One Fish, Two Fish

Quite possibly the most frustrating thing about working in ad operations occurs when it comes time to build out a team.

Unless you live in New York or San Francisco, you're going to find that there's a serious lack of experienced ad ops professionals. Most folks don't even know what ad operations is, let alone how to operate an ad server.

Can I list Microsoft Word as a skill?

As a small business owner, your time is much too precious for you to be spending hours in DFP each day trying to determine why your campaign progress is so low. For you, the days are too short, you can never get enough done. You don't want to waste weeks searching for an ad ops professional you can't afford, nor do you want to end up hiring a noob who doesn't know what an impression is.

Living and working at a large publisher in a college town for five years, I frequently found that I didn't have a choice. Nobody from NY or SF wanted to move to my town, so by default I was looking to hire people who had no ad ops experience and likely no relevant work experience at all. During the time I was there, I had to build out an ad ops team from scratch roughly three separate times, and I'm here to tell you it can be done.

Let's assume you're building a team from scratch, as well. After setting a budget, the very first thing you need to do is determine what kind of person you want working for you. What values are important to your company? What's the culture like? Who will best fit in? If you hire someone smart and resourceful but their personality is such that they won't get along with the rest of your team, they might work out for a little while but the odds are they will ultimately feel like an outsider and leave for another job. Don't fall into this trap and hire the wrong fit for your company culture - how your employees feel about each other is one thing you simply can't control, but you want to try to set them up for success.

The next thing to consider is what kind of skills they need to have. Obviously ad operations experience is a major plus, but you may not get so lucky. What work experience and interests would likely make for a great ad ops hire, you ask?

COMFORTABLE WITH NUMBERS

They will be working with numbers all day, every day. Manipulating them, experimenting with them, recording them, reporting on them. If they aren't comfortable with algebra-level mathematics, you're gonna have a bad time.

DETAIL-ORIENTED, WITH LOGIC AND PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS

Keeping campaigns on track means looking at them every. Single. Day. Spotting the little inconsistencies. Remembering to insert pixels where they need to be inserted. They will perform the same tasks hundreds of times and if they don't pay attention to the little things, you can bet something will go wrong. And no matter how diligent they are, the day will come when something's broken. When your revenue chain has a broken link, it's of the utmost importance that it gets repaired. They have to be able to track a problem down to the source and then resolve it quickly.

SELF-STARTERS

The ad space is always changing. Every day, new buzzwords are invented for things advertisers decide they suddenly care desperately about. Your ad ops team will be the primary knowledge resource for your sales team, your advertising partners, and you. They need to know what's going on in the industry, and they need to get your company in the best position for attracting business.

That's it! If you can suss out their skills in an interview and they have all of these personality traits, you've got a real winner on your hands. Bonus points if they have a background in statistics, data analysis, or marketing. And since you've hired someone with little to no experience, you'll be able to pay them a lower starting salary. Likely they will also feel very grateful for the opportunity, and if you play your management cards right, you will have the loyalty of this individual for a long time. Don't underestimate the power that believing in someone can have on their love for you and your company. It will go a long, long way.

But what's next? As self-starter-y as they may be, you can't just give them a desk and expect them to make you money right away. Though there are many pluses of hiring a future rockstar, it does come with one pretty major pain point: you have to take the time to train them. Like any good manager, you understand that by taking the time out now, you will create a self-sufficient team that will consistently take your revenue to the next level.

If you don't have the time, or don't have the knowledge, consider hiring an ad ops professional to train them for you. Even the most basic knowledge can go a long way, and since you've hired cheaply, you can afford a one-time investment, right?

May your resumes be ever plentiful,

Jen