Various rumours have been floating that AOL is preparing for some big changes to its advertising sales team, no specific head count number or which offices will be impacted has been officially released, and we are not certain how the pending re-org will impact AOL Canada.  Of course when these type of rumours get out it does make current staff a bit nervous and curious as to what else is out there, and apparently competitors have been getting a number of resumes from current AOL staff.  The potential layoffs could also be due to some of AOL’s acquisitions over the last two years such as Adap.tv, Convertro and Vidible. Within these technologies AOL has the opportunity to make more moves away from premium advertising and to offer more programmatic advertising solutions, programmatic continues to be a larger portion of the company’s revenue stream.
Over the last few months we have seen a big shake up at Exchange Lab, we have also heard about some changes that took place over at eyeReturn Marketing and Microsoft’s global sales team saw some recent cuts.

Are machines taking over?

Yes and no! While there are companies such as AOL that are finding more revenue through programmatic solutions which in turn will impact their current sales force, there will always “strong” sales professionals in the digital advertising world.  However, the door is now open for a different type of sales rep and a stronger understanding of client’s business objectives. Are you ready to be a “different” type of digital sales professional?

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