Recapping the entirety of AdMonsters would be an exercise in exhaustion as it was packed with information, conversation, and inspiration. So, I’ll just paste my part below — a distillation of the takeaways from a discussion session that I led on the challenges particular to small ad operations teams.
This stuff isn’t just relative to ad ops, though, it applies to any sort of small departmental team trying to find a place within a growing company.
STAFFING
Most shops are still in the generalist phase, so finding fresh, “moldable,” right out of college hires is a great option. Also look to parallel industries (radio, print, etc) to find folks looking to make career changes and create entirely fresh skill sets.
START THINKING ABOUT SPECIFICITY
Start thinking about segmenting/role assignment within your team but only formalize it if you have staffing redundancy to protect yourself against knowledge loss.
RETENTION
Take advantage of the flexibility of being a smaller shop to give your employees varied tasks that keep them interested. Let them step outside of ad ops if necessary.
PRIORITIZE STRATEGY
Make sure to prioritize strategy meetings and directional planning despite constant pressure to put out fires.
LAY GROUNDWORK FOR AUTOMATION
Even if you are too small to throw $ behind software automation, start laying the foundation with your own systems/solutions (Excel, forms, workflow docs, etc). Scaling will be that much easier if you have a framework for automation already in place.
ORG STRUCTURE / MANAGING SALES
Many small ad ops groups are still situated in Sales, so these ad ops managers should aggressively educate their Sales VP’s and keep them briefed on progress. Maintain comfortable distance to avoid being micromanaged by the Sales VP
ESTABLISH AD OPS IN YOUR COMPANY
Be proactive in establishing ad ops’ position relative to other departments in the company by fostering communication btwn all departments, even outside of your formal roles. Also, educate these departments on ad ops to improve their responsiveness to your needs.
