1. What do you need to know to sell online
advertising efficiently?
April 2nd 2014
Vinogradovo, Russia

2. 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

3. 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 Department
For Discussion

4. 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

5. 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?

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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-per
impression vs. flat rate)
• value of your audience
• targeting options
• competitive analysis
Could you present your rate card?
How is your rate card created?

9. 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)

10. 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.

11. Cost per time vs Cost per thousand
Example:
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: 20.000
Impressions: 100.000
CPM=? RUB
If traffic to this website increases to 200.000 impressions a month, what
will be CPM price?
Cost of Campaign: 20.000
Impressions: 200.000
CPM=? RUB

12. 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.

13. Your Digital Ad Ecosystem
For 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?

14. Digital Ad Ecosystem in Europe
Source: IAB Europe/LUMAscape

15. Digital Ad Ecosystem in Russia
Source: http://www.iabrus.ru/ecosystem/

16. Your Digital Ad Ecosystem
For 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?

17. Questions every advertiser asks
o 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?

18. Your Digital Ad Ecosystem
For 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?

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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 offer
Print and digital advertising working together is more
cost-effective for the advertiser and a selling-advantage
for the sales person

22. 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