A digital advertising OS for ad selling: Making the case for your CFO

Lift the hood on many publishers’ and retailers’ ad-selling operations today, and you’ll find a bunch of manual processes and spreadsheets, along with substandard ad tech. And it’s skyrocketing the cost of sale.

Billing is a slog and liable to error. Poor or limited integrations slow campaign activation and limit operational insights. Disconnected workflows make it impossibly difficult to provide delivery reports and billing across all channels.

But there is a brighter future for ad sellers within reach. Get your CFO excited about the possibilities, and you can change everything.

Instead of swivel-chairing and spreadsheets, an AI-powered operating system for ad-selling can unify your existing ad tech solutions so you can plan, traffic, optimize, and invoice omnichannel campaigns from a single interface. With end-to-end orchestration across the (increasingly complex) quote-to-cash lifecycle, teams become more productive, revenue opportunities aren’t left on the table, and you gain the transparency to drive campaign performance.

But understanding the need for an ad-selling OS is only half the battle. What does your CFO need to hear? Let’s look at four compelling benefits — including the uplift they can deliver to your business KPIs.

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1. Boost productivity with a unified view of ad operations and profits

The fragmentation of digital advertising means an efficient ad sales operation, with a real-time data overview, is essential to join the dots between impressions and conversions.

An ad sales OS consolidates all your data to close the loop between your CRM and ad operations. This unified view enables you to forecast inventory accurately, so you can plan and respond to RFPs faster.

The results aren’t just more aligned and productive sales, AdOps, and finance teams. Improved ad performance translates into greater ROI for advertisers, generating an increase in spend so you can scale the business without having to increase headcount.

Streamlining advertising operations through an ad sales OS also accelerates sales velocity. Publishers and retailers gain more insights to efficiently traffic and optimize omnichannel media — right down to integrating campaign delivery data with On Schedule Indicator (OSI) tracking.

And as for accurately tracking and forecasting that improved sales velocity? First, you can  consolidate data around pipeline and booked, delivered, and billed revenue, which creates a much clearer financial outlook. But on top of that, an ad sales OS can use machine learning and algorithms to accurately forecast revenue for you. This powerful combination supports smarter decision making around sales planning, pricing, and staffing.

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2. Increase collected revenue and get paid – reliably and quickly

Revenue is a leaky bucket for many ad-selling businesses. Sluggish proposal creation, campaign optimization, and cash collection means sales can be missed and revenue lost. With billing and invoice management in an ad sales OS, however, you can simplify complex finance processes, reduce errors, and maximize ad revenue.

Instead of trying to manually reconcile report data from spreadsheets, an OS for ad sales collates and synchronizes it into dashboards, and can even organize invoices into status-based queues. This gives you comprehensive visibility and easy understanding of cost of goods sold, margins, profits, and pricing trends.

But an ad-selling OS can also automate billing preparation and invoice creation for you, including exporting data into your ERP or billing system. Automating your invoice processes can improve cash flow and operationalize new revenue channels (onsite and offsite) faster.

A single interface, with clear inventory and pricing management, lets you quickly and confidently manage omnichannel pricing, booking, and delivery.

3. Ensure data and financial compliance

The fragmented advertising ecosystem, coupled with media companies’ own splintered internal systems, doesn’t just make ad-selling inefficient; it erodes compliance too. An OS for ad sales lets publishers and retailers sell premium advertising at premium prices — while respecting the privacy and rights of customers.

Robust roles, permissions, and configurable approval workflows in an OS provide control, while timestamped change history logs ensure accountability. Meanwhile, an OS can reduce audit risk by maintaining SOC 1 and SOC 2 reports that are available for customers and auditors, in addition to financial compliance, including SOX, GAAP, and ASC 606.

This robust level of assurance is unachievable with manual spreadsheets. But with integrated task management in an ad sales OS, you gain complete data consistency and visibility across all critical platforms, so you can enforce processes and protect an audit trail.

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4. Harness AI to drive ongoing ad-selling efficiencies

An operating system for ad sellers doesn’t just empower teams with campaign insights. An advanced ad sales OS can also apply end-to-end intelligence, making media campaign fulfilment and operating an ad sales media business radically less headcount-intensive. 

Take the ongoing AI development in AdSalesOS from Placements.io. The platform’s AI copilot can help with everything from planning campaigns to reporting on booked, delivered, and billable revenue. AI for ad sellers can also take action on underperforming campaigns for timely optimization, including shifting budgets.

Ad-selling AI can therefore turbocharge both the efficiency and effectiveness of your ad-selling operation. The time-saving automations within AdSalesOS propelled a DIY retail giant’s productivity by 30%.

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Together, the benefits of an ad-selling OS for streamlining operations, revenue collection, and control show that it’s never been easier to bring all your teams on the same page and drive better business outcomes. And what CFO can argue with that?

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Drop us a line if you’d like to find out more about AdSalesOS from Placements.io, and how it can address your specific business challenges.

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