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As our Fantasy Football seasons have concluded and we approach NFL playoffs, we also take a look at publisher priorities for the year ahead in our annual industry fireside with Craig Leshen, President at OAO, coming to you in true Fantasy Football style.
Rob: Craig, we’re seeing a whole load of topics on the agenda for publishers in 2025 that need to be prioritized. Let’s put them in two buckets, Start ‘ems vs Sit ‘ems. Ok, ready, set, go…or should I say, hut, hut, hike!
Craig: Rob, I hear what you’re saying, and I like it…. Game on! Start ‘ems will be, as the name suggests, things that publishers should be putting into action (or at least planning for) in the first half of 2025. Sit ’ems might also represent potential key components on a publisher’s 2025 roadmap, but, depending on their current needs or concerns, or their team’s capabilities or capacity, might be something they’d want to hold off on until the second half of 2025. Just like with Fantasy Football, sometimes you see great potential in your Sit ’ems - it’s just a matter of timing as to when you should put them into action.
With that, the first thing that comes to mind for a Start ‘em would be that clients are frequently asking us how they can better manage their ad stack. There’s a ton to consider, and there’s only so much capacity publisher teams have to take on more work. So the strategic question then becomes: Which platforms or technologies, or better, which types of platforms or technologies, should I be implementing so I can best monetize my inventory? And what should I keep vs get off my team’s plate so they can have the time to [a] learn how to work with the new platforms or technologies, and then [b] spend time managing them?
Rob: From my perspective, efficiency is top of the list. As I mentioned in our recent newsletter, I'd like to see more commitment to automation and outsourcing - and tracking progress - over the year. So Craig, having been at the helm of OAO (www.adops.com) for over 20 years, what’s your take?
Craig: Driving efficiency is what we live and breathe at OAO and I could spend hours listing all the ways in which outsourcing and automation are helping publishers every day, from campaign trafficking and management, to reporting, and so on. Working with a professional services partner not only gives you the benefits of additional capacity for your own team, but they’re terrific knowledge centers too, who provide you with industry insights and consulting to help guide your path forward. AI should also continue to see an increased role in assisting with tasks such as reporting, analytics, forecasting, various types of ad targeting, and more, during the first half of 2025.
Andrew Kraft, another industry vet, also echoes your point about outsourcing in his recent post: “adtech is getting more complex every day. Outsource. Outsource. Outsource.” He also mentions that having an in-house team “will cost more.” So yes, becoming more efficient is a great first Start ‘em for 2025.
Rob: So now let’s get a bit more specific with Start ’ems. What should publishers be implementing right now?
Craig: Our clients are telling us that streamlining their partner reporting will be a top priority in 2025. Publishers still struggle with manual reporting across ad servers, monetization platforms, and more. That’s the norm. In extreme cases, publishers are still asked to manually fill in agency reporting templates with their sell-side delivery data - sometimes on a monthly basis, and sometimes even weekly. All of this can be incredibly time-consuming, and if publishers want to be more efficient, then finding a way to consolidate, simplify, and automate their reporting as much as possible is one way to get them closer to optimizing their team’s capacity.
Not only are we using automation for reporting, but the industry is also looking to standardize SSP adoption and implementation across the ecosystem. In Q4 2024, Burt Intelligence published their draft proposal for partner reporting standards, which focused on three areas: API availability, transparent pricing for API access, and dimension/metric consistency.
It's only getting more complex. Getting the reporting part of their plate under control sooner than later allows for publishers to continue building out their monetization offering, meaning they’ll only need to integrate whatever else they add to their stack into their reporting process or platform.
Rob: 100%. Next up: What are your thoughts on curation? There has been mounting hype - and dare I say tension - around whether curation partners enhance or erode publisher revenue. But we’re seeing big developments, such as Audigent’s recent acquisition. Would you say curation is a Start ’em, in terms of getting it right this year, and working with the right partners?
Craig: Yes, Audigent has done a great job of building and adding to their business model over the past five years. The acquisition has validated the use of curation, along with the rest of their offering, for publishers big and small.
We’ll continue to see curation evolve in 2025, as we do with all things adtech. It’ll work well for some publishers, and not as well for others. Publishers will need to work out how best to implement it in their media strategy, while keeping control of their data and ensuring a lean supply chain to avoid giving away unnecessary revenue shares. Do they curate on their own, or use a curation partner? Either way, these considerations should be a priority for H1 2025.
