In this insightful Q&A, we sit down with Dan Frank from DISH Media, along with Sarah Levitt and Tom Paradiso, to discuss how managed services have transformed their media operations. Dan shares his unique perspective from both sides of the equation – having worked at Operative before joining DISH Media – and offers valuable insights into implementing and scaling managed services successfully. .
Getting Started with Managed Services
Q: Dan, can you tell us about what led you to look at managed services for DISH?
Dan: I’ve been in digital media and marketing for over a decade. When I worked at Operative, I saw the value of having offshore or onshore teams manage high-volume, labor-intensive items. When I came to DISH in 2020, we knew we’d face increased volume from political campaigns. Operative helped us handle those peaks in volume, particularly between August and November. They were invaluable in ensuring we maintained our high service levels with almost no errors. Since then, we’ve expanded our partnership significantly.
Understanding the Managed Services Model
Q: Could you elaborate on how the managed services model works as an extension of your team?
Dan: The key thing to understand is that we’re not replacing staff – we’re complementing our existing services. Our internal team focuses on strategic and revenue-related optimizations that benefit our core business, while Operative handles the high-volume, repeatable tasks. It’s truly an extension of our team rather than an outsourcing relationship.
We’ve even implemented a full-time contractor (FTC) model, where we have a dedicated liaison between our team and the Operative trafficking team. This person acts as a bridge, understanding both our internal processes and Operative’s capabilities, which helps streamline communication and reduce back-and-forth questions.
Types of Tasks and Implementation
Q: What specific tasks does Operative handle, and how has this evolved?
A: We began with digital creative upload for political campaigns, which involved managing multiple targeted campaigns, handling frequent creative changes, and dealing with complex trafficking requirements during peak political seasons. From there, our partnership expanded to include linear advertising operations, comprehensive campaign management and trafficking, quality assurance processes, data ingestion and pushes, system administration tasks, and various repetitive operational tasks across eight different business lines. We carefully select tasks based on specific criteria: they must be labor-intensive, highly repeatable, capable of clear procedural documentation, standardizable, and subject to seasonal volume fluctuations.
Managing Seasonal Fluctuations
Q: How does managed services help with cyclical work needs?
Dan: This is one of the most valuable aspects of our partnership. We experience significant workload fluctuations, particularly during political seasons from August to November, which require rapid creative changes and complex geo-targeting. We also face challenges during regular business cycles, including seasonal advertising peaks, end-of-quarter rushes, and special event-related surges. The managed services model allows us to scale up quickly during peak periods, maintain service levels without hiring temporary staff, avoid overburdening our core team, keep costs precisely aligned with actual work volume, and maintain consistency in quality despite dramatic volume changes.
Platform Expertise and Flexibility
Q: How do you handle working across different systems and platforms?
Dan: Initially, we were concerned about system expertise, especially when transitioning from digital to linear operations. However, we discovered that Operative’s team adapts remarkably quickly. This is because they work across multiple platforms and clients, understand that core advertising concepts remain similar across systems, and have well-documented procedures that enable quick learning. Their extensive experience with various systems provides valuable perspective, and they deeply understand industry best practices. We’ve successfully implemented their services across multiple ad servers, various trafficking systems, different campaign management platforms, proprietary systems, and new technology implementations.
Cost and Resource Management
Q: How has this model affected your resource management?
Dan: The managed services model provides numerous benefits. From a cost efficiency standpoint, we now pay for actual work volume, avoid overhead associated with full-time employees for seasonal work, reduce training and turnover costs, and optimize resource allocation. Our team focus has dramatically improved, with our internal team now able to concentrate on strategic initiatives, spend more time on optimization and revenue-generating activities, pursue innovative projects, and make better use of specialized skill sets. From a risk management perspective, we’ve created a buffer for unexpected volume spikes, established backup for critical operations, reduced dependency on key personnel, and improved overall business continuity.
Best Practices for Implementation
Q: What are your best practices for onboarding and getting tasks across the team?
Dan: The blueprint for success hinges on the first two to three weeks of implementation. Communication and setting expectations are crucial. We create detailed procedures down to the granular level, document all possible scenarios and edge cases, establish clear communication channels, and set up regular check-in meetings. Our training process involves conducting live walk-throughs of tasks, recording training sessions for reference, implementing “teach back” sessions, and running parallel operations initially. For ongoing management, we maintain regular team meetings to preserve relationships, continuously update procedures, monitor performance, provide feedback, and conduct regular quality assurance checks.
Measuring Success
Q: Can you speak to the accuracy rates you’ve seen?
Dan: The accuracy has been almost embarrassingly good. While a typical ops team might run at 96-97% accuracy, our reports with Operative showed such high accuracy that I actually had to ask them to find an error to make the stats look more believable to my executive team!
Looking Ahead
Q: How do you see managed services evolving in the future?
Dan: While I’m not a fortune teller, our industry’s complexity continues to increase with programmatic advertising, multiple supply-side platforms, and new features like pause ads. This complexity makes managed services even more valuable, as it allows our internal team to focus on optimization strategies and innovation while ensuring our day-to-day operations run smoothly. The key to success remains consistent: good procedures and strong communication.
Final Advice
Q: What advice would you give to publishers considering managed services?
Dan: Remember that this is an investment in your team’s future. It’s not about replacing staff, but enabling your core team to focus on strategic initiatives while ensuring operational excellence through trusted partners who become a genuine extension of your organization. Success isn’t about implementing numerous complex systems, but about doing a few fundamental things exceptionally well.
Thanks Dan! We appreciate your time!
