How ACBJ has overhauled its online ad sales operation

Casey Welton of Folio writes about how American City Business Journals, which operates more than 40 business newspapers across the country, has revamped its sales efforts, which were fragmented, inefficient and required a lot of manual work.

Welton writes, “A few options were carefully considered, including building out its own hub. Ultimately, Whittington says the decision to contract Fattail for its Adbook platform made the most sense.

“‘We have 40 Bizjournals across the country, each having its own sales team,’ he says. ‘So there are a lot of complexities. I’m confident we could have built it, but it would have been tough to manage with all the changes that are constantly going on, we needed a partner that would stay on top of those changes.’

“Still, it wasn’t a quick and easy decision. Whittington says that it required about six months of research and due diligence. However, once the decision was made, the implementation was easier than expected. ‘We were up and going in three months,’ he says. ‘Now it would be very hard though, with all the complexities we’ve added.’

“The decision also had to factor in cost. As a private company, Whittington is not willing to disclose the exact dollar amount spent to integrate Adbook, but he says that the new platform required an investment double what it was spending on its previous ad solution.

“Another obstacle was getting everyone up to speed and effectively comfortable with the new platform. To address that the company hired a platform manager who is essentially in charge of training users, and to stay on top of upgrades and workflow changes. Otherwise, no additional staff was needed to implement the platform, or maintain it.”

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