By Arlo Laitin, Vice President of Southeast Sales

As we all enjoy the last warm days of the season, many of our clients and agencies have already started planning for Q4 and the holidays. As these initial conversations begin, it’s crucial that websites map out a revenue strategy that encompasses sales, product, and editorial teams. Here are a few things to consider as you start planning:

• Holiday Special Sections: Do you have these sections mapped out and ready to present? Take a look at historical data, such as visitors and page views, from these sections in the past few years and put pricing in place for them. Are there any exclusive opportunities available for national advertisers, or are you going to split this up and sell to local advertisers?
• Homepage Takeovers: Many large retailers will be jockeying for position on critical dates in Q4, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Do you have a calendar set up for these dates? How many of these Takeovers will you sell?   Are other exclusive opportunities available for larger advertisers?
• Creative Opportunities: We all know that advertisers are looking to cut through the clutter, and this is always most important around the holidays.  Does your site have any exclusive, creative opportunities on your Homepage or on key section fronts? Can you re-skin your site or let an advertiser take over your masthead? Can an advertiser own your site for a day? We know there might be pushback from your editorial staff, so now is the time to get approval on these types of high-impact creative ideas.
• Pricing: Do you have a Q4 pricing strategy in place? Given the current economic environment, the softness in online pricing, and the increased competition for ad dollars, it’s important to put your best foot forward. We know there is immense pressure among advertisers to drive efficient sales in Q4, and this will be reflected by the types of programs your site can provide. For example, many smart publishers will sell a Homepage Takeover at a premium rate and then add low-cost, remnant inventory to lower the overall effective rate on the package. This type of smart packaging is critical if you want to compete with the portals and ad networks in Q4.
• Inventory Management:  Before you can map out everything else, it’s crucial that you understand the seasonality of your traffic based on historical data from the past few years. Most sites see decreasing traffic around holiday time, and spikes during other key times. Use your best judgment when setting inventory expectations with your advertisers, and follow the worn out, clichéd adage of “underpromise and overdeliver.” Because these types of programs run at the end of the year, most advertisers are not able to accept make-goods after 12/31, so underdelivery is a major issue.

Now grab your suntan lotion, leave your Blackberry at home, and head back to the beach… Q4 may be right around the corner, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a little more sun!

By Ken Rood, Senior Campaign Manager

Fourth quarter can often be stressful, with tight inventory and client requests. Continue below for tips on delivering a successful campaign!

Pre-Launch with your Campaign Managers (CM):

• The Earlier the Better: Your campaign manager (CM) can work closely with your site traffic or ad operations contact to address any concerns with creative. Questions about specific tags? Does your site have specific requirements? If you have issues prior to launch, talk to your CM.
• High Impact: High impact and rich media units often require additional attention. If you are unfamiliar with a specific format, or if you are running into challenges implementing rich media units in your ad server, always schedule the ad to a live preview page for review. Your campaign manager can diagnose the issue and present a quick fix.
• Cachebusting: Many third party tags can be implemented with a cachebusting code. Cachebusting ensures that the creative is being delivered from the third party server rather than your local browser cache. While this code varies from ad server to ad server, your campaign manager is always happy to help clarify any challenges in implementation.

Post-Launch with your Campaign Analysts:

• Inventory Crunches? As we move into Q4, it’s always possible that you’ll see inventory constraints. If you foresee issues that may present challenges for a full delivery, please let your analyst and account manager know as soon as possible. Your suggestions can be relayed to the client for review.
  
• Padding: There will be a discrepancy between the 3rd party ad server and your site’s ad server. The site should check their ad server delivery against the 3rd party reports to determine the discrepancy. Once this percentage is determined, it should be added to the scheduled goals in your ad server. Implementing this padding will help ensure that all contracted impressions are met.
  
• Pacing: We appreciate your attention to pacing and ensuring even delivery. In most cases, Centro is required to bill off 3rd party results. Weekly reports are sent to each publisher to adjust delivery accordingly with the 3rd party reporting. This will allow full delivery and ultimately allow the campaign to be billed in full. If you are running into inventory issues or discrepancies, please inform your analyst as early as possible.

By David Grayson, Director of Cox Interactive Marketing

Read about Cox Interactive’s preparations for the busy fourth quarter.

Question: With tight inventory in Q4, how do you properly forecast inventory avails?

Answer: We’ve recently switched over to a different inventory management technology provided by Adify. This gives us better analytics on ad serving, trafficking, and reporting. Publishers should constantly monitor these reports, keep inventory open, and stay as flexible as possible for optimization and last-minute advertisers. Having inventory transparency and knowledge on how campaigns are serving is key in Q4.