Rob: Another key technology that has soared in recent years, especially in the midst of waning cookies, is contextual advertising. Would you say this is a Start ’em, and can you speak to its increasing sophistication in 2025?
Craig: Yes, and yes. With the impending demise of the third-party cookie, everyone flocked toward cookieless alternatives. Now the cookie panic is over (or paused?), and contextual still stands tall. Agencies are looking to adopt it because it’s so effective in meeting the user where they are ‘in the moment’. It also goes hand in hand with brand safety, as it’s all about the on-page environment in which an ad is placed.
There are products out there that are really starting to move the needle on contextual: ad servers are building in more contextual functionality, Google has a contextual tool that matches ads to relevant websites in the GDN (Google Display Network), and we’re also doing a lot of work with Ops Mage, who are leading the charge in AI-driven contextual intelligence and brand safe classification.
Rob: Ok, so we have our Start ’ems - now let’s think about some of the Sit ’ems. What would be at the top of that list?
Craig: Ok, so first, let’s talk about cookies. It would be remiss not to address publisher apprehension around how their ad servers might be impacted in the wake of diminishing third-party cookies. However, it’s safe to say that not much will significantly change in the coming months, or this year, so although publishers should pay attention to industry developments, there is no urgent rush to change their strategy.
Also, we already talked about the importance of implementing AI on the ops side for tasks such as reporting, analytics, forecasting, and targeting, but my second Sit ‘em would be to take a cautious approach with AI from a bigger business standpoint. Don’t get me wrong, AI is the future. We all know this. Just don’t rush to implement the latest AI ad technology and hope for dramatic increases in revenue or a significant reduction in overhead costs. AI is the new shiny object that’s catching everyone’s eye, so every product pitch sounds like the greatest thing since sliced bread. Learn from your history. We’ve been down the “newest, bestest idea ever” path in our industry many times, and not all of the products developed for those ideas make it, or they morph several times over time before they do. Take a crawl, walk, run approach. Don’t just dive in head first, and hope you can figure out how to swim after you’re already in the water. Do your research. Talk to other publisher colleagues. Talk to your ad ops partner if you work with one; they’re great resources for consulting services or some advice when you need it. To be clear, you need to be paying attention to AI, and you should be implementing AI, and/or other types of automation solutions, for the reasons mentioned earlier. Just remember to spend time doing your due diligence before making big, company-altering moves.
Another Sit ‘em would be around testing different engagement channels. For instance, when it comes to social media, some publishers have already reported higher engagement levels using Bluesky. However, other publishers might find higher engagement across the main, i.e. larger platforms. Depending on your industry, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other large, established players are the ones you should continue to focus on. Whether Bluesky, another “new shiny object,” will do that for publishers is yet to be seen. There’s certainly no harm testing it and seeing how it evolves, but at this point it’s not a top priority for H1 2025.
My final Sit ‘em would be subscriptions. It’s something that’s getting a decent amount of attention lately, and for many publishers, it can be a key revenue driver - but not all. You need to have scale, high brand value, and very dedicated users to ensure success. If you’re thinking about implementing a paywall for premium content, or building it into your existing model, then [a] do your research to make sure it’s the correct play for you, and [b] put some energy behind it at some point this year from an ad ops perspective to see what additional benefits it might bring. But whether this should be an H1 or H2 priority depends on how invested you are already, and how your audience typically engages with your content. It’s not for everyone.
Rob: So there you have it; 2025’s game plan for publishers boils down to picking your Start ’ems and Sit ’ems wisely. From prioritizing efficiency and automation to doubling down on partner reporting and the evolving world of contextual and curation, H1 is all about building momentum and staying ahead of the game. Just like in Fantasy Football, making the right picks early can make all the difference when it’s crunch time.
Craig: Absolutely, Rob. And just like you might hold onto a player with potential to shine, or to use when you need them, publishers should also keep their Sit ‘ems on their radar. But this is just the fireside shortlist. There’s plenty more to think about for H1 and H2 2025.
Rob: Exactly! So be sure to tune in readers, as we’ll be publishing our H2 2025 Start ‘ems and Sit ‘ems later this year. Same Bat time… Same Bat channel… Oh wait, that’s not football.
To learn more about how a partner like OAO can help you work through your Start ‘ems and Sit ‘ems, connect with Craig today at
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