Across the publishing, media and streaming industries, ad supported revenue models remain a central source of income, despite the growing popularity of subscription models. As we look to the future, we know that ad supported revenue models are here to stay, but to remain profitable and scalable they must evolve. Automation offers the ability to optimize processes and future-proof these models at scale. But implementation can be challenging for organizations that have long standing manual processes tied to revenue models.

Through the past few years, shifts in consumer behaviors have compelled many publishing, streaming, and entertainment brands to focus on optimizing their current ad models. To stay competitive, many concluded they would need to innovate their current strategies by leveraging automation as a tool to streamline processes.

Additionally, many organizations had to take a hard and fast look at their current business models and make changes that enable scale and ensure success in current and future markets. Let’s face it: This would be no small task at any time. However, it is particularly challenging these days given the impacts of the pandemic across all industries and the tremendous growth of digital marketing initiatives fueled by the shifts in consumer behavior.

The act of developing new ad modeling formats to engage with evolving consumer habits does involve innovation and proper management. Organizations going through these pivots can be vastly different in terms of structure, size, and strategy. However, their goals and the path to achieve them are the same: Streamlining processes and future-proofing business by automating the processes that enable advertising campaign deployment and successful ad model revenue streams.

Implementing automation is worthwhile, but it can be challenging. When implementing automation strategies into your organization, you should focus on three critical elements: managing the human element, enabling effective change order, and enhancing data analysis and utilization. These must be addressed to allow you to effectively implement automation, to optimize for today and build a foundation for the growth of tomorrow. 

Managing the human element

Advertising is both an art and a science. The art piece is the element in which human creativity is necessary for innovation. The science is the technology that can be leveraged across repetitive elements to increase bandwidth in terms of scale and reduce the time required of teams.

For many, balancing the human element within their technology and automation implementations can be a challenge. Optimization of redundant tasks through automation is necessary to streamline internal processes, which enables scalability and business growth. But developing an automation strategy cannot be done without the human element of the business. 

No matter what type of challenge you facie, and changes you are working to implement, one critical element of balancing the art and science of it all is transparency. Encouraging teams to embrace changes through open communication and collaboration and building a structure based on accountability is key.

The human element of your business is necessary part of the technology and automation implementation. The only way to succeed when implementing an automation strategy is to enable buy-in to the process by way of transparency from the start. It is critical that you involve you team in every step of the automation implementation process—and the earlier you involve them the better. 

Enabling effective change management

Business optimization and growth at scale are a constant process for all organizations. It is impossible for any business to implement organization-wide changes to strategy and process, like automation of order-to-cash, without a heavy focus on effective change management. Ensuring that the entirety of the business has buy-in to the pivots in strategy and the new workflows that are being implemented is paramount to success, and effective change management practices will get you there.  

Effective change management requires leading with empathy. To succeed, you must understand your teams, their fears, wants, and needs. The best way to do this is to establish internal feedback loops, encourage collaboration and develop a baseline of accountability.  

Change can be intimidating for teams, especially in terms of automation, but it doesn’t have to be. Creating stability through large business shifts like automation implementation is critical. The key to effective change management is involving your teams throughout the change process, creating clear roles and responsibilities, and establishing a baseline of accountability for individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole.

Enhancing data analysis and utilization

Data is at the core of all organizations. Data analysis is the thread that ties the art and science of business evolution together. To successfully manage the human element of your business and enable effective change management, you must lean into your data. It is vital to thoroughly understand your audiences to better serve your brand clients and make insightful decisions when it comes to creative and logistical elements of your business. Significant innovations like automation implementation cannot be successful without leveraging your data and enhancing your data utilization strategies across your business.

The ability to enhance data analysis and utilization is critical for publishing, media, and streaming brands as it correlates directly to keeping brand partners in the know, for both existing initiatives and future planning. More than ever before, brand partners look to their media partners to provide real-time data insights to inform campaign optimization and ensure success.

Leveraging robust data utilization and analysis within your internal decision-making initiatives enables internal teams to develop content that serves the interests of the modern consumer, creating an audience pool with higher engagement levels for brand partners to reach. Implementing robust data collection methodologies and enabling both internal teams and brand partners to tap into that data in real-time is a key element to optimizing and building future growth. 

Growth ahead

Regardless of your business model, developing a methodology to ensure your business can grow at scale for years to come is critical. Publishing, media, and streaming companies have encountered a host of different challenges over the past few years as they work to optimize and scale their businesses. Automation is central to future-proofing your advertising strategies. These three core implementation strategies will help you get there.

These elements are at the heart of the evolution of ad supported revenue models for streaming, media, and publishing brands. Understanding the necessity and building a strategy with these elements as the focal points will ensure successful innovation for scale in the modern competitive market.