The Q4-Ready Publisher: The GAM Checklist High-Performing Ad Ops Teams Run in August

Q4 is when publisher ad ops gets graded. CPMs peak, direct-sold commitments stack up, and every leak that was tolerable in July gets multiplied by the most valuable impressions of the year. The teams that have a great Q4 aren't the ones that hustle hardest in November - they're the ones that ran the readiness work in August and September, while there was still slack to fix what they found. Here's that checklist: inventory hygiene, pricing and floors, the direct-sold pipeline, and the detection layer - in the order to run it.