• Publishers are attempting to lock-in ad dollars this quarter after a bleak Q1.
• To do so, they’re focusing primarily on requests for proposals that have the best odds of being won.
• Event sponsors are also being upsold into larger in-quarter campaigns.

Ad budgets began defrosting for some marketers in the middle of Q1 and with that, advertisers warmed up to having conversations with publishers about their marketing plans for 2023. But it doesn’t mean publishers can expect to see those deal dollars anytime soon.

Just three weeks into the quarter and some publishers and media buyers are reporting that deals once settled for Q2 have slipped later and later into the year, likening what’s happening to a sort of “bumper car effect.”

But to avoid another down quarter, publishers’ sales teams are trying to determine how exactly to persuade advertisers to commit, whether by cutting bait on noncommittal clients, anchoring deals to timely events or creating turnkey solutions.

Here’s how some media companies are trying to secure deals this quarter:

Focusing on the firm

Some of it comes down to hedging bets against the clients whose dollars are most likely to stick.

For The Independent’s svp of the U.S., Blair Tapper, this starts with assessing which requests for proposals are most likely to lead to a conversation with the client. There are some obvious RFPs that come in and were clearly sent to 500-plus publishers, Tapper said, versus others where The Independent is maybe one of three total publishers included in the outreach. In the cases where her team has 1:500 odds that they’d win the business, she said that RFP gets weighted as far less of a priority.

“We tried to be more thoughtful in terms of the briefs that we’re responding to,” said Tapper, adding that the goal is to keep her team’s average campaign win rate at about 30%, which it is on track to maintain this quarter.

Tapper also pointed to the “email graveyard” where her team will craft thoughtful outbound pitches to prospective clients that never end up responding. “[It’s] a waste of time,” she said, shifting the strategy from pure volume to measuring the number of active conversations the team is having with clients.

Meanwhile, an executive at a mid-sized digital media company, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that because it’s been so difficult to establish relationships with new advertisers, their team “has a relentless focus” on its core advertising base during Q2. Seventy-five percent of the company’s ad revenue comes from about 50 companies in total, they added.

Q1 “didn’t materialize,” the media exec said, adding that in the first quarter of …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron