The rebranding of Ad Ops Online to Ad Tech Daily, a complex project that started last week but was planned for a couple of years, is now completed. I’m very happy that all went well and, with hindsight, I should have done this ages ago.

I’m going to review what has changed and what has stayed the same but perhaps a little background is due first.

Launched in 2008, Ad Ops Online started out as a blog focused on advertising operations, which was still a rather obscure niche of the larger digital advertising industry. I had just taken on my first role in ad ops and thought I’d quickly put together a website since I couldn’t find many resources to help me understand the ad tech / ad ops industry as I thought I should. The site has quickly grown and changed format, from a personal professional interest blog to a news publication featuring news, interviews, reports & statistics.

By 2012, Ad Ops Online counted over 5,000 articles. Later this month, it will have published its 8,000th article and will likely reach the 10,000 milestone by the end of next  year. In 2011, we started welcoming guest authors; ad tech industry experts and C-level executives provided our audience with insightful pieces and commentaries unique to Ad Ops Online.

Why the rebranding

Long story short, the site that some of you knew and visited ever since its launch in 2008 has overgrown its initial scope. For quite some time, the site formerly known as Ad Ops Online covered the ad tech industry as a whole; while that surely includes advertising operations, the coverage often went way beyond that.

I thought – and some of you reached out and expressed the same feeling – that the Ad Ops Online brand ceased to adequately represent what the website really was about: news from the ad tech industry. To address this, rebranding was a necessary step forward, notwithstanding the strong attachment to all that “Ad Ops Online” came to represent in over 7 years of existence.

What has changed

First and foremost, the site has a new name (Ad Tech Daily) and a new domain (adtechdaily.com). The social media accounts in order to reflect the change: the Twitter account became @adtechdaily, the Facebook page is now facebook.com/adtechdaily, while the Google+ profile remains the same at google.com/+Adoperationsonline (thanks, Google!)

There’s also have a new logo, which everyone is free to use as long as some basic brand usage guidelines are observed.

All URLs of the previous www.adoperationsonline.com domain will continue to work, though they will all re-direct to their respective adtechdaily.com URL. If you have previously bookmarked any piece of content, all you have to do is replace the “www.adoperationsonline.com” bit with “adtechdaily.com” and you’re good to go.

What’s next

All efforts are now focused on making sure the transition to the new domain works well for everyone involved: readers, content providers, advertisers, vendors. Once we are all settled into the new Ad Tech Daily home, there are plans to roll out a number of initiatives aimed at improving the overall user experience: an improved search functionality, further optimization for mobile devices, a streamlined navigation structure and more original content are some of the immediate priorities.

Contact me with any questions, feedback, partnership ideas and requests, or reach out at @adtechdaily and facebook.com/adtechdaily.