• by Aidan Cardella , Op-Ed Contributor, April 21, 2016

Who doesn’t admire the do-it-yourselfer? A DIYer has control of the project, saves money, understands the process and learns something along the way. Most of the time. Except when things go horribly wrong.

For many brands, bringing programmatic in-house is an attractive proposition, with potential rewards of greater control, transparency and cost savings. But just as I need to have an honest conversation with myself before taking on a plumbing project, the decision to take on full responsibility for media planning requires clear-eyed self-assessment.

What flavor of service do I need?

Full-managed service programmatic determines all spending by insertion order, and the programmatic company handles all execution and management.

On the other end of the spectrum, a full platform self-service model puts all the choices and levers under your control, and the expertise to deliver the campaign—and the associated risks—inside your own team. A major upside is full transparency into cost; the downside is that there is no one outside to take the blame for any mistakes, offer a make-good, or fix it before you notice.

In a platform-managed service model, a programmatic company delivers the platform and manages it for a fee, for which you get the benefit of experienced hands on the keyboards—and a throat to choke if things go awry. In a flex service model, this can shift from campaign to campaign if you are trying new things that need guidance, while your team rides a more stable learning curve.

Which is right for you? Are you a trading desk with plenty of media expertise that wants cost transparency to pass savings to your clients? Are you a brand trying to free itself of the fees and margins taken by an agency and its vendors? Is money even a primary consideration, or is the chance to develop proprietary processes or maintain ownership of data more important? Will a platform buying model give you a competitive advantage or allow you to leverage private inventory relationships?

Will it actually benefit the company financially?

Cost considerations go beyond platform fees. Having experienced staff to run the operation requires salaries, training, and potentially restaffing or outages if someone leaves the team unexpectedly.

What is the size of the mistake that turns black ink into red? How will you quantify the value of benefits that may not be expressed in dollars, like ownership of data or your proprietary process? It’s crucial to agree on these values in advance so they don’t seem like excuses later.

Can the team absorb the risk and survive its consequences?

A vendor partner can bring institutional knowledge of what works well and why. Since no one’s goals are put on hold while your team builds experience, how are those goals handled during ramp-up? Or do you go to full-speed right away? If someone on your team makes a mistake, and the campaign performance is disastrous, where does the buck stop?

Self-serve sounds good until you are serving yourself some humble pie. Mistakes may not only be financial—you may have targeted poorly and advertised motor oil to fashionistas. Unless you have invested in redundant personnel, a vacation or extended illness can cause hands to come off the wheel. What have you planned as a safety net?

To DIY or Not

My goal here is not to scare people away from self-serve. Different models are appropriate for different organizations. If recent history has taught us anything, it’s that programmatic platforms can offer great rewards—as long as those considering how best to buy media make their decisions with clarity, purpose, and honesty with themselves and their organizations.