To present the best options to scale and execute third-party digital advertising, your company should leverage a cross-channel advertising platform. Such solutions allow you to direct ad campaigns through multiple channels. They streamline processes in a centralized system.
If your media company isn’t currently using one (or even selling digital advertising), or if your current platform isn’t working, these are the must-have features to seek.
What Is a Cross-Channel Advertising Platform?
It’s a software product that allows you to serve ads through a variety of tactics. Those can include:
- Search engine marketing (SEM)
- Display ads
- Social media ads
- Video ads, including OTT and CTV
These platforms, built for broadcasters, can also combine airtime ad management or complement it. With this capability, you can drive a more integrated multimedia ad campaign.
Why Do You Need a Platform?
The benefits of adopting a platform or replacing your existing one are vast. First, it’s the opportunity to collect more revenue from advertisers. You can provide their radio and TV spots along with digital advertising.
Second, using a solution increases efficiency. You can manage processes from proposals to invoicing from one spot. It simplifies everything and removes the barriers associated with executing integrated campaigns if you were using multiple systems.
Finally, you’ll have access to analytics and data for easy attribution reporting. As a result, your advertisers can understand the impact of their advertising efforts.
9 Features to Look for in a Cross-Channel Advertising Platform
What should your software include? That will depend on your size, needs, digital products you sell and other factors. Consider these features as must-haves for broadcast sales teams.
- Management of digital and airtime ads in one place: You don’t want to use two disparate systems to do this. It will cost you time and money. Select a platform that lets you easily manage both.
- Proposal builder: For efficiency and consistency, your software should include a comprehensive proposal widget that can encompass all media buys (digital, radio or TV).
- Order entry: Entering digital orders is different from airtime, and you want to make sure it’s intuitive. It needs to be easy yet detailed enough to ensure you’re meeting the advertiser’s campaign goals. Order template duplication is another time-saving subset feature of this to inquire about.
- Built-in billing capabilities: You can bill media orders directly in the platform, so there’s no delay in invoicing, which can boost cash flow.
- Targeting capabilities: Depending on ad products, you’ll have different targeting capabilities. Understand what those are within the solution. At a minimum, they should include location, demographics and interests.
- Reporting that’s simple: You don’t want to aggregate data from multiple sources to create reports for your customers. Make sure the platform you pick allows for performance reporting. Ask about the detail of that reporting (e.g., devices, locations, etc.).
- Dashboard views: Keep up to date with your KPIs (key performance indicators) with dashboards.
- Granular filtering and sorting: With this functionality, you can find the data you need quickly.
- Web-based platform: When the system uses this configuration, users can access it from any internet-connected device. On-premises solutions don’t give you this freedom.
Ready to Find the Best Cross-Channel Advertising Platform for Your Sales Team?
You can boost revenue, delight customers and simplify the process for your sales team when you use a third-party digital ad solution. We have several options for media companies. You can learn more about those by requesting a consultation with our experts.
