Automating advertising supply chains enables agencies to accelerate data processes, improve ad quality and even reduce their environmental impact. By streamlining media operations tasks, media planning agencies can better manage campaigns and increase operational efficiency.

Automation has a variety of applications that can ease and shorten processing times and troubleshooting. Even the most experienced agencies face daily challenges when coordinating direct campaign media buys. 

A single source of truth

Relying on automated calculations for the approved media spend significantly reduces the risk of making mistakes, such as data entry issues, piecing incomplete information or even sharing an inaccurate media spend with clients.  

-“I accidentally sent out the wrong campaign numbers to my client.”

Having only one data source for all parties guarantees alignment between agencies, clients, and publishers. There is no need for agencies to compare various data sources or spend too much time gathering data. 

Automatically resolve taxonomy issues

When an ad measurement vendor’s tags are not associated with the correct placement IDs, agency staff needs to rematch IDs and it can add unnecessary time spent to the reconciliation process.

-“ Something is wrong with my campaign. I have to go back and rematch placement IDs.“

Without an automation platform, agency staff would need to rematch placement IDs as soon as possible. With AdNode, agencies can automatically prevent and resolve taxonomy issues within campaigns.

Seamless compatibility with tech systems

Agency staff can take too much time comparing data and matching IDs. Making sure everything works together saves time and facilitates the entire process for media billing formulas. Agencies require ad technology that thrives on the compatibility between systems by weaving data together from its insertion order system, measurement vendor and ad server.

-“ I need a platform that integrates seamlessly with my insertion order system, ad server, and measurement vendor. “

When working with an automation platform like AdNode, pairing an agency’s ad server, connecting its measurement vendor and syncing its order entry system only requires a one-time setup.  

Smooth running campaigns

Agencies need to be able to reallocate budgets between placements and publishers, remove placements that aren’t working well and change campaigns’ backend without the fear that it will complicate the reconciliation process and require their teams to spend extra time sorting invoices. 

-“I’m afraid of messing up my campaigns when making adjustments. ”

Plus, sharing feedback with publishers can help to quickly troubleshoot ad delivery issues on the first day of an ad campaign, such as identifying domains with too much invalid traffic or auto-refresh issues, re-allocating away from ad units with low viewability, or identifying and automatically notifying the publisher when a geographic filter is not set, as intended in the insertion order.

Effortless reconciliation process

Agencies cannot afford to waste their time and resources going back and forth with publishers about issues that can easily be solved through automation.

-“My clients’ and publishers’ invoices don’t match.”

Near real-time reconciliation of media spend and viewable CPMs allows agency teams to make data-driven decisions before campaigns conclude. This will enable agencies to change course if specific parameters are not yielding the desired results. Operationally efficient and results-oriented agencies will continue winning and will retain business in the long run. 

Reliable audits

Automation works wonders when it comes to organizing and retrieving data. By certifying data through distributed ledger technologies, agencies, clients, and publishers can ensure that campaign figures are verified and that advertising spend is not wasted.

-“ We paid for ads that were never delivered, this can’t happen to us again.”

AdNode certifies every impression as either billable or non-billable and identifies why ads would not be billable by having an audit ledger for billings of every ad impression. This is impossible to produce when billing reconciliation is based on summary data rather than evidence for every impression.

Benefits of automation for ad agencies

Ad agencies will inevitably benefit from introducing automation to their existing processes. But benefits go beyond operational efficiency. Digital advertising agencies that incorporate automation will see their efforts impact other important factors such as their reputation and synergy with their clients.

Avoiding embarrassment with clients

Establishing and maintaining a good reputation can make or break an agency’s business. Through automated reconciliation, agencies can be confident that the stats they’re sharing with their clients are definite and will not need revising. The agency staff can be spared the embarrassment of needing to go back to its client to fix its numbers multiple times. 

Achieving KPIs in record time

By running automated direct campaigns, agencies can keep up with their clients’ campaign performance at all times and deliver coherent results persistently. Clients are eager to work with agencies that genuinely care about reaching their goals and maximizing their ad budget.

Unleashing time for strategic and tactical work by automating back-office tasks

Automation is important for agency talent retention purposes and employee engagement. Making human hours count on high-level tasks and not burdening staff with low-level work that can be automated truly makes a difference in corporate culture. 

Automated advertising: agencies & clients aligned 

Running automated campaigns is easy through AdNode. Agencies can optimize their clients’ ad spend and monitor direct campaigns at a whole new level. AdNode works in alignment with agencies to accelerate their inevitable automation. A first step can be a technical pre-sales call to understand your agency’s workflow and specific needs.

Automation powered by distributed ledgers increases media value for clients, and it allows agencies and publishers to re-allocate to inventory buckets with lower viewable CPMs. AdNode’s historical average has driven a 43.3% reduction in viewable CPMs, leading to up to a 2x increase in viewable impressions. And more viewability inevitably leads to more conversion.

Welcoming automation into digital advertising will also help agencies maintain consistent results and operate with confidence when communicating campaign numbers with clients. At AdNode, we support agencies in achieving their organization’s and clients’ goals bringing automation to the reconciliation process to achieve operational efficiency.