Boost revenue now with more efficient advertising sales.

Streamline campaigns and unlock growth with a single platform for converged media buying and advertising.
 
Mar 22, 2021. 5 MIN READ

Advertisers are wrestling with a market that seems to grow more complicated every day: new platforms, changing consumer demands, increased complexity, new privacy regulations. Their ad sales business and operating models are getting turned inside out.

Today, focus and specialization are the name of the game, which means that nimble players like Google and Facebook have become formidable rivals. Who else can offer easy access to targeted audiences with multiplatform capabilities? And if that’s not enough, consumers expect cross-platform content anytime and from any device. Everywhere you go, it seems there’s another new competitive threat vying for advertising budgets.

Ad sales redefined

The landscape in which ad sales teams operate has been completely upended. Ad sales have traditionally been linear and siloed, with campaigns running on separate independent channels such as digital, programmatic, print, and out of home (OOH). This method ignores how audiences behave today, and those habits and preferences will continue to evolve, especially as people spend more time at home. Consider that Twitch, the live-streaming gaming platform, saw viewers catapult 24% in just the first month of the pandemic.

What does it take for advertisers to keep up and reach consumers on the platforms where they spend the most time, while defending business against competitors and being more efficient and productive in their own business? It takes a converged advertising ecosystem — one that enables advertisers to conduct every part of ad sales on a single platform and that is nimble enough to scale and evolve with the future of advertising. That means working on an end-to-end platform that handles the entire arc of advertising — from the client pitch to media planning, campaign execution, measurement of advertising impressions, and reporting.

An end-to-end advertising management system powers omni-channel experiences across converged channels and formats that capture attention, drive action, increase productivity, and accelerate business growth. Let’s explore how an end-to-end advertising management system can help you streamline ad sales, drive efficiency, and improve results.

How does an end-to-end advertising management system work?

An end-to-end system consolidates data into a single platform to create a 360-degree view of both the media consumer and the ad sales cycle. Workflows collapse into a single timeline so that you can plan and execute cross-channel and multiplatform advertising campaigns, measure performance, and uncover revenue growth opportunities from any channel. Here’s how it works:

1. Go from placements to relationships.

Today’s consumers are hyper-mobile, omni-channel, and have high expectations for the brands they interact with. That limits the value of time slots on top TV channels. To reach consumers, advertisers need to move away from linear campaigns that only work if a consumer watches or listens to a certain channel at a particular time. Instead, they must consider nonlinear campaigns across channels. This is more commonly referred to as “always-on” advertising.

Super Bowl ads are a prime example. The Super Bowl was once the pinnacle of the linear advertising campaign, and advertisers fought for the top time slots. It was how a brand resonated with consumers and created buzz for weeks to come. Today, that’s no longer enough. The Super Bowl has become an omni-channel universe in which brands need social media tie-ins and interactivity that place the audience at the center of the conversation.

This is where an end-to-end advertising management system can really help advertisers overcome common challenges in converged media planning and ad sales. A single platform consolidates crucial audience data across your existing systems. This creates a single source of truth for data. With access to deep audience insights, including preferences and behaviors, you can deliver highly relevant and immersive advertising experiences across channels at scale — without juggling multiple technology systems. This allows you to focus on what really matters: relationships.

2. Intelligently track cross-platform campaign performance.

Every ad sales rep can relate to this scenario: Your data is in different systems and your client is asking for a full report of an omni-channel campaign by the end of the week. They want to understand brand lift. So, you first go to Google Ad Manager to pull digital ad tracking across websites and mobile apps. You combine it with separate data from your TV spots. Lastly, you add on data from OOH channels.

The problem? This gives your client an incomplete picture of your campaign performance, not to mention combining data manually leaves room for error. It also makes it difficult to respond to real-time changes or identify upselling opportunities to reach even more consumers.

To optimize campaigns toward delivering superior brand lift, an end-to-end advertising management system brings consistent measurement across channels. With a consolidated view of data, including campaign health and real-time access to performance and insights, you can streamline campaign optimization, increase efficiency, and drive results. And you can do it whether the campaign appears on TV or as a banner ad on a website.

3. Elevate sellers and maximize revenue for media buying.

Ad sales reps want nothing more than to be seen as trusted partners to the clients they serve. But manual pricing processes and siloed systems have held them back. They steal time away from sellers doing the things that matter — like offering insights to a client for complex media buying or suggesting the right creative for a campaign.

An end-to-end advertising management system can help media companies achieve exceptional ad sales experiences. Automation is built in, which frees up sellers to be more productive and focus on more strategic work. For example, you can automate omni-channel campaign sales, configuration, and pricing for routine buys. From a portal, customers can self-serve and are guided through the entire quoting, ordering, and fulfillment process.

How can you get started?

Advertisers can get started quickly with Media Cloud and Advertising Sales Management, a purpose-built ad sales solution. Advertisers can rapidly monetize streaming content and media across channels — without needing any new technology infrastructure. The system connects data across your legacy platforms with APIs to integrate revenue streams, inventory, and order management. The system is easily configurable to your needs so that you avoid costly and time-consuming customizations.

With Salesforce Media Cloud, you can:

  • View account insights and identify trends from a single platform
  • Leverage prebuilt, industry-specific processes to get up and running quickly
  • Anticipate customer needs with predictive intelligence
  • Boost monetization efforts by automating pricing, discounts, and campaigns
  • Prioritize follow-ups, automate marketing, and drive ROI with accurate quoting and contracting
  • Increase your audience with an advertising clean room and audience targeting
  • Scale advertising sales business with self-service ad sales

From a single platform, you can manage all aspects of the advertising campaign. The result is more effective campaigns that reach audiences at scale across channels, resonate with audiences, drive brand lift, and yield maximum fill rates and increase revenue.

Take your next steps.

In a world saturated with content and competitors vying for attention, advertisers need an end-to-end system that brings data and teams together to improve campaign performance and maximize revenues. Salesforce Advertising Sales Management enables this converged advertising system so that you can consistently capture attention, drive action, and accelerate growth.

 

 
 
 
 
See how to:
  • Grow ad sales with a converged platform
  • Maximize yield with intelligent recommendations and rules
  • Streamline ad sales and operations with automation
 

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