The document discusses the costs and bottlenecks associated with digital ad sales, specifically transactional requests for proposals (RFPs). It notes that RFPs require significant time from sales teams, averaging 22.1 hours per team member and accounting for 40% of publisher revenue but also 24% of deals are later lost. It provides data on the number of RFPs publishers respond to each month, the hours and costs associated with different stages of the RFP process, and suggests publishers could be using the 1600 hours spent on RFPs each month on other more productive tasks.

1. The Cost of Digital Ad Sales
Digiday Programmatic Breakfast
New York, August 15th, 2013

2. Bottlenecks Vary By Job Role
Sales Operations Executives

3. Publishers Are Frustrated
With Sales Staff Account Managing
I need my sales team out
selling, but we wind up with a lot
of sales people account
managing as well, and that just
isn’t sustainable…

4. Pitfall: Not Creating Tiered Services
...basically someone spending $500 and someone
spending $50,000 are getting the same level of service…
$50k$500

5. The #1 Pitfall, Bottleneck
And Publisher Frustration:
Introducing the transactional RFP

6. The Average Publisher
10M - 50MMonthly Uniques
22.1
hoursPer Team Member (per RFP)
$10M - $50M
Annual Display Revenue

7. The Heart of Display
40%
of all publisher revenue is
from Transactional RFPs
77%
of publishers respond
to Transactional RFPs

8. The Battle of Attrition
2315 Lost Outright
8 Won (6 Completed, 2 Incomplete)
average number of Transactional RFPs responded to per month

9. Won Business Can Turn Sour
24%
of transactional business is lost
AFTER the campaign begins due
to poor performance.

10. Transactional RFPs Take Time
And Cost Money (per month)
Pre- Planning
598 Hours
$23,9320
Campaign Planning
518 Hours
$20,700
Flighting
168 Hours
$6,888
Maintenance
128 Hours
$5,248
Post-Campaign
188 Hours
$7,708

11. The Numbers That Matter
Gross Revenue
$350k
Percentage of Revenue
18%
Total Costs
$65k
Total Hours Spent
1600

12. What could your team do with 1600
extra hours every month?
Get your whitepaper at adslot.com/soti

13. @adslot
Raj.chauhan@adslot.com
Thank You