Placements.io, a leader in revenue and billing management for media companies, today announced new technology that empowers publishers to combine sales, operations and reporting for both programmatic and direct advertising in a single stream. Leading travel company Skyscanner is an early adopter of the product. With a deep Google PG integration and a Salesforce sync for all programmatic guaranteed and preferred deal activity, Placements.io now offers one of the most powerful programmatic deal management system for direct sellers.

“Placements.io listened to our needs and pain points, creating a streamlined process that not only allows us to be more efficient but aligns with the great workflow Placements.io has created for our direct campaigns,” said Alice Farrar, senior advertising operations executive at Skyscanner. “We hope to have increased programmatic activity, accurate forecasting and the ease of making changes without repetitive work.”

“We really appreciate the Placements.io partnership with Skyscanner. Placements have brought both technical and business expertise to create a seamless integration with Google AdManager for Skyscanner. The partnership is hugely valuable for a wide variety of use cases and we look forward to seeing even more innovation in the future,” said Henry Eccles, head of UK e-commerce, Global Partnerships EMEA at Google.

Publishers are finding that brands increasingly demand high-touch programmatic deals such as programmatic guaranteed and preferred deals and “direct to programmatic”, over open exchange buying. Many publishers have separate programmatic and direct teams, which need streamlining to help buyers through the sales process, operations and reporting. Through a robust integration with Google PG, Placements.io brings in programmatic reporting and operationalises transaction lines. Now operations teams have more visibility across different types of media buys from the same advertiser.

“The workflow allows us to overcome issues we faced such as the duplication of work, inaccurate forecasting and being unable to save a forecast so having to start again once confirmed,” said Farrar. “We are also able to adjust campaigns within Placements.io and keep all correspondence within their system.”

Placements.io now empowers publishers to create and manage programmatic orders alongside direct orders. In a first for the market, operations teams can govern and manage the programmatic sales process and empower the seller to complete transactions on behalf of the buyer with access to programmatic information throughout the process. The platform connects the PG channel to Salesforce, enabling sellers to proactively create and manage programmatic guaranteed and preferred deals with advertisers and agencies. As publishers bring programmatic and direct closer together, Placements.io offers a flexible platform that will evolve with them, empowering sellers to create programmatic deal requests and direct orders.

“We’re thrilled to have worked with Skyscanner to build out and test our platform upgrade. Our deep integration with Google and our flexible software allows us to respond to Skyscanners needs and grow with their business and they bring direct and programmatic closer together,” said Evan Bowen, vice president of sales at Placements.io. “With our market-leading Salesforce sync across all guaranteed and preferred deal activity, publishers can achieve dramatic improvements in efficiency, deal acceleration, and growth.”