Stop firefighting, start fixing: ProOps Consulting’s Chris Quinn on why GAM workflows are broken, and what to do about it

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Stop firefighting, start fixing: ProOps Consulting’s Chris Quinn on why GAM workflows are broken, and what to do about it

BY ROB BEELER + CHRIS QUINN, CO-FOUNDER OF PROOPS CONSULTING

In publishing, the gap between what’s possible and what’s actually happening on the ground has never been wider. Ad ops teams – the engine rooms of publisher revenue – are under mounting pressure to do more with less. Yet many still rely on manual workflows, fragmented tooling, and reactive firefighting to manage campaigns inside GAM. 

As programmatic complexity grows and Q4 volumes spike, real revenue is walking out the door. For publishers without dedicated development resources, the problem is especially acute, and largely invisible until something goes wrong.

To explore how publishers can move from reactive chaos to proactive control, Rob sits down with Chris Quinn, Co-Founder, ProOps Consulting, a firm that has spent years embedded in both the sell-side and buy-side realities of ad ops. Together, they dig into why manual campaign monitoring has become so normalized, where workflows break down under pressure, and how emerging tools are giving lean adops teams the visibility and automation they need to protect revenue, reclaim hours, and finally get ahead of the curve.

Rob: A lot of ad ops teams just accept that inefficiency as part of working with GAM. Why do you think that mindset persists?

Chris: In some cases, the ad ops teams have figured out a way to make things work within their existing processes, so things do get done at the end of the day, even if it’s not the most efficient use of time or energy. Anyone new to the team ends up getting trained on the workarounds rather than best practices. What’s more, there hasn’t really been a true GAM marketplace for add-ons, so teams don’t know what’s out there and how much more efficient their day-to-day could be.

Rob: Many adops teams spend a lot of time manually checking campaigns in GAM. Why has that become such a normal part of the workflow?

Chris: I think it’s safe to blame GAM on this one. The platform gives adops teams all the tools to access the data, but it hasn’t done much to make the surfacing of the data easier or more efficient, especially for teams without the dedicated development resources to support them.

Rob: Where do things typically start to break down in that process? 

Chris: It really comes down to time. Ad ops teams are perpetually under-resourced relative to their workload. To free them up to focus on the things that deliver campaigns and drive revenue, you have to bring in something that can tackle those day-to-day manual processes.

Rob: You mentioned that Q4 is often when these problems become most visible. What happens operationally during that period that exposes the weaknesses in the process?

Chris: Volumes skyrockets, and headcount stays the same. Teams are focused on getting as much live as possible, and have virtually no time to hunt for things that aren’t working. That’s where we see the highest potential for revenue leakage. Things get missed, sales teams start asking more questions, and it snowballs from there (winter pun intended).

Rob: When publishers start automating monitoring and alerts inside GAM, what are the first problems they usually discover?

Chris: They typically uncover a backlog of hidden issues that were buried in manual, infrequent checks. It’s a shift from reactive firefighting to proactive fixes every morning – a daily to-do list that helps keep teams laser-focused. Publishers using ProOps Ads Tracker are saving 4-6 hours weekly per team member and catching problems before they compound.

Rob: One of your newer features is Troubleshoot Assistant, an AI capability that performs deeper analysis on campaign and revenue alerts. What kinds of issues can AI detect that teams might otherwise miss?

Chris: Troubleshoot Assistant takes the platform’s alerts to the next level by using AI for root-cause analysis on triggered issues in campaigns or revenue. Rather than just flagging a problem, it digs deeper into the reporting data, summarizes key findings, and offers targeted recommendations – saving teams an additional 1-2 hours per alert investigation.

It’s particularly strong at detecting subtle details that teams might overlook in manual reviews, such as underpacing in campaigns ending soon, geo or device targeting mismatches that restrict inventory, and revenue dips tied to bid request or bid response fluctuations buried deep in GAM data. 

This automation shifts teams from reactive firefighting to proactive optimization.

Rob: If a publisher wanted to pressure-test their own adops workflow, what are the key questions they should ask?

Chris: Drawing from our #AskingAdOps series and GAM best practices, here are some key questions publishers should ask: 

  • Are my teams spending 30-40% of their day on repetitive GAM reporting (e.g., impressions, fill rates, pacing)? 
  • Do we discover under-delivery or revenue dips daily, or 3-5 days later? 
  • Do performance drops get caught by sales and clients more often than by us?
  • Are we automating enough processes, e.g. integrating CRM/OMS with GAM for real-time syncs and auto-creation? 
  • How prepared are we for AI in adops (e.g. root-cause analysis on alerts)? 
  • Do we leverage tools for daily alerts on campaigns, inventory, and revenue?
  • How often do we miss underpacing or missing creatives in campaigns? 
  • Are revenue drops or stops caught early enough to optimize eCPMs?
  • Do inventory anomalies like unusual ad request volumes or no deliveries impact our programmatic paths (e.g. Prebid integration)? 

Rob: What makes ProOps Ads Tracker different from built-in GAM tools or other adops solutions?

Chris: Unlike GAM’s manual reports or other fragmented tools, ProOps Ads Tracker is a lightweight Chrome extension with read-only API access that pulls everything together in one place – flagging issues with clear red and orange alerts, and delivering Excel exports. It’s purpose-built for publishers without dev resources, focusing on campaigns, inventory, and revenue. Plus, because we’ve spent years working across both sell-side and buy-side adops, the tool is built around real workflows. No steep learning curve – just plug-and-play efficiency.

Ready to reclaim your ad ops hours?

For publishers running lean teams inside GAM, the difference between catching an issue today and discovering it three days later can mean thousands in lost impressions and missed delivery. Tools like ProOps Ads Tracker give adops teams the automation, visibility, and AI-powered analysis to stay ahead of problems before they hit the bottom line. If your team is still firefighting, it’s time to find out what proactive looks like. 

Explore Ads Tracker and start your free trial today.

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This is content created in paid partnership with Pro Ops Consulting. We only feature partners who we believe bring real value to the publisher community.