How Publishers Should Evaluate Outside Ad Ops and Revenue Help
Publishers should evaluate outside ad ops and revenue help by testing three things: whether the consultant has a real network for work outside their core expertise, whether the engagement is designed to make the internal team more capable rather than dependent, and whether the commercial model keeps ownership of accounts and accountability clear. A collaborative bench of independents often beats both a solo consultant and a full-time hire when needs span multiple domains but do not justify permanent headcount.
This is part two of a two-part Q&A with Aaron Foley of Marcus and Muse. Part one, on why strategy sets the ceiling and ad ops sets the floor, lives on marcusandmuse.com. In that piece we covered what healthy publisher monetization looks like in 2026, the gaps we see most often, and what each of our lenses catches that the other misses. This half is the practical one.
Table of Contents
- How a collaborative bench helps when you cannot justify a full-time hire
- A monetization issue that needed both an operational and a strategic view
- Questions to ask any consultant about their network and limits
- Where the line sits between internal ownership and outside help
- What is next for the two of us
- Missed part one?
How does a collaborative bench help a publisher that cannot justify a full-time hire?
The typical publisher has needs spanning ad ops execution, revenue strategy, CTV, and partnerships, but not a full-time person's worth of any one of them.
Chris: Most publishers do not have a full-time-person amount of any one problem. They have a few hours a week of ad ops cleanup, a quarter of revenue strategy thinking, a CTV question, and a partnership conversation that needs a grown-up in the room. That job description does not exist, and if you hired for it, you would be paying a senior salary for someone to be underqualified for half of it. A collaborative bench lets you buy exactly the expertise each problem needs, at the seniority each problem needs, for as long as the problem exists. Then it scales back down, which is the part a full-time hire cannot do. The publisher gets a team-shaped solution at a problem-shaped cost.
Aaron: The problem you are brought in to solve is rarely the problem you end up solving, so having an at-hand roster of skills lets you move fast to resolution. A big part of ad tech is the unknown-unknown factor. One way to hedge against it is access to a collaborative bench, especially for publishers who cannot justify an in-house solutions team. The contractual flexibility of independent consultants also allows more ad hoc engagements than you would get from a McKinsey or an Accenture.
What is a monetization issue you have seen where the fix needed both an operational and a strategic view?
Chris: The version I keep seeing: a revenue miss that walks in the door labeled as a sales problem. Leadership sees direct revenue down, concludes the market is soft or the team is underperforming, and starts a strategy conversation. Then you pull delivery data and find campaigns under-delivering for entirely operational reasons: setup errors, inventory misalignment, targeting that was never going to fill. The sales team was selling; the ad server just was not keeping up its end. The fix needed both lenses: operational cleanup so booked revenue actually delivered, and a strategy conversation about packaging inventory that operations could reliably support. Either fix alone would have failed politely. Diagnosed separately, ops blames strategy, strategy blames sales, and the actual problem enjoys another quarter of anonymity.
Aaron: I do not think many issues are just operational or just strategic. They are two sides of the same coin. Everything I do needs to be thought of from both perspectives at once. As I am writing this, I am building out a Prebid structure, and things like price granularity or ad placement are operational decisions that still need to reflect the strategic direction of the property. Yes, I can put 200 ad loads on a page, but what is the impact? Too few, too many, flooring, sizes, the signals we are passing: all of it shapes how upstream buyers see the property and respond. The question is never "how do I do this?" It is "how do I do this in a way that gives me the best chance of success?" It would be easier to dissect issues if they were one-sided, but those are not the problems consultants get called in to fix.
What questions should a publisher ask a consultant about their network and how they handle work outside their expertise?
Chris: Three that do most of the work.
- "What is outside your expertise?" If the answer is nothing, end the meeting. I have been doing this for a while and my list is long and growing.
- "Who do you bring in when a project needs skills you do not have, and have you actually worked with them?" You want names and past projects, not a vague promise to find someone.
- "When you bring in a partner, how does it work commercially, and who is accountable to me?" A good answer is boring and specific.
And to say the quiet part loudly: "I would bring in a partner for that" is a green flag. It means the consultant has an accurate map of their own limits, which is rarer than the expertise itself.
Aaron: Chris's three are the right three. Two more that matter:
- "Who pays you besides me?" Referral arrangements and partner commissions are common in ad tech, and they are not disqualifying. I have them, I disclose them in writing, and any consultant should. What is disqualifying is finding out afterward.
