• by Kate Kaye , April 8, 2004

Navigating the rough territory of online advertising has taken folks like this week's In the Trenches subject, Heather Keltz, down unforeseen paths. When Heather started out studying broadcasting and business, little did she know she'd one day be concerning herself with the intricacies of ad technologies as the director of advertising operations at The New York Times Co.'s New York Times Digital.

Basic Training
An internship doing market research took Heather from the communications-oriented realm of broadcasting into marketing and advertising. The working world led her toward the tech side of things, after holding marketing positions at Playboy Magazine and Playboy.com, and then serving as a traffic manager at Bloomberg.com. "If you'd asked me 10 years ago if I'd be interested in code, I would have laughed and left the room," she chuckles.

Daily Drills
Heather's perspective has changed a bit, especially since she became director of ad operations at New York Times Digital in August of 2000. Her job is to ensure that all ad campaigns on NYTimes.com run smoothly, which requires constant shifts from micro tasks like ad tag code to macro industry matters such as streaming video standards.

"I always think the day will be completely different than what it turns into," Heather admits. When MediaPost caught up with her, she had just come from reviewing rich media ad options with the sales team. She makes a serious effort to maintain a broad outlook on what managing the company's ad operations will entail in the future, through brainstorming with fellow staffers, meeting with ad tech vendors, vetting new technologies, and dealing with long-term system issues.

However, it's the day-to-day situations, such as handling a sudden site section sell-out or managing delivery of multiple campaigns when inventory is tight, that can be the most demanding. "In order to do this job well," Heather emphasizes, "you have to make time to think on a long-term basis."

Tough Battles
To avoid headaches, Heather relies on two key elements: process and communication. The process of getting a campaign signed to getting it up on the site may seem like a simple one, she says, but she's still working out the kinks.

"Sometimes there are too many cooks in the kitchen for these things," Heather explains. So she makes sure that everyone--from the ad sales team to the people implementing campaigns--knows which ad opportunities are available and which aren't. Scheduling more meetings is one way to facilitate that communication--but, Heather asserts, it's also important that ad operations people work within specific market verticals so they always deal with the same salespeople.

She also points to the significance of physical proximity. "Making sure people spend time together and are all sitting in the same area," she says, eases communication among various departments.

Base Camp
"When I started, I couldn't even find where my group sat," Heather recalls. That hasn't been a problem since New York Times Digital moved into its new space on 7th Ave. near New York City's Penn Station. The open floor plan has an industrial sort of atmosphere, she says, and is more conducive to fostering co-worker communications than the company's previous office space. It's also just a few blocks away from The New York Times building on 43rd Street.

Mission Possible
Like many of her colleagues, Heather would like to see standard interactive ad practices established for the industry at a faster rate. New York Times Digital currently is in the process of developing its own standards for pre-streamed video ads and content features. "As we're trying to develop our own standards, I would like to see the industry adopting common practices," she says.

In addition to discussing the issues with her Web publishing colleagues through AdMonsters, an association for online ad technology and operations professionals, Heather also has contributed to industry progress through her work assisting in the Times' development of the now popular ad format known as Surround Sessions. "Now it's ballooned into a concept advertisers really like," Heather comments. The session-style placements she helped create in 2001 are not only being patented, they were deemed worthy of a coveted Punch Sulzberger innovation award--one of two given within The New York Times company each year to recognize outstanding achievement.

Do you know someone who deserves a salute from MediaPost's In the Trenches? Let us know! Contact Kate Kaye at kate@mediapost.com.