Managing ad budgets can be difficult for agencies due to the complexity and variability of campaigns across different client accounts. Spend management software can help agencies more effectively track, control, and optimize their ad budgets across multiple clients, projects, and campaigns.
What is Spend Management Software?
Spend management software helps businesses monitor and manage their expenses. It can help save time on financial processes like analyzing payments and keeping track of payment deadlines.
Offering timely visibility into spending and fund allocation, spend management software helps businesses keep campaigns moving. It can also help improve financial reporting and deliver insights on spending trends to help organizations make data-informed decisions.
Spend Management Software for Advertisers
Spend management software is particularly well-suited for advertising agencies and businesses that manage campaigns internally, as these businesses frequently balance multiple dynamic campaigns with complex budgets and unique timelines.
Ad budgets can be spread across multiple platforms like television, social media, and search engines – even OOH – each with its own pricing models, timeframes, and performance metrics. Frequent shifts in client goals, macroeconomic factors, and audience preferences complicate planning.
Advertisers must regularly monitor expenses and campaign performance, shifting funds to optimize performance while staying within budget. Spend management software can help simplify this process.
In addition to delivering detailed reporting on spending broken out by client or campaign, spend management software may integrate with other tools that can help advertising agencies streamline accounts payable (AP) tasks like issuing payments and reconciling invoices.
Unique Challenges for Advertisers
Traditional payment methods and processes fall short for addressing the specific financial demands and operational complexities of advertisers.
Ad campaigns often involve large, fluctuating budgets. Standard credit card limits can halt campaigns in progress, restricting agencies from spending efficiently.
Another significant challenge with traditional payment processes is a lack of visibility – advertisers cannot easily gather timely insights into spending patterns, making it difficult to manage ad spend. Without proper oversight, agencies may unknowingly exceed budgets or fail to optimize spending for better performance.
Traditional payment processes do not offer detailed data or analytics on spending. Advertisers miss out on insights that could inform future budget decisions, optimization strategies, and performance assessments, which can hinder results and return on investment (ROI) for clients.
Finally, traditional payment methods lack the security features of spend management software, leaving agencies more vulnerable to payment fraud or unauthorized transactions, especially when dealing with numerous suppliers and payment channels.
Benefits of Spend Management Software for Advertisers
Spend management software offers advertising agencies significant advantages in managing their finances effectively. These include:
Unlimited virtual credit cards (VCCs): Some spend management platforms allow agencies to create individual VCCs for spending categories that make sense for them, such as operating expenses, campaigns, clients, and vendors. This feature simplifies tracking and budgeting by allowing advertisers to allocate specific budgets for each expense category. And by assigning a VCC to each campaign or client, agencies gain timely visibility into spending, helping them make more informed budgeting decisions.
Flexible payment terms: Flexible payment terms can help agencies better manage cash flow, reducing the strain of needing to pay suppliers before receiving client payments.
Cashback rewards: Some spend management software platforms offer cashback rewards to customers. These can benefit advertisers by allowing them to turn their payables into a profit center. Businesses can reinvest rewards into operations, boosting income and financial flexibility.
Scalability: Spend management software can empower advertising campaigns to scale efficiently. With better control over budgeting and spending, agencies can allocate resources to maximize the impact of their campaigns.
Visibility: Spend management software can deliver increased control and visibility over expenses. It tracks spending in a centralized platform so agencies can monitor and make prompt adjustments. This level of transparency can empower agencies to identify inefficiencies and manage finances more proactively.
Spend Management with AvidXchange
AvidXchange’s media spend management solution can help advertisers effectively manage budgets and scale campaigns. Capabilities include:
• Create VCCs for custom categories
• Assign permissions and spending limits to each VCC for optimal cash flow control
• Gain visibility over spending with a tailored dashboard
• View transaction summaries for each VCC on demand
• Receive email alerts when cards are near the designated spending capacity
• Maintain card security via card creation approvals
• Generate cashback with every purchase
• Choose flexible terms that best meet your needs
To learn more about AvidXchange’s spend management software for advertisers, reach out to one of our experts by clicking below.