Browser extensions are part and parcel of ad operations. Be it whether you are from buy-side, sell-side or even search and social, these extensions might come in handy in terms enabling you to be more efficient. Don’t you love it when you’re able save some time on your tasks? Even if it’s by a small fraction, a few minutes here and there do multiply. You could have more coffee breaks instead, which is certainly essential nice to have as a perk-me-up after looking at dozens of Excel files. Read on to discover the useful browser extensions for digital marketers.
We will evaluate and review these browser extensions regardless of role functions. These extensions could be for programmatic buy-side, sell-side operations or even media planners. Search and social specialists may find them useful too. We will elaborate more in detail on each extension covered in this list. We’ll look at 3 dimensions:
- Productivity: in terms of time saving and effort required
- Usability: ease of use and usefulness
- Reliability: how reliable would the tool be – whether we can trust the information derived from the extension, or if it breaks easily
In terms of ratings, 5 would be the highest grade (i.e. Excellent, Highly reliable) and 1 being the lowest (i.e. Poor, Least reliable).
Universal Browser Extensions
Even if you’re not in Operations, these browser extensions would probably still be useful either way.
1) 
Clipboard History Pro: Best Productivity Tool
Productivity: 5/5
Usability: 5/5
Reliability: 5/5
This goes all the way to the top as any ad operations specialist would use Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V multiple times throughout the day. If you’re responsible for trafficking, creating campaigns, reporting, any of these work require copying and pasting a lot. It gets tedious when you have to keep switching windows to copy from Excel and then over to the platform. Furthermore, sometimes the values are repeated (i.e. URL, placement names etc.), and it’s easy to retrieve the previously-copied text from this extension and paste it directly. You get reduced mouse clicks and less switching between the screens.
The free version allows you to keep up a total of 150 copied items on your clipboard history. You can even “favourite” any items you think you will use everyday. Overall, this is such a simple tool, but yet so valuable. We have grown to rely on it so much.
Get browser extension below
2) 
Short keys (Custom Keyboard Shortcuts)
Productivity: 5/5
Usability: 3/5
Reliability: 3/5
Shortkeys is another useful extension. Besides the typical keyboard shortcuts, this extension allows us to customise additional shortcuts that we hoped to have. For instance, if you assess a certain website on a daily basis or run extra javascripts (i.e. paste code snippet) on a website, this tool will certainly come in handy. The only downside is that you might need to program and set conditions before you can use them. It also takes time to get used to.
Get browser extension below
3) 
OneTab (Reduce Tab Clutter)
Productivity: 5/5
Usability: 3/5
Reliability: 5/5
One can only understand how many tabs one would have as a digital marketer. If you’re in ad operations or programmatic trading, you’ll probably have two times more the tabs working across various SSPs, DSPs, analytics tools and many others. OneTab can help you organise your tabs and sort/save them into categories you define. You can save the tabs you last used as well. It’s advisable to reduce your memory load and clutter, so that you can focus on the task you are working at a time. Seeing multiple tabs across your browser just somehow adds to your mental AND computer load, as you have to scroll through multiple tabs to get to the right one. We’ve all been there, done that.
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4) 
Dark Reader
Productivity: NA
Usability: 4/5
Reliability: 3/5
This may not be for everyone and it’s not a productivity tool, but this could help you perform your task more comfortably. Recently, Google and Facebook are rolling out dark modes for their products, and that’s great for users like us who look at multiple screens all the time. However, the platforms we use on a daily basis usually do not offer a dark mode option (yet). Dark mode do help in terms prevent strain in the eyes, especially for prolonged periods time. This may probably (just probably) be why most financial apps have dark backgrounds.
Dark Reader is a great workaround to transform the UI into dark mode. Constantly setting up, optimising and monitoring campaigns or even looking at Google Sheets, Docs etc. can easily cause fatigue to the eye. Especially when you’re in a rush or pressure to complete something, you’ll tend to focus more on the task and working your muscles hard. However, do exercise caution and use light/dark mode according to own your preference and comfort.
Get browser extension below
5) 
Awesome Screenshot & Screen Recorder
Productivity: 5/5
Usability: 5/5
Reliability: 5/5
Pictures do speak louder than words, and what more moving pictures? Whether you’re technical or non-technical person, with only certain number of hours in a day, it’s faster to record your screen; explain what you want to without typing a full-length email. This is exceptionally useful for traders or ad operations specialists where we sometimes face technical issues with the platforms. Even typing an email to support even takes time and often painful. This is an incredible and reliable tool that helps you get screenshots or screen recordings seamlessly. And the best thing? The basic settings are free — and quality is good enough to get you far.
Get browser extension below
6) 
Weava Highlighter – PDF & Web
Productivity: 5/5
Usability: 5/5
Reliability: 5/5
This tool is quite similar to Clipboard History. The only thing that is different is that you can highlight on web pages and save them if you need. Imagine you have 20 over line items to traffic or assign creatives to. When you’re performing the task, there might be a need to attend to colleagues’ requests urgently, clients may call to check in on performance or pacing; and all these may disrupt the flow of your work. Hence, this is where the extension really shines.
You can highlight the part where you last left off and even annotate so you wouldn’t have to recall what you have already done. This can even be a QA marker to mark what line items you have already checked. Besides, if you have any interesting articles, or even useful canned responses / explanations you often refer to, you can easily save and retrieve it from your repository.
Get extension below
Hope these extensions would prove to be useful for you! We will also be adding some extensions specifically for programmatic in the coming posts. Stay tuned!
