Help Your Sales Team Sell Programmatic Better

Do you find that Programmatic Inventory is selling at a discount to Direct Inventory? Many publishers express this concern. In fact, “Low CPMs” was the top issue when we asked publishers about programmatic advertising in our recent programmatic survey. (See the full report here)

When asked why publishers saw a difference in price between direct and programmatic, we found that the number one issue is that sellers don’t have the expertise to sell programmatic. In addition, operational issues need to be resolved to provide the data and automation required to execute programmatic deals more effectively.

Many publishers have not fully trained sellers on programmatic, and have not committed to programmatic as a legitimate channel. Selling audiences is a new paradigm and doesn’t easily align with content-driven direct sales efforts. This must change in order for Programmatic to meet its potential. Advertisers want to buy programmatic, so publishers need to commit to selling it.

• Programmatic teams need to work as partners to the sellers, with regular training sessions and updates on advertiser performance on the channel.
• Publishers must incorporate programmatic advertising into normal seller activity by giving sellers programmatic sales goals.
• Programmatic teams need to identify advertisers that are taking advantage of lower prices and bring them to the sellers to trigger a meaningful conversation with the buyer.

As publishers treat the revenue channel as an extension of their direct business, the sellers are trained and well-informed, and they can increase yield on programmatic.

Read more about barriers to pricing parity and how to grow programmatic sales in your organization with our free whitepaper Programmatic Is Here to Stay.