one holistic view of the effort.

To learn more about Centro Platform or request a demo, visit centro.net or email [email protected].

To quote Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

That’s especially true for those of us in digital marketing where technology and trends evolve daily. Because things move so quickly, it’s easy to forget about all the progress we’ve made. At Centro, we’re taking a pause to reflect on the product features and releases rolled out this year in our DSP.

HMTL5
Back in 2010, Apple was the first major company to block Flash for iOS. Six years later, Google finally sealed Flash’s fate when it announced Chrome would no longer support it as well. There are numerous benefits to HMTL5, including load time and security. Centro DSP was one of the first DSPs to offer first-party hosting of HTML5 and at no additional charge. Since making the offering available we’ve helped advertisers seamlessly transition thousands and thousands of ads.

MyAds
In 2016, Centro DSP made a significant enhancement to creative management and workflow by introducing MyAds. MyAds allow users to create and save campaigns and ads independent of each other. It also helped users by organizing their ads all in one place with improved filters, a search function, and simple ad previewing. Once an ad is saved in MyAds, the review process begins immediately, and audited and approved ads associated with a campaign activate instantly.

Campaign Pacing Update
This summer, Centro DSP enabled an updated pacing system that gave users access to new options for setting spend at both the group and campaign levels. This change also eliminated the need for a budget buffer – giving greater clarity on what is budgeted and spent.

New Account Hierarchy
In September, Centro DSP transitioned to a new account hierarchy to better organize and segment client data in your account. At the highest level folders became brands, and within each brand, groups and campaigns were made mandatory. This important change ensures client-specific audiences and creative are maintained separately. It also paves the way for other exciting features in the future.

Geographic Reporting
Last month, we were pleased to introduce reporting by geography as an added function. Geo Reports give views into campaign metrics at the country, region, and city level. In addition to providing insight for optimization, campaign management is more efficient as local markets no longer need to be set up separately for reporting purposes.

Last But Not Least
Minor updates can have a major impact on usability and your day-to-day. We hope the ability to copy groups, target by browser language, and manage apps through the domain list made your life a little easier.

We have big plans for 2017 and hope you do, too!

Tell me something I don’t know!

That’s what I find myself shouting at the TV when I watch baseball games these days.

I don’t need to be told the pitch was outside. I can see that—even without that pervasive electronic pitch tracker. I don’t need to hear the same stale hyperboles repeated over and over again – that the player up to bat has grit and heart and that undeniable ‘it factor’ that propels his success despite his meager skill. I certainly don’t need to be fed the exaggeration that whatever fans happen to be in the ballpark that night are the greatest in the game.

As a fan of the sport, I’m tuned in because I already have a fairly sophisticated understanding of the game. Announcers are often stating the obvious and not telling me anything I haven’t heard before or don’t already know, leaving me bored.

So, after time, my attention begins to shift elsewhere -- to several different places, which becomes overwhelming and fragmented. It goes to different broadcasters on another channel, who possess a deeper knowledge of the game and provide more articulate sound bites. To the radio, where the detail in the play-by-play is more nuanced and rich, the POVs more objective. To the beat writers, who offer a deeper look into a player’s background and state of mind. To the nerdy baseball blogs, that incorporate progressive baseball stats and metrics into their analysis.

This isn’t unlike what happens in the digital media space. Standing out and creating competitive difference in an oversaturated, disconnected digital media market requires actionable and valuable insights in one place -- those are the goods that enable agencies to retain clients, grow accounts and drive client happiness. Without them, a client goes elsewhere – to a different agency, or perhaps to multiple agencies to handle smaller and more specialized portions of their ad business.

Agencies are there to be change makers in the digital landscape, to provide thoughtful and comprehensive insights for clients – to tell them what’s performing, what’s not and how things are trending. Providing that value keeps an agency in business, and keeps a marketer informed on what campaigns are working and where their money is going. In baseball terms, they’re there to tell you something you don’t already know about your game.

But these days agencies come and go, as evidenced by the estimated $26 billion in ad spending that was up for review last summer. The good news? The agencies kept on as digital partners are the ones giving marketers their money’s worth.

The problem is, as we’ve explained in great detail, there are a number of roadblocks preventing agencies from providing meaningful intelligence. It’s a tools and time issue. Teams are using outdated, disconnected systems, resulting in too much effort spent doing manual tasks and not strategic work. There’s no time left in the day to report and analyze on what’s happening with campaigns in any efficient manner. And, even if there were, many agencies are dealing with a sub-par roster of metrics and analytics tools to track, report, and review campaigns.

And you better believe marketers and clients take notice.

We hear a lot of grievances of that nature – things like, “the agency keeps providing the same media plan quarter after quarter, year after year, and we aren’t trying new things or learning anything new.” Sound familiar? While that approach may build in safety and predictability, the learnings at that point are scant.

