Regional Company’s Successes Can Be Dependent on Ad Trafficking

Mid-market companies should make sure their ad agencies are on top of potential trafficking pitfalls.

Many regional clients don’t understand the value of trafficking ads. Whether the ads are for OOH, radio, TV or digital, trafficking of ads by the ad agency is an important function in campaign management on your behalf.

Trafficking is the process of the client’s creative instructions being provided by the agency to the media outlets for a campaign. The traffic needs to be provided with proper instructions that dictates which ads run, when and where ads run and for what length of time.

Sounds easy right? Well, it’s easier if there is just one ad running during a period and if only one person on either end is involved in the communication process. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. Multi-faceted campaigns are much more strategic and complicated.

For example, a regional company’s TV ad campaign may involve different offerings by market or timing that need to be inserted on specific days in specific markets to focus on particular locations or sale items or dates. The campaign may be a central theme that will only be effective if the ads are delivered in a specific sequence.

Without strategic communication the client’s desired response may fall flat. There can be hundreds of possible combinations of ad placements as well as problems. If the ad placements don’t hit as scheduled, the campaign will miss the mark, waste the investment and decrease sales and profits.

There are many factors that must be considered and monitored properly, or the campaign can go terribly wrong. The more people involved on both sides, the more difficult it becomes.

Here’s but a few:

• Employee dismissal

• Reading the insertion order improperly

• Not fully understanding the traffic instructions

• Pulling old or incorrect data

• Incorrect creative

• Wrong ad sizes

• Incorrect instructions

• Logging in the info incorrectly

• Last-minute changes by the client to the adsThe list just goes on.

Correct trafficking can be the difference between success and failure in any regional or mid-market company’s campaign in any medium. Be sure your agency has thorough systems in place for monitoring and confirming all types of ad traffic, by slot, day, week, month and entire campaign. Ask them what their error percentage is for trafficking and then choose the agency that has their act together, because trafficking and reconciliation are a huge part of the success of any client’s campaign.