Hi All,
This blog is one of the concept which focuses on end-to-end real-time solution for online advertising for advertisers and publishers by integrating SAP business applications - Exchange Media (XM) and IS Media on HANA platform.
SAP XM is the latest digital advertising platform which provides a unique and direct real-time inter corporation between advertisers and publishers. SAP XM connects with SAP’s E-commerce platform Hybris and other back-office software. SAP IS Media, a well-established SAP solution for Media Advertisement Management, handles automation of publishing and billing of advertisements for faster content-to-cash. It is backed with other SAP solutions such as FI (Financial Accounting), procurement and analytics. HANA is a high performance, in-memory database which stores and integrates data from a wide variety of data sources with huge live transactional data which can be fetched by SAP XM and SAP IS Media.
The concept of integration of these SAP systems is mainly influenced by the business requirements. An efficiently integrated system can cost benefits. For this suggested integration the end to end flow of data is as follows.
Marketing experts create campaigns in SAP S/4HANA Marketing Cloud using the category SAP XM. They add the required Meta data, start and end date as well as the metrics and release the same. These experts also provide research information on campaign effectiveness as per the target audience, bid types and market analysis. When advertisers get the notification on campaign details and if they are looking for similar campaign to market their product / service then, they add the required additional brand specific information and other details such as targeting, inventory, and creative and activate the campaign. Upon activating campaign, the advertisement is aired on respective web space. Using the SAP XM Advertiser Portal, we can also work on campaigns that are imported from SAP S/4HANA Marketing Cloud.
The details of campaign which get activated in SAP XM are stored in HANA database. Details include information on product, Period of campaign and so on. This information is captured under sales order in SAP. For publishers, to monetize the service provided for the marketing campaign, need a major measurement parameter which is impression / clicks. Impression means fetching a page where ad is advertised. We use different terms to denote impressions. For example, Cost per Mille/Thousand (CPM). Clicks are slightly different from impressions and counted when consumer actually clicks on the ad. These are measured in terms of Cost per Click (CPC) .Cost per View (CPV) is used for video advertising. This impression information can either be measured by publishers or any third party company as per the customer preferences. The same data can be used by IS Media for revenue recognition and billing the Content- to-Cash with the help of Order to Cash. Media OTC mainly deals with media-specific components for sales and distribution for advertising business in all types of media. It specifies order placed by advertiser or agency and its fulfillment by advertising company, billing and settlement. There are other models like fixed price i.e. fixed amount for launching campaign in publisher’s site for mentioned period and milestone based model where publishers are paid when the ad performance meet agreed milestones. We can capture the details of pricing, various discounts/surcharges, tax calculation, customer Invoice preferences and so on in IS media. SAP IS Media can also integrate with other R3 systems which helps publisher for better management of monetizing the service /content.
Order Management is a dynamic process which requires continuous monitoring. There are a few risks for this which involve customer full and on time payment, customer demand for improved service, Discount offering to potential customers versus cost of service, and so on. The performance measure and cost model for different campaigns which is stored in SAP HANA accelerates transactional and analytical processing against data in-memory to deliver real-time insights against fresh performance and pricing models.
SAP has recently declared collaboration plan of exchange media with Blackwood Seven and Market media to improve XM’s performance efficiency. Mercury Media is a spin-off of Pilot, the second largest independent and owner-managed media agency in Germany. Pilot is part of the global media agency network Local Planet. Blackwood Seven offers data-based planning, analytics and advertising effectiveness forecasts for advertisers in real time via all online and offline channels. This will enhance efficiency of dashboards which displays real-time reporting of ad campaign results, campaign effectiveness forecast and overall performance evaluation.
SAP IS media need slightly more effort to customize the R3 systems as per customer requirements. SAP has also suggested hybris billing formerly known as SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management (BRIM) for handling larger volume data. Currently this solution is well utilized in Telecom Industry. It is also recently introduced for cross industry level.
Integration of these 3 systems give smooth flow of data from ad buying and campaign launch till summary on campaign performance, effectiveness , consolidated details of cost distribution for advertisers, revenue and inventory details for the publishers. It is a next generation solution for media advertising management.
Thanks,
Vinoli