Question: What unique opportunities do you offer to advertisers during this quarter?

Answer: We definitely promote special Q4 sections that have historically shown to generate high page views. High School Sports, Local Politics, and Holiday Gift Guide Sections are just a few of our popular pages that drive millions of viewers. These sections will have a variety of high impact ad units and sponsorships available to advertisers, such as Sliding Billboards, Pre-Roll, and Roadblocks.

Question: Do you have historical information and research on these sections readily available for advertisers?

Answer: Yes, we understand the importance of historical data and we have research ready for advertisers. We analyze Media Audit, comScore, and 3rd party ad server reports. In addition, we also review data from the focus groups we conduct, providing us information on audience engagement and content preferences.

Question: Do you have other best practices / insights you’d like to share with the publishing community?

Answer: We are very interested in developing excellent user experience for our sites. A top-of-the-line weather product, relevant and interesting user content, great videos, and frequently-updated news content are a few areas of focus.

As neighbors of the Centro headquarters in Chicago, SunTimes.com has developed into a true partner. We have watched their team grow to its impeccable quality as they have ours. They illustrate on a daily basis that they are always willing to go the extra mile for their clients without ever complaining. Rates and timeliness are never an issue, and they are always positive and enthusiastic. They’ve proven they understand the challenges of the industry, maintaining a consistent and stellar delivery rate despite third party discrepancies, and launching campaigns upon a moment’s notice.

Sun Times, we greatly appreciate the hard work you do and thank you for being such wonderful neighbors and partners of Centro! Cheers to you Sun Times Team!.

(left to right)
Julie Parker – Advertising Operations Manager
Martha Flores – Executive Assistant
Miriam Ehrlich – National Account Manager
Rich Hummel – National Sales Manager
Lisa Albores – National Account Manager
Andrew Greb – Local Sales Manager
Jack Metzger – Vice President, Advertising
Amy Lambrecht – National Account Manager
Jose Olaguez – National Account Manager
David Agnew – National Account Manager
Beth McNeill – National Account Manager
Lorraine Tamulonis – Advertising Operations Coordinator 

It is my pleasure to announce that Centro has acquired Real Cities from The McClatchy Company. The transaction was completed on August 12, 2008 and brings the online newspaper industry together by integrating Real Cities, one of the largest and most respected online newspaper buying services, into Centro.

This acquisition, along with the collaborative relationship between Centro and McClatchy, will help to simplify the buying process for national clients and bring the industry together in its quest to drive more dollars to local online publishers.

McClatchy and Centro have often partnered in the last few years. Bringing Real Cities and Centro together will continue to unify the newspaper industry and make it easier for national advertisers to spend dollars with newspaper web sites.  Should you have any questions, please contact our Manager of Media Relations, Katie Risch, at 312/397-3336 or Katie.Risch@centro.net, and she will get back to you as soon as possible.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Shawn Riegsecker
Centro Chairman & CEO

By Bobbi Jo Hickman, Centro Accounts Payable Manager

On behalf of the entire finance team at Centro, we’d like to say “thank you” to all of our publisher partners for your cooperation and patience as we strive to ensure seamless transactions.

We sincerely appreciate the close working relationships we have with all of you. To keep our lines of communication open, please continue to use the AP ticketing system at AP@Centro.net for all your payment inquiries. Please remember to include the campaign ID, amount, name of the site, and the month about which you’re inquiring. In addition, please fax us your invoice, which will help us expedite and troubleshoot any discrepancies or inquiries. All invoices can be faxed to: 888-825-9523.

Feel free to reach out to us anytime! Thanks for all that you do. 

Sincerely,
Centro AP Team

 

FINANCE ASSISTANT
Vikki Grant
312-397-5750
Victoria.Grant@Centro.net

PUBLISHERS A-M
Marissa Warren
312-397-5737
Marissa.Warren@Centro.net

PUBLISHERS N-Z
Aisha Bellel-Ruzecki
312-397-3370
Aisha.Bellel-Ruzecki@centro.net

PUBLISHER MONTHLY STATEMENTS
Allison Rojas
312-397-3354
Allison.Rojas@Centro.net

NON-PUBLISHERS
Charleen Recto
312-397-3352
Charleen.Recto@Centro.net

ACCOUNTS PAYABLE MANAGER
Bobbi Jo Hickman
312-397-5754
BobbiJo.Hickman@Centro.net

TICKET SYSTEM
AP@Centro.net
FAX 888-825-9523

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