Ask the Expert: Radio Traffic and Digital

What makes Marketron an industry leader in radio? While technology is our product, the people behind it are just as important. Tapping into their industry and product expertise drives innovation. In this Ask the Expert post, Jessica Viggiano, product specialist, explains the most valuable features of connecting radio traffic and digital advertising platforms.

What Does Connecting Radio Traffic and Digital Ad Platforms Mean?

In our technology, integrations exist between our radio traffic software and digital advertising solution, Marketron NXT. Each traffic product has its own capabilities as a result of this integration. Essentially, these connections enable streamlined workflows, greater efficiency and productivity, consolidated reporting and more.

The most tightly integrated ecosystem includes Marketron Traffic and NXT. Visual Traffic also has a broad range of capabilities.

Viggiano’s deep expertise in these solutions and radio operations helps our customers optimize and modernize their processes. She highlighted many key features that make the job of many radio professionals easier and deliver visibility into revenue performance.

Marketron Traffic and NXT: One System for Airtime and Digital

Viggiano described this integration as one cohesive workflow that enables all the tasks for airtime and digital ad management. It covers the entire life cycle — proposals, orders, reporting and billing.

She noted that this integration is hugely beneficial for stations. One vital feature is the ability to set defaults on the digital orders for traffic coding and billing information. This information is then automatically sent to the traffic system, allowing for fewer mistakes upon order entry. Since all types of ad revenue are in a central place, an audit trail for the digital and traffic orders is readily available.

The Workflow

So, what does the workflow look like with Marketron Traffic and NXT? Viggiano expressed how the integration helps complete a smooth transition of the order life cycle. A proposal can be created in NXT with digital and airtime tactics combined if needed, and it can then be generated as an order with one step. When a finalized order gets published in NXT, the completed contract automatically transfers to the traffic system with an approval process in place and the contracting complete. No additional steps are necessary!

Reporting Capabilities Drive Insights

Expansive reporting capabilities are another highlight of radio traffic and digital integrations. Viggiano explained that users can pull reports in the traffic system and NXT that contain airtime, digital and alternative revenue. More valuable reports include those for pacing, proposal statuses, revenue by ad tactic (display, CTV, etc.) and conversions to orders.

The Marketron Traffic and NXT ecosystem also offers business intelligence reporting through NXT Insight. It is flexible and customizable and offers automated scheduling. Viggiano relayed that Insight also contains a feature that allows managers to view multiple markets in one report, which is especially helpful.

Visual Traffic and NXT: One Source of Data for Advertisers, Agencies and Coding

Visual Traffic also has practical and useful features through its integration with NXT. Viggiano emphasized that all advertisers and agencies and the coding in traffic carry over to NXT Digital. This allows for a smooth transition when a digital order is directly sent to the traffic system.

The addition of NXT Digital with Visual Traffic also allows you to show airtime on your digital proposals to present a full package to a prospective digital client. At the order level, airtime will automatically split to a separate order that can then be archived. It is less work for users and minimizes the chance of errors. Most importantly, in NXT, the digital proposal can be converted to an order and then sent directly to Visual Traffic, eliminating duplicate order entry for NXT digital tactic orders.

More Features of Traffic + Digital

Traffic and digital integrations create efficiency, insights and consistency. Viggiano discussed many more features that are valuable to our customers.

Proposal presentations: When using the proposal tool in NXT, which allows for multiple tactics, sellers can generate a presentation instantly for customers. It’s a slick feature our customers appreciate. Plus, there is no need to use another application for proposals. Once confirmed, the proposal can instantly be converted to an order with one click.
Sales manager insights: Traffic and digital reporting abilities give sales managers visibility into salesperson metrics related to proposals and orders. With access to this data, they can forecast more accurately and identify potential gaps in seller behavior.
Dynamic dashboards: Users can create custom dashboards, which Viggiano will help customers design during onboarding. She defined the most popular metrics, including KPIs (key performance indicators), order statuses, activity feed, projections and task assignments.
Single sign-on: The productivity boost of single sign-on is another great feature that simplifies how your staff spends time with technology. The same login can be used across NXT and the integrated traffic system.

Modern, Optimized Radio Technology Powered by Experts

The Marketron team has a diverse group of experts who know radio and what the industry needs to be successful in revenue operations. Viggiano’s review of radio traffic and digital integrations showcases how intentional we’ve been in designing our software.