2023 RevOps Renaissance: How Media Sales Teams Can Thrive with Enhanced Operations

Predictions to Meet Evolving Demands in a Challenging Economy

A new class of media business leaders is on the rise. While in the past, media company CEOs and CROs cut their teeth as account execs, a growing number of top media execs are now coming from revenue operations (rev ops)— and rev ops teams themselves are playing a larger role within the organization.

Savvy about the industry’s increasing demands, rev ops specialists understand market trends, leverage technology to scale, and rethink the status quo to create maximum growth. Publishers face unprecedented challenges this year, making rev ops a crucial function to help media businesses weather the storm—or thrive despite it. This new breed of rev ops-trained media execs are prioritizing four changes to support their businesses this year and beyond: New compensation models, shifting leadership structures, upping automated recommendations, and prioritizing direct-sold inventory.

Here’s what we predict they’ll do in 2023:

Prediction #1: Rev ops teams will be compensated based on revenue retention

Rev ops teams are the bridge between sales, marketing, and business services, making them crucial for a holistic approach to growth. Traditionally, teams in this department are salaried employees, with bonuses tied to individual and company top-line performance. But we anticipate bold moves among the most innovative organizations to transform compensation models for rev ops entirely. As traditional models stagnate, future-looking businesses are shifting to a model in which rev ops teams are compensated based on revenue retention.

Under this design, rev ops teams’ incentives would more closely align with their sales counterparts’, and they would bear a larger, more direct responsibility for churn. Since it’s easier to keep a dollar than win a new one—and rev ops teams are well-positioned to help ensure client satisfaction—a move toward compensation that acknowledges the importance of net revenue retention (NRR) makes good business sense and can boost performance overall.

Prediction #2: Sales reports to rev ops

Leadership in sales—-maybe even your next CRO—-will come from your rev ops team. That’s because rev ops is more data-driven, with eyes on the holistic health of the business. Not only are rev ops teams attuned to the numbers, but they also understand the products and exist to create alignment across the entire value chain.

Since rev ops can focus on execution of cross-department initiatives, it benefits from increased collaboration with sales. Having your head of sales report to the head of rev ops can effectively increase the flow of information to these key team members to inform strategic decision-making and facilitate better outcomes in every department.

Prediction #3: The return of direct-sold

Despite third-party cookie deprecation delays, the future of programmatic ads built on cookies is dubious. While programmatic opened up the possibility for more efficient self-serve and third-party inventory sales, 2023 will see a move back to the industry’s roots: direct-sold. Direct-sold deals that leverage first-party data to get advertisers in front of the right audiences throughout the customer journey have long been a staple of any media mix. This year we will see advertisers double down on the investment—and publishers will prioritize it accordingly.  

Extra investment in direct sales can help publishers close higher ticket deals while delivering high-quality placements for advertisers. In a landscape where consumers are increasingly privacy conscious, direct-sold deals provide a level of transparency and control that programmatic has historically lacked.

Prediction #4: More automated recommendations

New technologies can liberate rev ops teams from repetitive tasks—-and help media companies fully leverage their human capital. Robotic process automation (RPA) software is coming to the media industry, but at a bare minimum, publishers need to wield technologies that enable faster workflows and analytic insights.

One area ripe for automation is proposal generation, which for many media companies is a time-consuming, highly manual, and resource-intensive process. One example of a solution that addresses this pain point is Boostr’s Proposal-IQ. It can improve the quality of RFP responses, and within minutes it can also create complete proposals with the optimal placement mix based on availability and client goals. Solutions like Proposal-IQ free up hours of team members’ time so they can focus on more strategic work.

Maximizing automation alleviates pressure on rev ops and sales teams, eliminates errors, and optimizes media mixes for clients and publishers alike.

Conclusion:

2023 will be a challenging year for many, but savvy rev ops teams are poised to help their businesses not just weather the storm, but thrive.

Through a combination of new models, incentives, tools, and technologies, rev ops teams can help their organizations evolve with confidence.

Turn Predictions Into More Revenue

Boostr is the most comprehensive and accurate digital transformation technology for managing advertising sales and delivery in the media industry. Boostr offers CRM, OMS, and automated RFP response technologies designed by media professionals to sell more plans at higher margins. Boostr clients include Macy’s, Lowes, Westwood One, Dish, Buzzfeed, and more. Contact us for a demo today.

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