Another complaint we hear a lot comes from CEOs and CFOs who feel they are operating blindly as to what’s happening at the ground level of their businesses. Leadership lacks a transparent view across the entire organization and, with data spread across various systems and servers, taking a strategic approach to business can feel impossible.

Regardless of the type of business, executives at the top need to be able to make the right decisions at the right time. Is the company profitable? Are revenue goals being met? Are new clients being retained and is there a conversation around a new customer pipeline? Is the current client mix the right one? How are teams performing? What teams should be growing and what teams won’t be able to grow? Are productivity metrics being met? Can leadership access the right data across all teams and campaigns and make sense of it?

What ends up happening without an ability to obtain answers to these questions: a relentless focus on correcting the symptom and not the problem.

Minimizing the guesswork and gaining these insights are the key to building a successful digital agency.

Centro Platform is what instant, actionable intelligence about your client's business – and your own – looks like.

Centro Platform provides unparalleled access to data across the entire digital media process. Information that is both accurate and up-to-date is available on demand – all in one system of record.

Platform Features

Centro Insights
Insights is a customizable report builder in Centro Platform, with drag & drop functionally and visualizations, that provides an agency-wide view across campaigns. Pull reports and analytics in an instant, with charts, graphs and visualizations for easy export.

Centro Insights is invaluable when making business-level decisions. As an end-to-end solution, Centro Platform collects the immense amount of data running through your business daily and aggregates and visualizes the data for users. Over 150 unique data fields across the Centro Platform funnel data to the Insights module. Metrics range from qualitative (account team, brand name, campaign name, vendor and property names, etc.) to quantitative (measures of time, rates, spend, and more), allowing you to surface the data and narratives that drive your business.

Centro Platform Insights unites cross-functional teams and applies checks and balances from research through billing facilitation, resulting in accurate and updated data. Account teams gain data that allows them to analyze profitability of campaigns; team leads access YTD spending and rates for vendors; strategists are better equipped to negotiate with vendors; analysts have instant access to performance metrics for all campaigns one place; and finance teams can access billable and vendor payable information.

This means everyone – from buyers and planners all the way up to leadership – is operating informed and in concert with the entire team.

To learn more about Centro Platform or request a demo, visit centro.net or email [email protected].

 

 

“We are rapidly approaching the most wonderful time of the year again. In preparation, marketers have been gearing up for the holiday shopping season — which comprises as much as 30 percent of retailers’ fiscal-year sales. And this year, the stakes are higher than ever. As consumers get bombarded with advertisements and promos, it becomes more important than ever for retailers to distinguish themselves. This is where beacon technology can make a difference.”

Read more from Centro’s Noor Naseer in Mobile Marketer

"Since 2013, programmatic has made up more than 50 percent of ad spending in the U.S., and forecasts indicate it will account for $27 billion worth of digital display buys in 2017. The numbers are pretty persuasive, and you may feel compelled to shift away from traditional media-buying methods. But how can you successfully implement programmatic campaigns if you don’t know where to start?"

Read more from Centro's Dan Raffe in Cynopsis Media. 

At Centro, we know that keeping up with the trade pubs and latest trends can be tough and time consuming. To make that easier, we’ve compiled all the articles, reports, and other bits of awesomeness you may have missed, but should definitely read. Enjoy our latest list below!

Google and Facebook are Booming. Is the Rest of the Digital Ad Business Sinking?
If you compare numbers in the recently released IAB/PwC report to publicly reported numbers from Google and Facebook, it begs the question: is the rest of the digital advertising industry actually shrinking?

Blocking Ad Blockers Boosted Facebook’s Desktop Ad Revenue 18%
Facebook’s ability to stay one step ahead of ad blockers like Adblock Plus has paid off: desktop ad revenue grew 18% year-over-year this quarter (compared to around 9% in previous quarters) to over $7B.

Instagram Begins Testing Tagable, Buyable Products in Photos
We’ve seen other platforms test the purchase power of their network, and now Instagram is throwing its hat in the ring. Retail and fashion verticals have certainly seen success on the platform via inspiration, and now they are hoping to see some true shopping potential. The roll-out is extremely limited and the product is not yet a paid opportunity, and like Twitter and Pinterest, it will require deep backend integration with the platform.

Twitter Shuts Down Vine
The platform that launched a thousand social influencers, 6 seconds at a time, is no more. The move was both shocking and not-so-shocking, as the fledging Twitter works to become profitable again. Twitter appears to be doubling down on their livestream capabilities via Periscope and passing (or relinquishing) their social influencer breeding ground to others (read: Snapchat).

Lack of Understanding is Biggest Threat to Native Ads
By 2021, native display ad revenue in the U.S. will account for 74% of total U.S. display revenue. But first, we’ve got to get better at defining and showcasing the ROI to clients who are struggling to understand the rapidly evolving space.

