How to Launch Your Ad Business

How to Launch Your Ad Business

Kevel Team

Written by the people building the future of retail media

Table of Contents

Launching a direct-sold ad platform is a great revenue-driver – in theory. But getting your ad business up and running can be complicated.

This guide outlines the logistics of launching your product from a business perspective. Each ad platform has industry-based needs, making some steps more relevant than others. Each step has accompanying materials/templates for your convenience.

Our eleven steps to launching your ad business are:

  1. Identify your goals
  2. Hire an ad products team
  3. Build your ad server
  4. Create an ad policy
  5. Update privacy/cookies policy
  6. Finalize your rate card
  7. Create an "advertise with us" page
  8. Create your media kit
  9. Determine the advertiser onboarding process
  10. Have reporting in place
  11. Publicize your platform

Let’s begin!

Identify your goals

We’re assuming you’ve decided to launch an ad business (or have one already). From a technical standpoint, this means building it yourself or using ad APIs like Kevel to build it faster. We won’t go into detail about how to build it (though here’s a build vs buy overview), but as you implement the program, consider these factors:

  1. Ad units: Different industries show different ad types: marketplaces monetize with sponsored listings, traditional publishers lean towards banners, non-traditional publishers display native ads, etc. Choose ad units based on your industry and how your users might best interact with ads.
  2. Targeting & reporting options: What targeting and reporting options can you offer that other ad platforms don’t? Do you incorporate first-party data? Define which kinds of targeting you can offer, and determine how you/your advertisers can view their performance.
  3. Advertisers: Are you looking for external advertisers like Nike to buy? Or is your product focused on relationships you already have, like vendors and sellers? Do you work with them directly and/or offer a self-serve portal for managing ads?
  4. Scope: How advanced will your MVP be? What billing infrastructure will you have? Do you need ad operation hires? Will you start with a beta program or open it to everyone at once?
  5. Performance: Find ways to deliver ad spend results for advertisers - such as return on ad spend, cost per conversion, cost per clicks, etc.
  6. Pricing: Will you charge flat CPMs or CPCs? What CPMs will you charge? Will you incorporate auction pricing?
  7. Revenue goals: These targets dictate what you charge, how many ads you display, if you build a self-serve portal, and what advertisers you’ll allow.
  8. User experience: Do you want native ads or standard banner ads? How many ads do you throw in? Showing many ads at once may increase revenue, but frustrate your users.

These goals impact each step of the process: from creating an ad policy to publicizing the product. Re-align your strategy if these goals change.

Hire an ad products team

A custom ad product isn’t a “set it and forget it” revenue stream. You’ll need a team to launch it and keep it running. Below we outline the six needed roles you must fill in order to have a successful ad business.

These are areas of focus you need to cover. Based on your resources, these six hats could be filled by two people taking on multiple roles. Or, perhaps each of these has its own department with large teams. Either way, if you’re missing one of the six key roles, you put your ad business at risk.

Those key players include:

The importance of these roles varies by industry and ad business. A marketplace with a self-serve ad portal may not need a dedicated sales team, but someone nonetheless needs to pitch it to their sellers.

Ultimately, your original goals determine your hires.

Build your ad server

Books could be written about this, but we’re focusing this guide on the non-technical aspects of launching an ad program.

If you don’t have ad serving tech in place already, we recommend the below resources to help you build one quickly:

Create an ad policy

Let’s assume you’ve built out your ad server. From a business perspective, what are the next logistical steps in getting advertisers testing?

One task is creating your ad policy. You’d share this with advertisers to outline ad content standards, privacy compliance, and review processes. This is not a legal T&C; more of a guidance to set expectations with advertisers. While it’s not exciting, it forces you to identify who you will and won’t work with.

In it, make sure to cover these six points:

  1. Privacy laws: Lawful ad compliance is your responsibility, but informing advertisers of privacy compliance standards will help you out later.
  2. Creative guidelines: Outline visual standards (like “no GIFs”), logistics (like ad dimensions), and general brand rules.
  3. Copy guidelines: Restrict any wording you view as untimely, inaccurate, and incongruent with your brand.
  4. Prohibited content: Be specific. If something doesn’t align with your company values, or you wouldn’t want it on your site, say that here.
  5. Ad review process: Let advertisers know how the ad review process works and the timelines for approval.
  6. FAQs: We recommend adding in any frequently asked questions here. This list can grow over time.

The more information the better. If you wouldn’t post it on your site, don’t let anyone else.

Update privacy/cookie policies

It’ll be important to review your privacy policy, cookie policy, terms of service documents. This is especially true if you are using cookies or personally identifiable information in a new way.

Those include:

Finalize your rate card, if applicable

Your rate card specifies your set CPCs and CPMs, usually broken down by ad unit and targeting. These typically aren’t applicable for auction pricing and/or self-serve platforms. However, they’re necessary for standard direct ad deals.

Create an "advertise with us" page

This page is a useful sales tool for outbounding and convincing advertisers/partners to spend with you. This is true even if you have a self-serve ad platform -- your partners/advertisers won’t hand you money if they don’t see the value.

The “advertise with us” page is your opportunity to highlight what makes your ad product special. Topics to cover include:

Create your media kit

Media kits are effectively your “advertise with us” page in PDF, PPT, or similar format. You’d make it downloadable from your site, sent in emails, or pitched in person.

Determine the advertiser onboarding process

There are four important things to remember:

  1. Contracts
  2. Billing
  3. Ad review
  4. Campaign creation / launching

Have reporting in place

Proving your ad platform’s ROI doesn’t stop at your “advertise with us page” or media kit. It’s a continuous process throughout the entirety of your advertiser/publisher relationship.

Your first iteration of reporting will likely be simple. It could be manual reports that look at impressions, clicks, and conversions for each campaign.

Publicize your platform

Once you’re ready to officially launch, it’s time to let the public know! You might publicize by:

  1. Writing a press release
  2. Pitching trade and industry periodicals
  3. Informing your customers/vendors
  4. Promoting within your website / user interface
  5. Starting a sales outbound campaign.

Conclusion

Following these steps helps your platform get off the ground and generate revenue. Remember, every platform is different, and you’ll need to tailor these steps to your company. Stay tuned for more tips, templates, and articles on launching your platform soon!

Kevel Team

The Kevel Team is made up of retail media, ad tech, and commerce experts helping brands build world-class ad platforms. Our content reflects the collective knowledge of practitioners working at the forefront of the industry.