- "What would you look at in your first week, specifically?" A real answer is a list of artifacts: your ads.txt and sellers.json, thirty days of delivery by line item, your floor configuration, your top ten demand paths by revenue. A vague answer about discovery sessions means they probably do not have a plan yet.
All of these are about establishing trust. Engaging a consultant can feel like bringing your car into the shop. There is always something else that is going to cost more than you bargained for and that you do not fully understand. Sometimes you really do need a brake job. You probably do not need your tires filled with nitrogen. As a publisher, if you are not feeling that trust, it is not the right partner for you.
Where is the line between what an internal team should own and where outside help adds the most value?
Chris: The internal team should own anything that is daily, relational, or institutional: the ad server, advertiser relationships, and the accumulated knowledge of why things are set up the way they are. No consultant should become your permanent operating layer. If one is trying to, that is a retainer strategy, not a service. Outside help earns its fee in three places: things you do rarely but we do constantly (migrations, ad tech evaluations, process rebuilds), moments when you need senior capacity without a permanent seat, and honest outside assessment, which is genuinely hard to produce internally since it can mean grading your own homework in front of your boss. The test I give clients: if the engagement is designed to make your team more capable when I leave, it is the right shape. If it is designed to make me harder to remove, it is not.
Aaron: One practical addition to Chris's test: never outsource ownership of your own accounts. I have inherited publishers whose ad server, SSP seats, or domain-level declarations were registered in a former consultant's or vendor's name, and untangling that is a quarter of work that produces exactly zero new revenue. Contracts, seats, and the files on your own domain stay in the publisher's name, always, regardless of who operates them day to day. Beyond that, internal teams should own the recurring judgment calls: what to sell, who to sell it to, what the brand will and will not run. Outside help earns its fee where being wrong is expensive and being experienced is rare. And I would extend Chris's test one step: if the engagement does not leave documentation your team can run without me, I have not finished the job.
What is next for the two of us?
Chris: A follow-up piece in September, where we turn the lens around: buy-side enablement, and what media buyers can borrow from the operational discipline publishers have been forced to develop, including some tooling we are exploring on that front. And in October, the Ottawa Ad Club is hosting an event where we will continue the conversation with actual humans, in person. Details in the September piece.
Aaron: More work. Q4 is coming, and every problem publishers put off over the summer is about to get urgent at exactly the moment there is the least time to fix it. In October, the Ottawa Ad Club is hosting a sports marketing event (follow the club for details). And beyond that, more learning. This industry does not sit still, and neither can anyone working in it.
Missed part one?
Read part one on Marcus and Muse: Publisher Monetization in 2026: Why Strategy Sets the Ceiling and Ad Ops Sets the Floor
Chris Quinn is the co-founder of ProOps Consulting, a Toronto-based ad operations consultancy helping publishers, retail media networks, and in-house media teams build operations that deliver, from pre-sales through to invoicing. He brings 19+ years of sell-side and buy-side experience from companies including eBay Canada, Kijiji Canada, Olive Media, and Loblaw Advance.
Aaron Foley is the founder of Marcus and Muse, an independent programmatic consultancy in Ottawa helping publishers, platforms, and agencies with monetization across web, mobile, and CTV, supply path transparency, and revenue strategy. He brings 20+ years of supply-side experience, including roles at Samsung Ads and Sharethrough, and works both sides of the transaction: advising publishers on monetization while running buy-side campaigns and curated CTV supply. He is also the founder of the Ottawa Ad Club. Learn more about working with Marcus and Muse.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
What questions should publishers ask before hiring an ad ops or revenue consultant?
Ask what is outside their expertise, who they bring in for skills they lack (with names and past projects), how partner work is structured commercially and who is accountable to you, who else pays them, and what specific artifacts they would review in the first week.
When does a collaborative bench make more sense than a full-time hire?
When the publisher has problem-shaped needs (a few hours of ops cleanup, a quarter of strategy work, a CTV question) rather than a full-time-person amount of any single domain. The bench scales up and down with the actual problem.
Is "I would bring in a partner for that" a red flag or a green flag?
It is a green flag. It signals the consultant has an accurate map of their own limits and a real network, which is rarer than claimed expertise.
What should always stay in the publisher's name?
Ad server accounts, SSP seats, domain-level declarations (ads.txt, sellers.json), contracts, and the files on your own domain. Never outsource ownership of these.