This is how publishers can deliver Value to Advertisers.

In the dynamics of the world, value creation is very important. Everything that we do adds value to our or someone else's life. In today's world, the constant tussle between media sellers & buyers is leading to a loss in value creation. Sellers need more ad dollars while the buyer needs exorbitant KPIs. This constant mismatch of expectations is leading to a gap in the industry where bad actors operate ad fraud networks and hence lead to wasted ad dollars. These bad actors associate themselves with media buyers through opaque channels where they deliver good vanilla KPIs through black hat techniques. The conversions, clicks & views through these bad actors are mostly questionable and always fraud.

For a media seller, it's disappointing to see budgets moving to platforms that are opaque and might offer questionable value. So, how do media sellers work here to bring more ad dollars and create a cash flow positive business with long term value creation for the buyer?

The answer is - Sustainable Value Creation

Below is how you can create sustainable long term value:

Understand the Brand/Buyer

Having an understanding of the brand and their story is very important. Knowing the brand's positioning, their business model and their vision is very important for any seller. For eg: a D2C brand in hair care will always position themselves above the general category of hair care products that are available in the market. They will always have a story around their product and their business model focuses heavily on decreasing the CAC (Customer acquisition cost).

A traditional advertising approach with Vanilla metrics like CTR & viewability will not work with them. So the seller will need to understand that CAC & ROAS will be a deciding factor for the buyer.

So, such a D2C brand will always value their story being communicated to the users while decreasing the CAC.

Identify the Problem

Every media brief aims to solve a purpose. Sometimes, it'd want the seller to bring in awareness for the brand or drive sales. In both the scenario, identify the existing problem with the specific product and ensure that they are highlighted to the brand and solved in the proposed solution.

For the same hair care brand, they might be facing a problem of low repeat customers. This would mean that customers are switching to different brands or the price doesn't justify the result. Any further campaigns would need to address this problem as this will increase the repeat users, bringing down the CAC and hence making the brand aware that the seller identified the problem and is motivated to work on things that are important for them.

Solve the Problem

When the problem is identified, always lay down the solution in simple terms. Everyone likes simplified things as it creates the foundation for long term value. Many brands & agencies don't like to work too much on campaigns because they already have a lot going on with other sellers.

However, in order to achieve perfect results, seller would have to create the solution in such a way that both sell & buy side get best results with minimum effort. This also involves being empathetic with the buyer and rewarding them with compliments about their work.

Dividing the execution steps for both sides will help maintain clarity and build value. Breaking down complex techniques in simple terms will maintain efficiency.

Track & Measure

A seller needs to abandon today's way of tracking campaign success. Every seller need to track every marketing activity on their platform daily. A salesperson from a seller would need to have deep understanding of buy side nuances & metrics in order to ease the conversation. When you know these metrics & track them on a daily basis, you will always be on the same page as the buyer and you will feel connected. The buyer should feel that even if they are not monitoring, the seller has their eyes on their ad spend. This is what a investment banker does and makes sure that money is being generated even while you are sleeping.

Isn't every seller an investment banker for the buyer?

Feedback

Giving out feedback to buyer after every marketing activity is essential. This feedback shouldn't only focus on the campaign performance, but can also include everything. Sellers can run survey campaigns to already exposed audiences and check how effective the campaign was.

Sellers can observe trends during the campaign execution and communicate that to the buyer. This doesn't necessarily apply to campaign that executed successfully, but to the one's who didn't. A detailed feedback for a successful campaign is equally important than a failed campaign.