Just as consumers grasped the appeal of contactless payments and other pandemic-era innovations, so too has the advertising industry — an unsettled sector in need of solutions.
According to the Sept./Oct. Payments in B2B Advertising Report, produced in collaboration with American Express, “business-to-consumer (B2C) companies are not the only entities that realized the advantages of digital payments, however, and many business-to-business (B2B) merchants followed suit. PYMNTS’ research shows that more than 68% of advertising firms are using automated technology to prioritize the collection of due funds, for example.”
The cited research found that 71% of companies that traded legacy processes for digital “improved collections following implementing accounts receivable (AR) automation. United States-based businesses are the most optimistic about the potential opportunities that B2B spending will create for the economy, and nearly half of U.S. businesses are mostly or fully automating the sending and receiving of payments by business customers” by next year.
Get the report: The Payments in B2B Advertising Report
New Efficiencies, Greater Visibility
Noting that “automated payments are gaining momentum in the B2B market,” the new report states that many businesses continue to use clunky manual processes to manage payments and collections. With virtual advertisements seeing a sharp rise this year, “advertising firms are increasingly relying on digital B2B payments to collect fees for their services.”
“The media and advertising industry is a particularly complex network of entities and workflows from advertisers to agencies, demand-side platforms to supply-side platforms, station groups to networks, all navigating a variety of systems (digital and manual) to reconcile invoices that could span multiple campaigns, months and buyer clients,” said Omar Hawkins, director of B2B vertical strategy for American Express.
“It’s enough to make your head spin,” Hawkins added. “With this in mind, AR automation solutions can deliver material process efficiencies and improved data visibility to AR, finance, treasury and collections professionals in media and advertising companies to mitigate the complexity and drive improvements to free cash flow.”
Read more: The Payments in B2B Advertising Report
Filling Gaps in B2B Ad Payments
Stating that nearly one-third of companies had already blended B2B payments into their transaction processing by last year, and close to double that amount share “prioritizing the migration from checks to electronic payments for B2B clients,” the automation push is clearly on.
“Advertising firms have led the charge in payments automation,” per the report. “More than 68% of all agencies already have prioritized their collections efforts with automated processes, according to PYMNTS research.”
The report concludes that “automation and instant payment rails allow service providers to offer local payment options, which could be vital to the prolonged success of B2B payments. Research suggests that payments vendors provide businesses with various user-friendly methods, such as virtual cards, to compensate for current weak spots in cross-border instant payments.”
See also: The Payments in B2B Advertising Report
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