It’s upfront season in advertising. If you work in ad sales and you’re in the midst of it right now, know that we feel for you. If you aren’t, know this: upfront season is not for the faint of heart.
Upfronts are essentially organized chaos. Within a matter of weeks, advertisers commit billions of dollars toward ad slots for the next 12 months. Once those deals close, the grueling process of delivering value across a fragmented media landscape begins.
Bridging the gap between commitment and execution is exceptionally difficult. Let’s discuss why—and how your team can overcome these obstacles.
Three Challenges Ad Sales Teams Face During Upfronts
No two companies manage upfronts the exact same way. However, several common themes emerge when we speak with Agentforce Media customers about the challenges they face during this cycle.
1. Managing complex, hierarchical relationships
In advertising sales, negotiations typically involve a complex web of entities, including:
- Holding companies (the parent)
- Agencies (the buyer)
- Brands/Advertisers
Without a centralized view of these relationships — including which agencies represent which brands and the potential revenue from each brand-level opportunity—achieving real-time visibility into your total portfolio value is nearly impossible.
2. Lack of visibility into available ad inventory
During negotiations over broadcast year commitments, sales reps often place temporary “holds” on ad inventory. Depending on the negotiation’s outcome, these holds are either firmed up or released. The perils of managing these holds using static, fragmented tools leads to what is often referred to as inventory “shadow-boxing”.
If existing holds aren’t visible to the wider team, companies risk over-selling premium spots. Conversely, if reps believe a spot is reserved when it isn’t, the company risks missing out on critical revenue.
3. The commitment vs. execution gap
Upfront commitments are promises to spend money over the next 12 months, but neither linear spots nor digital impressions are guaranteed at the point of signature. Ad sales teams are responsible for manually translating those high-level commitments into actual revenue as the months progress.
So, why do these challenges persist even at technologically sophisticated media companies? More often than not, the culprit is the set of tools used to manage the cycle.
Why “Good Enough” Alternatives Fail
Static, siloed management tools are usually the source of the chaos. Based on our experience, many customers rely on one of the following solutions before realizing a change is necessary:
- Spreadsheets: Spreadsheets are simply not built for scale or collaboration. Version control is difficult, auditing changes is nearly impossible, and they cannot accurately model the complex account hierarchies inherent in ad sales.
- Off-the-shelf apps: Enterprise tools or ERPs are superior to spreadsheets for collaboration, but they are often designed for generic B2B sales. To account for the multi-layered nature of an ad sale, companies often resort to custom “hacks” that break whenever the vendor releases an update.
- In-house apps: Some companies build bespoke tools tailored to their internal workflows. But, as developers leave, documentation gaps and technical debt skyrocket. Furthermore, these apps are rarely integrated with ad execution or finance systems, leaving data “trapped on an island.”
Clearly, “good enough” solutions aren’t sufficient. How can you ensure your team is prepared for the next cycle?
Questions to Ask When Comparing Prospective Ad Sales Software Vendors
Before investing in a solution to bridge the gap between commitments and execution, ensure you ask prospective vendors these three questions:
1. Can the system provide visual mapping of holding company, agency, and brand relationships? Static tools and standard CRMs often fail to capture the nuance of these multi-layered deals. Ensure the system can display every layer, from the holding company down to individual brands. Additionally, the system must account for brands represented by multiple agencies (e.g., one agency for digital and another for linear).
2. Can the system query available ad space and make a real-time reservation? To avoid the traps of over-selling or under-selling, your inventory management system must provide a clear view of which spots are available, reserved, or committed across all channels. If a negotiation falls through, reps should be able to instantly release those spots to the scatter market.
3. Does the system account for the nuances of ad sales pipeline reporting? Advertising sales differs significantly from traditional B2B sales, particularly regarding forecasting. Typical reporting provides a “point in time” snapshot—showing $10 million in the negotiation phase, for example. But that revenue isn’t collected the moment the deal closes; it is allocated over the broadcast year as ads actually run.
Purpose-built revenue scheduling tools account for this by comparing different states of revenue within a single commitment:
- Pipeline (Budgeted): Expected agency commitment.
- Committed (Booked): The amount firmed by contract.
- Pacing (Delivered): What has actually aired.
- Recognized (Billed): The collected dollar amount.
- The “Gap” (Adjusted): The difference between Booked and Billed.
The Right Technology Can Reduce Upfront Season Stress
By asking these questions, you’ll be better positioned to select a partner that aligns with the specific needs of the media industry. This is only the beginning; you should also look for tools that can split and recombine spending details at the product or revenue schedule level to attribute them to specific budget numbers.
For now, happy upfront season!
Navigate the Uncertainty of Upfront Season
Learn how to ditch spreadsheets, standardize revenue scheduling, and scale your operations to achieve accurate media forecasting.
AI supported the writers and editors who created this article.
