Maturity of Premium Publishers' Ad Sales Operations Impacts Profitability

NEW YORK, April 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Operative, the global leader in advertising business management solutions for digital publishers, broadcasters and cable networks, and Digital Content Next, the only trade association that exclusively serves the diverse needs of digital content companies,  today announced the results of a study of more than 100 of the largest premium publishers in the United States including Hulu, Scripps, Weather.com and McClatchy.  The study, entitled "Benchmarking Digital Publisher Maturity 2015," examined the efficiency and profitability of premium digital ad sales including how quickly sales and operations teams respond to RFPs, process insertion orders and how much they accrue at the end of the month.

"The study provides previously unknown details about premium publisher sales and operational effectiveness," notes Peter Naylor, head of sales at Hulu. "Now publishers like Hulu have a clear benchmark and we know where we stand in a competitive environment."

The study's findings include the following:

• The average RFP response time is 12 minutes
• The average time to process a line item on an IO is 40 minutes
• Publishers employ an average of 6 different advertising technologies
• The ratio of sellers to operations employees is 4.3 sellers to one ad operations
• Publishers accrue 91% of billings each month

Operative then aggregated the findings and categorized publishers into five different categories of maturity based on their responses. Publishers mainly fell into categories two through four. Operative also found that with each increase in maturity came a significant increase in profitability, indicating that publishers should continue to invest in digital efficiency and technology.

The study provides a roadmap for increasing maturity, and thus improved profitability. Publishers in category two are defined by heavy reliance on people over technology, slow turnaround times and low efficiency. Category three, the most common category of premium publishers, indicates an increase in technology use including programmatic and a variety of ad servers, faster turnaround times and more synergy across digital channels. The large hurdle was between categories three and four.  The few premium publishers in category four had invested significantly in technology and had innovated beyond the current channel silos to create innovative offerings that were flexible, targeted and data-driven. Not only did this give category four publishers a competitive advantage, but they also were also more efficient and significantly more profitable.

"We have so many premium publisher clients who are up against massive pressure both from advertisers and consumers today," explains Lorne Brown, CEO of Operative. "They have been asking for this study so that they can see if they're investing enough in new technologies, adopting new channels and offering unique enough products. Now they can not only benchmark how mature their organization is, they can see how it ties directly to their profitability."

The full results of Operative's Study are available at http://www.operative.com/the-publisher-maturity-curve/.

About Operative

Since 2001, Operative Media, Inc. has developed software and services that help publishers, agencies, and networks simplify the business of advertising. Media companies rely on Operative to sell, traffic, and bill premium ad inventory, increasing revenue and decreasing overhead. Operative's client base, which controls over 20 percent of the global ad market, features NBCUniversal, Wall Street Journal, Comcast, iHeartMedia, BuzzFeed, and Schibsted Media. www.operative.com

Contact Information

WIT Strategy for Operative
Emily Riley
[email protected]
(914) 330-1128

Digital Content Next
Kaitlyn Kurosky
[email protected] 
(212) 918-2040

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SOURCE Operative

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