Media Sales and the Loss of Confidence

I never considered myself a traditional ‘closer.’ My background was in hospitality, where the focus is entirely on serving the guest. When I became an entrepreneur and started working with media data, I realized that the best sales strategy isn’t pitching, it’s serving. I didn’t aggressively “sell” ad campaigns; I just showed advertisers what their market looked like and who their actual customers were. The question naturally followed: ‘Can you help us reach them?’ That is the power of data. It removes the need for hard selling.

In entrepreneurship you can end up pivoting once, twice, three times. And with every pivot you learn something new. In my case I pivoted both to- and away from- advertisers, brands and marketing. And in the process I learned how to build close relationships with advertisers, with the help of data. I learned how to get marketing customers that never leave and instead increase their ad spend year over year. 

I learned how to use data to do it, and I built the system to support it.

The Lack of Confidence is Killing Sales

It is a trying time to be in media sales. You get challenged by the latest buzz words, by digital agencies that are perceived as more “digital” than you, by global platforms that set the stage, and the ad currency.

So, when the customer says that they expect clicks from the campaigns, it is easy to sell the click. Even if you know that display is not a great performance channel. It is easy to talk about discounts instead of effect. It is easy to lose confidence.

What I hear amongst my media customers, from the sales reps is:

1. They are nervous to sell new things because they don’t know if they can deliver on the promise. You never want to risk the advertiser relationship.
2. They are nervous about what to say when questioned about data, why do they think the advertisers should use it. What do you say when challenged?
3. How can they show the effect, how can they prove that the promise was delivered upon? And how do you prove long term value from branding campaigns that don’t deliver clicks?

The biggest hurdle isn’t the advertiser; it is the “agency wall”. Agencies own the budget and prioritize channels that offer the path of least resistance: Google and Meta. They demand proof of ROI, and when a media sales rep shows up with nothing but a spreadsheet of generic ”impressions” and “clicks”, they lose the budget. You are bringing a knife to a data gunfight.

What I learned early on was that data can be a sounding board in sales, a third party opinion that lets you challenge opinions, be they from advertisers, agencies or digitally savvy nephews.

“Sure, I hear you. But if we look at the market you operate in… we don’t really see that type of customer. So what makes you describe your ideal customer in that way?”. That is a challenging question, but it is the data challenging them, not you.

It is often in the “No” that trust is built. When you disagree and are able to explain why, where the discussion leads to new insights for the advertiser. 

The Automation Void: An Opportunity to Reclaim the Relationship

Digital marketing shifted the ownership of the advertiser relationship to the agencies, largely through the availability of data. But in a time of AI and mass automation, I believe the personal touch will become even more important.

As agencies increase automation to protect their bottom lines, they will create a “connection void.” Automation can make the marketing more efficient, but it still requires the advertiser to understand and trust it. And people never truly trust what they don’t understand.

This void is the media’s greatest opportunity to reclaim the advertiser relationship. 

But it requires two things:

1. Leveling up your sales team with the right data tools.
2. Using those tools to educate the advertiser, not just sell to them.

Sounds easy? Unfortunately there is no tool out there designed to support the specific sales process of media. Well, almost no tool.

The Modern Media Sales System 

I created this system based on my experience in media sales and from building data platforms that actually serve the business side of media. It is designed to integrate your first-party data all the way from prospecting to delivery, reporting, and validation. It is based on how much of traditional sales has been done, but with data-powered tools to make it stand out and reclaim the relationships.

Instead of a fragmented sales process, the Samhub Media Sales System gives your team four concrete steps to build trust:

1. Samhub Market Analysis (The Conversation Starter) Before you ever pitch a campaign, you explain the market. This tool paints a picture of the advertiser’s market in terms that are easy to understand, based on data you know you can use for targeting. It shows you made an effort, builds a common understanding, and immediately positions the sales rep as the market expert.
2. Samhub Customer Analysis (The Strategy) Now you get close to the advertiser’s most valuable asset: their customers. Who are their customers today? Is there a gap between who they have and who they want? By setting the advertiser’s customers in a market perspective, you can ask the challenging questions and create a targeting strategy. You don’t promise the moon; you promise a strategy you can actually deliver on.
3. Samhub Campaign Reporting (The Proof) Just as Google validates its campaigns, you must report on and validate what you deliver. With this tool, you automate the campaign reporting and transparently show the results using the same data you used for the market and customer analysis. You close the loop by reporting back with your own marketing currency, not the metrics dictated by global platforms.
4. Samhub Website Analytics (The Advertiser Integration) This is the integration layer that measures all the way to conversion. By integrating your analytics with the advertiser, you can analyze their visitors and conversions the same way you segment your own traffic. This 1:1 match allows you to lay a long-term marketing plan with strategic goals, turning a one-off campaign into an ongoing media-advertiser partnership.

This sales system is fully integrated with the Samhub Data platform, a powerful platform that combines a DMP, a CDP, Contextual Analysis and ID Addressability into a single platform. 

Selling more than impressions

Great sales is when you are not selling, you are helping. Great media sales is when you are not delivering impressions, but when you deliver effect, trust, partnership and become the advisor, not just a sales rep selling ad impressions. 

This is a tried and tested methodology that I have personally used to close millions in media sales. It is a system that got us customers that stayed with us for almost a decade, increasing their spend year over year.

If your media sales team is struggling to prove their value against global platforms, they don’t need more training, they need a better system. Let’s talk about how to implement the Samhub Media Sales System in your organization.

Martin Bergqvist
CEO & Founder, Samhub