REQUIREMENTS

• A number of tier 1 publishers had signed with TripleLift and the once MVP dashboard that was designed and built required a visual and functional upgrade. Additionally, engineering resources which had previously developed a query building tool, were made available for the Publisher Dashboard project.

USERS

• All publisher typers on the TripleLift network across mid to tier 1 classes. This included  exchange, adserver and private marketplace users.

RESEARCH & PROCESS

• Interviews and surveys conducted with publisher client services teams highlighted that publishers wanted a similar set of metrics, with a number of variations based on their business focus. For example, many publishers wanted to see revenue but had different priority preferences for how that revenue should be grouped (ie. by site, placement, region etc).  
• Additionally, some publishers had teams where one user wanted exchange focused metrics, and another wanted metrics focused on adserving, highlighting a need for user permissioned dashboard views.
• A UI study of adjacent competitor platforms revealed many have a default display of customisable metrics within a card design. The most useable card designs, also had a preview function.

DESIGN SOLUTION

• Partnered with engineering, a user permissioned dashboard view was designed enabling each user within a publisher to have a unique customisable dashboard comprised of cards with graphs powered by chart.js.
• The dashboard’s top section continued to show totals for commonly used metrics, with a new card based display below.
• A set of cards, determined by internal surveys were loaded as the default.  
• Users could create or customise cards by selecting a metric, dimension and graph display. Eg; Metric: Revenue, Dimension: Placement, Graph: pie. The generated card would show ‘Revenue by placement’ with a preview of a pie graph using real data.
• Each card could also be filtered to only show selected items from a dimension
• Users could create as many cards as they like, and create card groups.

INITIAL LAUNCH

• The dashboard successfully launched, as users noted meaningful improvements in understanding publisher performance at a glance.
• Additionally, publisher client services teams were able to use the dashboards to build rapport with clients and upsell TripleLift offerings.

GROWTH & MATURITY

• Over time a pattern of publisher dashboard configurations emerged. For a majority of users the default selection of publisher cards were effective in conveying performance.
• However, a subset of power users, primarily Tier 1 publishers had created highly customised dashboards based on their domain focus, validating initial research findings.

Publisher dashboard overview, with create modal where users could select metrics, dimensions and graph format. Filter options, to filter graphed results

REQUIREMENTS

• TripleLIft’s inventory management interface was initially designed to handle a price floors for a single ad format. As market adoption for native advertising grew, so did the number of available ad formats from 1 (native image) to 6 (video, cinemagraph, multi-image etc). Coupled with growing competition from other publishers for the same high value demand sources, publishers required a tool to modify price floors by format to stay competitive.

USERS

• Publishers, specifically ad operations and inventory managers had expressed a desire for greater control to optimise the price of their inventory.  For example, “Set reserve price on a homepage placement for video ads at $10, and a reserve price of for image ads for that same placement at $5”

RESEARCH & PROCESS

• User research revealed ad ops dealt with daily pressures to deliver revenue numbers across their publisher network. Often this meant working across multiple advertising vendors and interfaces, and segmenting audiences and augmenting inventory to meet incoming demand.
• To maximise revenue opportunities, ad ops users needed to capitalise on the inherit spending potential of their inventory when factoring any combination of ad formats, placements and brands.  

DESIGN SOLUTION

• Two workflows were explored, the first explicitly met current state user requirements to apply price floors by format and/or brand at the publisher/placement level.
• The second, explored future state using a rules based inventory control system which enabled users to set set a floor price and/or block/allow inventory based on conditional attributes. These rules could be applied down a inheriting hierarchy of network, publisher and placement with prioritisation set at each level.

INITIAL LAUNCH

• After a full design spec of the current state design. Low engineering resources for the quarter challenged a move to explore the future state rules based inventory control system.

Price floors by ad formats, with an optional placement setting enabling users to set price floors for an ad format by placement. 

Future state rules based inventory controls wireframes, enables users to set price floors conditionally.

REQUIREMENTS

• Placement templates were html and css code that contained TripleLift native ads, and matched the look and feel of a publisher’s site.
• As native ads grew in market adoption, many publishers added placements across their network and capitalised on revenue opportunities.
• Similarly, the addition of new ad formats and Tier 1 brands with unique requirements drove urgency for a template management solution.

USERS

• Ad operators and inventory managers at publisher networks driving towards aggressive revenue goals.
• Internal publisher client services and engineering solutions teams who accrued maintenance overhead by facilitating each publisher’s request in the back end.

RESEARCH & PROCESS

• Interviews with internal publisher client services and solutions teams were conducted to understand both user and engineering requirements. Results indicated a CRUD solution with a high touch approach from client services to ensure template compatibility.

DESIGN SOLUTION

• The design references a wizard workflow, as creating a template required both the template code and an eligibility statement.
• The template code would be created internally by teams as per publisher requests, and QA’d.
• The eligibility statement (performed either by publisher client services or solutions) says the template code has been tested and is compatible with selected formats and/or selected placements.
• A human audit of template code was required since template compatibility could not yet be determined programmatically

INITIAL LAUNCH

• Workflows tested well amongst users, but due to low engineering resources template management remains a priority item in the queue.

Template management wireframes snapshots tested with key users.

Key screens from hi fidelity design, show template code and placement eligibility selection. 

REQUIREMENTS

• The current state PMP platform limited publishers to record and action a deal after a package had been sold, but did not facilitate a marketplace for publishers to promote packages and for advertisers to buy them.

USERS

• Publishers partnered with internal client services and sales team and  promoted packages via a publicly hosted site. The site contained downloadable publisher information, for all participating publishers
• Users accustomed with PMPs, were already using a matured competitor’s product at the time.

RESEARCH & PROCESS

• Interviews conducted with users provided insight into a competitor platform and highlighted requirements for a MVP marketplace design. A key insight was ‘how to differentiate packages of one publisher, from another’. Historically publisher logos were sufficient, but as marketplaces package supply increased publishers faced difficulty in finding a competitive edge on platforms.

DESIGN SOLUTION

• Designs empowered users to differentiate packages on the PMP platform by including visual assets such as screenshot and large banners, in conjunction with their logo and package details.
• In a single page form, the workflow ensured users entered mandatory fields in the top section, whilst having the option to enter additional assets in a live package view.
• Companion designs for the buy side were also created and concepted how advertisers might discover packages from publisher networks.

INITIAL LAUNCH

• Internal publisher client services expressed anticipated excitement after reviewing designs and felt it’d be a significant competitive advantage for TripleLift. However, due to a reorganisation of priorities in Q3/Q4 PMP package development were put on hold.

Key screens from publisher side package creation. Top portion includes mandatory package fields, second portion is a live view encouraging publishes to upload visual assets to help differentiate packages in market. 

Demand side view for publisher packages with updated visual assets.