what do you need to know to sell online advertising efficiently?
TRANSCRIPT
What do you need to know to sell online advertising efficiently? April 2nd 2014Vinogradovo, Russia
1. Online Advertising Sales Department
2. Ad Inventory, Rate Card, Ad Specification
3. Digital Ad Ecosystem – Clients, Agencies, Platform providers, Ad networks, Publishers
4. Print/Online media bundling
Agenda
How is your online sales organized?
What are the most important skills for online sales ad manager?
How do you evaluate the performance of your sales team?
What are your critical success factors (formula for success)?
Online Advertising Sales DepartmentFor Discussion
Defining the roles & responsibilities in your ad sales team - org chart, internal rules/values, job description
Motivating your sales team – incentives (rewards for achieving goals), motivators besides money (recognition, extra leave, flexible hours, bonus training, share options, job titles, ...)
CRM – software tool for advertising sales (sales team management, recording of display & classified bookings, orders, processing of acknowledgements, flat planning, sales reporting)
Online Advertising Sales Department
Excercise:Imagine you are hiring a new member of your sales team, you have to prepare a job description for a job advertisement.
Use the form and keep in mind, you should strongly attract applicants with clear statements about:
↦ requirements and benefits of the position
↦ prospects of your organization
↦ opportunities offered for successful candidates
↦ access to additional information or further enquiries.
How to attract the best staff?
Advertising inventory is the number of advertisements, or amount of ad space, a website has available to sell to an advertiser (usually expressed as ad impressions per month).
↦ Define your inventory at granular levels to match how you sell your site's ad inventory.
↦ Develop strategies to maximize value of inventory based on market demand
How do you measure your ad inventory? How do you classify your ad inventory? (e.g. premium, ordinary, remnant) What portion of ad inventory is sold (yearly average, high season ad sales/low season ad sales)?
Ad Inventory, Rate Card, Ad Specification
For Discussion
Rate Card - you need to tell your client what they are getting and how much it will cost and present that information in an easy-to-use and attractive way.
Ad Inventory, Rate Card, Ad Specification
Components: Description of your website - what makes your
website unique? Audience description – a typical demographic
profile of your reader? Statistics and Rankings – how much traffic? Ad Specification (standard, non-standard ad
types, dimensions, file size, price, volume discount, ad restrictions, etc.)
Contact information
Factors that affect the amount you should charge for your ad space:
Ad Inventory, Rate Card, Ad Specification
For Discussion
• type of ad (image, video, text, ...) • placement (above/below the fold)• payment structure (pay-per-click vs. pay-perimpression vs. flat rate)• value of your audience• targeting options• competitive analysis
Could you present your rate card?How is your rate card created?
Cost per time vs Cost per thousand
Time-based model - advertiser pays for an advertisement for a set amount of time, with each of a new ad unit position created on your website, you increase distraction for a user, you increase a volume of data
CPM model – advertiser pays for the ad to be displayed a set number of times, multiple banner ads are rotated in the same placement (ad unit position)
Cost per time vs Cost per thousand Collect rate cards from your competitors to determine their CPM
rate on your market.
Decide what sizes of banners you will support, make sure, you are not going to choose sizes that are not common and used in your market.
Set your ad rates based on whether you want your CPM higher, lower or the same as your local competitors have got. (If your readership is similar to your main competitors, you may have to set your CPM lower.)
Meet with your the most valued existing advertisers to discuss the change of pricing model, get their feedback on all aspects of online advertising.
Contact your recent advertisers, send them the new rate card and offer a meeting in order to explain them all the advantages of your new ad platform, cost savings and targeting option they can start to use.
Cost per time vs Cost per thousandExample:Banner 770x90 px. costs 20.000 RUB/month.
The banner generates 100.000 impressions a month, what would be a CPM price?Cost of Campaign: 20.000Impressions: 100.000CPM=? RUB
If traffic to this website increases to 200.000 impressions a month, what will be CPM price?Cost of Campaign: 20.000Impressions: 200.000CPM=? RUB
Ad Inventory, Rate Card, Ad Specification
• Develop your own rules and recommendations for advertisers (use industry standards)
• Ad submission guidelines (creatives must comply with your reqs): Accepted file formats Animation/looping Audio/Video Expandable Ads/Overlays Accessibility
You need to reserve the right to preserve the user experience of your site, the right to remove any advertisement deemed annoying and/or harmful to your visitor.
Your Digital Ad EcosystemFor Discussion
o What is a proportion of different online ad revenue stream in your publishing house (agencies vs direct clients vs ad networks vs other)?
o How are ad agencies motivated to spend more money? (the most common remuneration system granted to agencies and/or a direct client, e.g. commission based model, a rate-card markdown, procurement fees, research discount, early payment rebates, volume bonus on spending)
o Where do you see room for growth in online ads?
Digital Ad Ecosystem in Europe
Source: IAB Europe/LUMAscape
Digital Ad Ecosystem in Russia
Source: http://www.iabrus.ru/ecosystem/
Your Digital Ad EcosystemFor Discussion
o What is a proportion of different online ad revenue stream in your publishing house (agencies vs direct clients vs ad networks vs other)?
o How are ad agencies motivated to spend more money? (the most common remuneration system granted to agencies and/or a direct client, e.g. commission based model, a rate-card markdown, procurement fees, research discount, early payment rebates, volume bonus on spending)
o Where do you see room for growth in online ads?
Questions every advertiser askso What unique data can you give me that you can target my
customers better?
o What unique inventory can you give me that I am not duplicating spend?
o What reporting will you give me so I can improve my last campaign?
o What reporting will you give me so I can measure performance against other channels?
o What targeting technology are you using and how it differs compared to others?
o Will you allow me to optimize my campaign once it is started?
Your Digital Ad EcosystemFor Discussion
o What are the most typical questions your advertisers ask you?
o What are common mistakes and misconceptions your advertisers make about online advertising?
o How do you measure the quality of your agency/client relationships?
o Can you elaborate on things you have tried in the past? What worked well and why do you think it succeeded? What didn't work and why do you think it failed?
o What do you consider to be crucial for buying decision?
Online Sales Tips & Techniques
Dig for sales opportunities
Sell with integrity
Become a decision facilitator
Evaluate how you communicate
Prepare agenda for an appointment
A question might be the best answer
Typical flaws in publishing house Treating online ads as a second
class advertising
Inability to quantify the value of your audience
A lack of competitive analysis
How to Proceed?
Key question you have to answer to define your strategy:
Do you have a valuable (read: targeted) audience?Look into your socio-demographic data about your visitors
Use your core product to bundle your offerPrint and digital advertising working together is more cost-effective for the advertiser and a selling-advantage for the sales person
Positioning for Success Review your rate card and use it as a
strategic selling tool
Define your target market
Identify your value proposition (what you do best)
Create a list of several compelling benefits
Analyze your competition
Enable targeting with your ad serving system