What are Publishers Saying About Remnant Inventory?
December 14th, 2006
I recently attended an IAB Innovators Round Table dinner, hosted by Right Media, which brought together online publishers of all sizes. Over 20 online publishers gathered to discuss how to distinguish between premium and non-premium inventory and how to best monetize both while protecting their brand.
There were varying opinions on how to manage non-premium inventory (what some call remnant or wholesale inventory), but there was general agreement on its definition–that it’s simply “unsold” inventory. Now that we all knew what it was, we tackled what to do with it.
The solutions on how to manage inventory varied greatly but there seemed to be widespread agreement that yield management is labor intensive and ad networks don’t really make it any easier. Everyone had a frustrating story of seeing unacceptable ads appearing on their sites and expressed the desire to have pre-emptive controls over creatives rather being limited to reacting to a network’s mistake.
The subject of who should own yield management produced the liveliest debate of the evening, with answers ranging from sales to ad ops to finance to “not me.” In the end everyone agreed it ultimately belonged in the hands of finance. The thinking was that selling remnant inventory is far too subjective to be handled by sales or ad ops and that finance is best able to fit remnant into a larger business plan. The supporting view seemed to be “anyone but sales!”
There was at least one topic that no one agreed on: how to best incentivize ad ops. Have you ever heard of an ad ops team (an Army of One) that was under-worked? Publishers need sales and ad ops working in unison and yield management too often saps the morale out of what should be a collaborative effort focused foremost on premium sponsorships.
How do you define remnant inventory? Who owns yield management in your organization? What controls do you have over the types of ads running in your remnant inventory? And what is your ad ops team saying about your response to these questions?
Try this conversation over dinner with your team one night. You might just come up with some new solutions.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:37 am
Great Blog.. i too have a problem with “remnant inventory” and would like a general conclusion to what to do with it! i believe that 100% fill ad networks are garbage and and do not cater to quality content sites like mine. My question to right media, is… why isnt their a resonable solution for sites with tons of remnant inventory that pays say… 20-40 cent cpms, i feel that i am getting riped on the 4-5th teir at a 5-6 cent cpm.! Correct me with im wrong but base ad management solutions are not feasable for sites who only generate 3,000 - 10,000 in revenue a month such as mine. I have done a little research but base prices seem to be around 1,500 a month and only serve 5,000,000 ad impression for you! WHERE IS THIS SOLUTION?!? Come up with that and you will be set, ill be your first customer.
Daniel Fontana
Lead Project Manager
Shareapic.net
Echelon Design Studio, LLC