Hi Andrew – great to have you. Could you tell us a little about how The Boston Globe decided to invest in self-serve as an advertising strategy?

Sure! Really we arrived at this conclusion by looking at trends in the SMB advertising
market and observing the migration of SMBs to self-service advertising via “The
Platforms” like Google, Facebook, and Amazon. We believe publishers of all sizes can
adopt similar strategies to attract self-service media buys within their brand-safe
environments across a host of differentiated products.

What were you looking to achieve with a self-serve platform?

We wanted to both provide a streamlined experience for our existing ad buyers looking
to expedite ad buys on their own timelines and schedules and also to reach new and lapsed customers. The sheer accessibility and simplicity of the self-serve platform open
up our Inventory and potential new products to a much broader range of buyers.

How easy was it to implement this new technology? 

Like any new tool, change doesnâ€t happen overnight. Itâ€s not simply about plugging in a new technology; we also had to rethink how we sell advertising inventory across the board. But with that said, itâ€s been a relatively smooth process, and thatâ€s thanks to incredible support weâ€ve had from all our various internal departments. Tech, finance, sales, marketing, ad ops, legal, and senior management – getting everyone aligned was a huge win that really allowed us to drive the project forward. 

What were the biggest challenges you faced?

Throughout the self-service evaluation process, there were many business
considerations to evaluate during the sign-off process. Our first biggest consideration
was an investigation into the profitability and revenue expectations of the platform.
Crucial to getting that internal buy-in was creating a business case that demonstrated
the efficiency gains, and new business potential, of an automated ad-buying system.
From there, we built a thoughtful business development plan that our sales team was
aligned on– itâ€s critical that self-serve acts as a tool to help our sales team and clients.
And the last main conversation was around resourcing– you can have a vision, but most
importantly, you need to have a team that can build and rolls out the product. We have
a lot of different exciting projects going on at Boston Globe Media, and we are really
excited that self-service is now one of them.

What is the status of your self-serve business today?

Right now weâ€re still in beta testing, and weâ€ve received some really great feedback. Account setup has been super easy, and now weâ€re making small tweaks to product wording and creative options to really make for a straightforward checkout experience. Our projections are looking positive and we expect this project to have a meaningful impact on revenue and allow our sales representatives more time to focus on larger, integrated accounts.

What advice would you give a media owner considering self-serve?

Self-serve is a long road that will have lots of trials and learnings. As a company you have to be comfortable skating to where the puck is going, investing in a system that provides efficiency, new business opportunities, and rigorously trying and testing techniques of growing adoption.

Thanks for your time, Andrew! 

Looking for a more comprehensive breakdown of The Boston Globeâ€s self-serve business? Youâ€re in luck – download the full case study here.

From our friends at Freestar, let us introduce Kurt Donnell.

Kurt is the President and CEO of Freestar and is, just like us, a fan of self-service.

In your opinion, what are the benefits for a media company working with a self-service platform?
Self-serve platforms provide a great medium for publishers to facilitate lower dollar transactions with advertisers that have smaller budgets or who want to test a smaller buy before working on a larger campaign without bogging down the publisherâ€s sales team.

Why do you think there has been an increased demand from the media companies for self-service platforms?
Many advertisers have found success advertising on Facebook, Google and other platforms where they can directly manage campaigns vs. working with a sales team. Providing a similar experience on individual sites or groups of sites can allow access into additional budgets or facilitate transactions with smaller advertisers and frees up internal sales resources as previously noted.

Are self-service platforms good for advertisers of all sizes?
They certainly can be depending on the sophistication and team makeup of the advertiser. Working directly with a publisher may provide higher quality or more targeted inventory and potentially lower prices than going through an Agency, DSP and SSP.

What advice would you provide to media companies looking to enable a self-service advertising platform?
If you are going to enable a self-service platform ensure that you are promoting its availability. For example, a publisher can include small “Advertise Here” calls to action in the site and obviously will need to have a dedicated page describing the self-service offering.
·What are your predictions for self-service advertising platforms in the media industry in the future?
I believe it will ultimately depend on the scale and level of targeting that a media company can provide. Facebook and Google have done incredibly well in this arena due to their ability to target very specific audiences at scale. If a media company or group of media companies can provide something similar, I believe advertisers will be very interested as their goal is to diversify their spend assuming similar performance.

First up: let us introduce Anthony Blackford. Director of Advertising at dubizzle, the UAE’s largest Classifieds. 

In your opinion, what are the benefits for a media company working with a self-service platform?
I think the largest benefit is the ability to scale the volume of clients you can work with. One salesperson can only cover so much ground. A self service tool works around the clock 24/7 and is not capped on how many clients it can service. By leveraging technology and automating processes, you can really increase the number of clients you work with which would not have been possible via a managed service.

Why do you think there has been an increased demand from the media companies for self-service platforms?
As technology evolves and the way we consume media continues to shift towards digital channels, we are increasingly moving towards a connected world which offers huge opportunities. Machine learning and AI seems to be the core focus of most tech companies now as we try to replace more manual tasks with automated processes. Although self serve isn’t a fully automated process, it does remove the need for most of the manual work on the publisher side, plus allows for greater scale without the need to increase your operation footprint.

Are self-service platforms good for advertisers of all sizes?
It really depends on what advertising product you’re selling and if it’s fairly basic or has multiple moving parts to it. The more complex it is, it’s less likely you’ll have your larger spender operating from a self serve platform. Although I see no reason why advertisers of all sizes cannot use self-service. We know some larger clients prefer a managed service, especially if the campaign has an added technical component or complex execution, but there is no reason why they cannot be helped through the self service tool by the publisher.

What advice would you provide to media companies looking to enable a self-service advertising platform?
Start with an entry level product which is easy to use and does the basics well. Once you know what works for your clients, build on that for stage 2. There is no point spending several years and tons of cash building an over constructed platform that does not work or deliver the value for your clients.

What are your predictions for self-service advertising platforms in the media industry in the future?
I think we’ll see an increase in publishers using self-service platforms as they try to grow their client base whilst leveraging technology where possible. We have the ability to build really intelligent systems that will always outperform manual effort, which are built for scale. It makes sense to build on this potential.

Anthony Blackford, Director of Advertising, dubizzle

Visit dubizzle Campaign Manager