The importance of effectively managing campaigns for SMB publishers

Thanks to a combination of rapid digitization and the odd pandemic here and there, the competition for online ad dollars has increased dramatically in recent years. But despite the challenges the growth in digital ads is creating opportunities for smaller publishers to siphon some of those dollars.

As businesses grow, so do aspirations. And with digital placing pressure on publishers to offer the best ad opportunities quickly, SMBs are turning away from conventional forms of advertising. With 94% of digital publishing companies seeing digital transformation as an excellent opportunity, it’s no surprise that 72.2% of the mean marketing budget was allocated to pure digital channels in 2021.

In the fast changing and competitive world of media and publishing, giving your customers the best and most extensive advertising opportunities and products, at speed and efficiency, is vital for companies to thrive. Many publishers are held back by manual and fragmented order management processes, but implementing a new system to streamline everything is risky, expensive and time-consuming. A major dilemma for SMB publishers.

The struggles SMBs have in effectively managing campaigns

In this digital-first economy agility in services portfolio is critical to stay ahead of the competition. 

The introduction of ad-tech forces media organizations to be stuck with a poorly integrated patchwork of systems. Instead of streamlining technology stacks, SMBs find themselves adding systems on top of systems, causing an endless array of problems from training people, to spiraling maintenance costs. 

Publishers need to be able to make adjustments to their systems over time, and without a backroom staff of IT people who are able to easily change things, it becomes a struggle. 

In an era with publishers struggling for ad dollars and cost savings, publishers are realizing the need to be able to manage campaigns effectively. This entails; collecting real-time data, analyzing said data and personalizing campaigns on customer data. Publishers need to be able to react to real-time data insights, but unfortunately many SMBs come across several bottlenecks thanks to their ad-tech. 

A survey conducted found that data professionals waste 30% of their time gathering and analyzing data. Campaign managers are not only held back by manual systems, but the layering of systems leads to losses and human error, making optimization a difficult task. 

The lack of financial resources and man-power has kept SMBs from truly exploiting the digital realm, but things are changing. Business is about growth and campaign managers ultimately want to be able to maximize ROI and profitability all on smaller budgets. 

The right platform can allow a single staff member to manage multiple campaigns simultaneously, giving them more time to focus on value-enhancing activities. Digital ad campaigns make it easier to track data on customers, and SMBs are finding that they are useful when making informed marketing decisions. 

Introducing MediaRapid

As a response to the challenges that SMB publishers face, CloudSense has introduced MediaRapid, a quick-to-implement and future-proof order management system that helps transform ad sales and operations. 

Working seamlessly with Salesforce, MediaRapid empowers your sales operations teams to easily manage advertising opportunities from start to finish. This includes creating sales orders, adding customer specific configurations, obtaining approvals and sign-offs, and fulfillment and billing - all in one place.

MediaRapid brings the entire ad operations lifecycle into a single system, generating revenues faster - a fast implementation with a long-lasting impact:

• 50% faster-to-value

• 25% cost reduction

• 30% greater efficiency

A centralized system that uses automation to improve efficiency and reduce costs, this solution allows SMB publishers to sell, book and monetize cross-media advertising campaigns more effectively. 

The convoluted process of switching systems and screens is a waste of time and a recipe for errors. So, the ability to book cross-media campaigns in one place is vital to cater for customers and increase efficiencies. Human error is eliminated through automation, time delays are reversed with the help of integrated approvals and efficient workflows, and swivel chair processes are eradicated thanks to a simplified order management system.