Specifically, they’ve integrated Arbitron’s TAPSCAN Web and Marketron’s Exchange systems, which will give radio sales exes an efficient, all-in-one sales and traffic solution, from sales proposal to order to traffic and billing.
This new service will be available from Marketron and Arbitron on 2/1.
Linking the two systems gives radio broadcasters a fully automated, web-based, sales and traffic solution from initial proposal through fulfillment and invoicing.
TAPSCAN Web is a Web-based sales proposal and analysis system; Marketron Exchange is a ecosystem platform connecting buyers and sellers electronically so they can share orders, invoices, performance information, ratings info and more.
TAPSCAN Web is used by over 17,000 radio sales pros and facilitates more than 400,000 proposals to radio buyers per year. Marketron’s traffic solutions are used by more than 7,000 radio station clients.
RBR-TVBR asked Steve Minisini, Marketron CEO: “How are many transactions currently executed and what in this alliance will immediately change…what steps will be eliminated?”
“Today over 400,000 proposals flow through Arbitron TAPSCAN Web annually. Through this new integration, salespeople will be able to electronically transmit TAPSCAN Web proposals to the Marketron Exchange for order execution, fulfillment and invoicing within the traffic system,” he responded. “This integration helps to eliminate the errors associated with manual sales and order processing and the extensive amount of time spent keying this information into multiple systems. Our research shows that order discrepancies caused by keying errors that can’t be made good result in lost revenue of greater than 1% of total direct business each year. This solution has a tremendous value proposition for our joint clients.”
RBR-TVBR observation: So, this alliance will help expedite transactions for buyers who have been demanding more e-commerce solutions and less labor-intensive keystrokes, so to say. It actually kicks radio out of some media agency buys because the estimated extra time and cost to transact the buy adds too much to the bottom line.
