Across the economy, companies of all descriptions appear to be bracing for recession. Broad-scale layoffs, recently emanating from tech giants like Meta and Google, have expanded to include legacy fixtures like Dow Chemical and IBM.
Media and advertising companies have had an especially rough go of it. The media industry has faced structural headwinds for years, but just in the past several weeks recognizable names like Adweek, Vox, MSNBC, and the Washington Post have all shed staff as a contagion of cost-cutting spreads across the landscape.
High inflation and elevated interest rates are accelerating the sense of macroeconomic foreboding. While the job market remains strong, layoffs across tech and media have spread to other industries, and people are cutting back on spending.
How do Media Companies Weather the Downturn? Better Technology
A recent study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau found that 86% of all US digital ad spending is coming from programmatic transactions. In order to manage this volume, ad operations departments at brands, agencies, and media companies require a significant headcount with extensive technical expertise in order to plan, sell, execute and optimize campaigns across channels.
For traditional media companies in local markets, the imperative exists for them to sell their owned and operated inventory as part of a comprehensive package complete with digital extensions. Advertisers are no longer content to pay their local newspaper for space in print – they want it as part of a package that includes Facebook, open display, and CTV.
Media companies need to sell more and better comprehensive campaign executions alongside their own inventory if they want to survive the current headwinds, and the only way to do that economically is to increase sales and revenue without offsetting it with increased expenses. Thus, in order to do more with less, media companies need to embrace automation and efficiency more than ever before.
Media companies can achieve sustainable, scaled growth by embracing technology that automates campaign execution while optimizing performance across channels, creative executions, and the constantly fluctuating metrics they generate. Studies have suggested that ad operations staff spend three or more hours every day reviewing data to make decisions, and technology alone can automate the complex processes that keep campaigns running while leveraging the data they generate in order to deliver the performance that advertisers have come to expect.
In addition to the inhospitable macroeconomic environment, recent structural changes in digital ad operations have meant that it’s become harder to generate and measure ROI using the same methods (third-party tracking cookies) that have been relied upon in the past.At this moment of reckoning and retrenchment, media companies should be looking toward more sophisticated technology and automation in order to weather the storm.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steve Han, VP of Strategy and Operations at Frequence
Steve Han is the Vice President of Strategy and Operations at Frequence. With a strong background in business management, he excels in driving growth and shaping strategic direction. Steve’s expertise lies in strategy development, operational efficiency, and business transformation. He leads cross-functional teams, identifies growth opportunities, and fosters innovation. Steve’s commitment extends to community engagement and philanthropy, making him a respected figure in the industry.