Apple Takes Another Step Toward TV Vision With Suggestion App
As Apple looks to expand the reach of their set-top television box (ie; Apple TV), they have released a new app called TV to make it easier for consumers to find shows from providers such as CBS, ABC, and HBO. But not Netflix. Or Amazon. But it does have voice commands via Siri.

Time to Retire the Term 'Programmatic'
Is ‘programmatic’ overused and/or misused? Because of the evolving nature of programmatic advertising, it is important to have a consistent definition in conversation and across the industry. And if it is not about the “buying and selling of data-driven media through automated tools,” then it is not programmatic.

Gartner Digital Marketing and Advertising Hype Cycle 2016
The yearly report that breaks down the technologies that are overhyped, on the rise, and starting to see a level of maturity. The analysts predict three overarching technology trends: transparently immersive experiences, the perceptual smart machine age, and the platform revolution. Download the report, or read through their blog post highlighting the big takeaways.

"Make no mistake that programmatic is one of modern advertising's most fundamental building blocks. With programmatic, you'll have access to the largest, most diverse audiences and numerous data points -- all in real time."

Read more from Centro's Tom Burg on iMedia.

Negotiating the best partnership possible with a seller can lead to major returns for an agency or advertiser. Unfortunately, the current state of the industry and the way we’re managing our digital media operations makes negotiation difficult. Communication is disjointed. The files and formats we’re working in are outdated. And without much historical data and insight, there’s just not much to use as leverage.

Most agencies lack access to a database of rates for vendors (data that would tell you, for example, that Autotrader usually sells this ad space/size for $X and Cars.com sells the same for $Y). This makes it really difficult to get sellers to drop rates, since there is nothing to base the starting negotiations on. At the same time, over the course of negotiation, the information received from sellers isn’t shared across the internal agency teams -- meaning within an agency, different teams could be getting different rates on the same execution from a vendor!

There is also often a communication gap between agencies and sellers. Excel does not force sellers to comply to a format, nor does it support the practice of comparing competitors in an apples-to-apples fashion. One seller might respond to an RFP by “completing” the Excel spreadsheet they received from the agency, while others will simply fill out the cells that they choose to and with information they think best.

Snapshot: Negotiations are crucial to an agency’s success and should result in better rates and executing new opportunities. The problem is, without points of reference or a templated approach, agencies lack leverage and struggle to build a profitable and professional partnership with vendors.

Real Concerns from Real Digital Media Professionals
I’m a planner/buyer/strategist and I show my value to my team, my client, and my boss by constructing campaigns that are rooted in strategy, showing thoughtful ways to achieve the client goals. However, getting to this point is a challenge for me. My time is spread so thin across campaigns that are already live – troubleshooting, optimizing, and working with our finance teams to correct billing issues. And for campaigns getting ready to launch, countless hours are spent on more menial tasks. The time it takes to properly research and negotiate is a luxury I cannot afford. On top of all this, I know other teams within my agency have worked with certain vendors or have navigated complex new executions and I’d love their intel. The trouble is, I have no good way of sourcing that information.

The Solution: Centro Platform

Centro Platform improves and automates digital media operations by centralizing processes, teams, and data into one holistic platform. It provides the insight you need to negotiate confidently, and a place where buyers and sellers can come together, speak the same language, and get down to business – faster and more efficiently than ever before.

With Centro Platform, you can welcome sellers into the system to complete RFPs in a planning grid that is built with a series of checks and balances designed to guide and streamline the submission process. Versions of proposals are stored for both buyers and sellers to reference at any time.

All of your team members can communicate with ease using Platform’s internal messaging. Planners, buyers, analysts, and any other interested team members will be able to discuss proposals, options, and more -- all in the context of a campaign.

This is negotiating with an edge. This is Centro Platform.

Platform Features: Buying Workflow

• Compare proposals from sellers as you move through the negotiation process. Centro Platform takes care of the guesswork – highlighting what was changed, what was added, and what was removed.
• Proposals and communication are stored for team review so nothing is lost in inboxes and next steps are always clear.
• Buyers and sellers communicate in the same language as they review, respond, and collaborate on RFPs and IOs all in Centro Platform.
• Bi-directional integrations with leading ad servers, DCM and Sizmek, automate campaign setup getting you from IO to launch faster.

 To learn more about Centro Platform or request a demo, visit centro.net or email [email protected].

"By pushing further into digital ad targeting, Snapchat is sending a clear message to media buyers: This is an ad platform that can’t be dismissed. But what does its latest push mean for advertisers? Does Snapchat offer a better marketing platform than what brands have seen before, or is it just the same old digital advertising we’ve seen? The short answer: It’s a little bit of both."

Read more from Aubry Parks-Fried on Adweek's Social Times.