• by Mendel Senf , Op-Ed Contributor, September 4, 2015

In the first part of our series, we discussed data collection, segmentation and activation as this is the foundation to a successful programmatic approach. Once your data is in order, it’s time to build out your team and put in place all the necessary components to go in-house. 

Recruiting Talent & Building a Team

The digital talent gap has been well documented. As emerging technologies rapidly change the marketing landscape, many within the industry have been slow to adjust. A report from Adobe found that 91% of respondents felt that they needed to acquire skills in more than one area of marketing. Furthermore, 40% of marketers surveyed stated that they wanted to reinvent themselves, but only 14% of those marketers actually know how to go about it. 

Not only is there a limited supply of talent, but a number of organizations are in the market for the same talent, making recruiting all the more challenging; digital marketers and data analysts were the most sought after roles according to Adobe’s respondents. Because of this, you might be better suited to train your incumbent staff, rather than look elsewhere. 

When building out your initial staff you’ll need: someone to be able to interpret the analyzed data and to make decisions to run campaigns against your built user segments. Furthermore, you’ll need someone to operationally run the platform and optimize campaigns, a data analyst and if possible, someone to manage supply to strike premium deals outside of what is available in auctions. 

Beyond operational roles, it’s imperative to also have management aligned with a clear organizational growth strategy for the next 12 to 18 months. Visionary Leadership is a key component to the process, especially when looking ahead to drive innovation. 

If you’re working with the right partner (more on that in the section below), they’ll be able to guide you through your in house transition with training (both operational and strategic management), support and troubleshooting. Some organizations offer academies and/or curriculums as part of an extensive onboarding process, which speeds up your path to going in-house.

Selecting a Platform

Once you have the people to manage your data and inventory, you’ll need to select the right technology for your organization. In order to streamline your entire process and eliminate any possible disconnections, an integrated DSP-DMP is the way to go. 

It’s important to find an enterprise solution that has everything you’ll need within its stack so that the entire process can be better automated. This will lead to greater efficiency and performance. 

A common strategy today consists of using different tech providers for mobile, display, video, Facebook, native, etc. It’s expected that using specialized tech will result in greater overall campaign performance.

However, dealing with so many technologies becomes arduous, inefficient and is all but certain to lead to disconnects. Using one system to cover all your media spend will give you direct control on: spend, attribution, frequency, recency, messaging  and enable real-time optimization based on first-party data. It’s important that your solutions are integrated and scalable. 

Beyond the tech component, you’ll also want to work with a transparent platform that includes reporting that shows cost and media breakdown and all billable components related to data management and creative development. Having your fingers on the pulse of your spending will go along way in making you more efficient and effective. 

Once you have your data and your team in order, it’ll be time to focus on campaign setup and optimization, which we’ll feature in part 3 of our series.