Connected TV ad sales may offer a degree of automation on the sales side and targeting beyond age and gender demographics.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a relationships business.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Roseann Montenes, VP, Precision & Performance Ad Sales, A+E Networks, explains why she is focusing on people.

Connecting people

In November, Montenes’ A+E joined Crown Media Family Networks, representing Hallmark, in selecting Xandr’s Invest TV suite to help sell national linear inventory.

She says it helps facilitate relationships between buy and sell side.

“The way that Invest TV has it set up is that we have direct communication with the actual client or the agency, or whoever’s activating the buy, which is most important to us because we are maintaining that relationship,” Montenes explains.

“While a client is submitting the buy and activating through it on the actual Invest TV platform, I’m the one that’s having the conversation, my team is the one that’s having the conversation direct with the one that’s activating that campaign from start to finish

“So it does make it very easy for us to be able to maintain relationships. And like I said, keep that dialogue going because without dialogue comes a failed campaign.”

TV Automation Is Critical: Xandr’s Mitchell Takes ‘Invest TV’ Up To 90% Coverage

Guaranteed outcomes

A+E Networks was relatively early to announce it would offer its advertisers guaranteed business outcomes.

And, now more than ever, Montenes says it is important to help marketers “move some of those products off of shelves for our clients”.

“We’re listening to our clients in what they need for their KPIs, whether foot traffic into store locations, website visitation, and most recently talking about attention measurement and doing a guarantee against attention,” she says.

A+E’s Roseann Montenes: With Client Expectations, There’s No ‘One-Size-Fits-All’

New prospects

Montenes says A+E Networks is using platforms to new business.

“We already do a ton of business with (Xandr-owned) Clypd on a day-to-day basis in terms of utilising them as our day-to-day optimizer,” she says. “So to partner with Invest TV was just our natural progression in terms of our partnership.

“So us, having that kind of exposure on their platform allows us to open doors to new partnerships, new relationships, and really have access to clients that maybe we weren’t having that conversation with originally that now we are having that conversation.”

You are watching Where We Go From Here: The Lessons and Opportunities of 2020, a Beet.TV series presented by Xandr. For more videos, please visit this page