Finding harmony between sales, product, and ops — one beat at a time.
When publishers gather to address sales, product, and operations alignment, old frustrations resurface. But, so do new frameworks, candid stories, and solutions worth taking home.
I remember it as if it were yesterday.
Picture it. It was Austin. November 2018.
It was the first time I attended an AdMonsters Publisher Forum — back when that’s what they were called. I was blown away. I’d been to plenty of media, marketing, and tech conferences, but nothing prepared me for this.
It was the peer-to-peer sharing. The intimacy. The honesty. It was the kind of space where publishers felt safe to drop their guard, swap battle stories, and help one another figure out impossible problems.
And, they all felt like they were real friends, not just industry buddies.
And the Beat Goes On
Fast forward to today. It’s now called AdMonsters Sell Side Summit, but the energy remains the same.
As one of last week’s Nashville attendees told me, “I’ve never been to an ad tech industry event like this. The way you guys manage to create intimacy without it feeling forced is amazing.”
The magic was happening again.
And nowhere was that more evident than in the publisher-only workshop, Getting Sales, Product, and Ops Aligned, led by Terry Guyton-Bradley, Head of Retail Media at Tata Consultancy Services.
When the Beat Drops
Setting the tone right away, he looked around the room of publishers and cut straight to the point.
“We’re here because alignment is hard. Sales, product, ops — we’re not always speaking the same language. Let’s talk about what’s actually working and what we can take home,” Guyton-Bradley said.
Heads nodded. Hands went up. The conversation quickly surfaced familiar struggles.
Sales is always pitching products that don’t exist yet, while dev resources are stretched too thin, and product and ops teams are scrambling to catch up.
One revenue leader described receiving an email about a $1.5 million deal. “We hadn’t even built the thing they sold. I had no idea what they promised the client,” they shared.
There were laughs, but also quiet recognition. The mix of tension and candor set the stage for the one moment that would change everything in the room.
A First-timer Strikes a Chord, and the Band Brings the Harmony
Midway through the workshop, Angel N. Livas, Founder and CEO of ALIVE Podcast Network, raised her hand.
“For those of us at smaller companies, just getting started, how do we set things up the right way from the beginning?” she asked.
That’s when the magic sparked. Everyone leaned in, and the room shifted from a state of commiseration to one of collaboration. One first timer’s question flipped the entire workshop from venting to problem-solving.
Finding the Rhythm
You know what those publishers did next? They started building Livas a playbook in real time.
One ad ops pro explained how their team aligned around a north star metric — revenue per session —with page views, renewal rates, and eCPM laddering up to that single goal.
Another publisher discussed how monthly leadership syncs provide everyone—from product to operations to sales—with visibility into roadmaps and priorities.
“I came up through rev ops, but now I report into product. Even inside product, not everyone understands what’s required for ads. We’re balancing a live scoring leaderboard—that’s core to our users—while figuring out how to monetize without breaking the experience,” Scott Colter, Director of Ad Product and Technology at PGA TOUR, shared.
Then, the team hashes out those competing priorities of balancing ux with monetization on their monthly alignment calls.
“We bring leadership from product, ops, ad tech, and sales together. We present new products before launch and ask sales if this is something clients will actually want. Getting buy-in early has saved us a lot of wasted work,” he explained.
When the Whole Band Joins In
Around the room, other publishers chimed in with similar fixes — digital intake processes, change control boards, and shared dashboards where KPIs are visible across teams.
But, as the playbook filled up with all those frameworks, a realization set in. Sometimes the problem isn’t about the people — it’s about the systems.
“You might not be crazy — it might be broken,” one ad ops pro said, summing up what everyone in the room was thinking.
You may have thought that was cynicism, but it was actually ecognition coming to light. The truth is, alignment issues don’t always come from people failing. Often, they’re baked into the structure.
Harmony Takes Work
During a day of tactical sessions, roundtables, and workshops, publishers shared frameworks, frustrations, and fixes. Yet, we still needed to answer one last question about what alignment across sales, product, and ops really takes.
“If you’re not practicing dispute resolution, you’re not resolving anything. These are muscles you have to build,” Guyton-Bradley said.
He reminded us that alignment can’t be solved in a single workshop. You have to do it in practice, with repetition, negotiation, and a willingness to work through friction — together.
Bringing the conversation full circle, Scott Messer, Principal of Messer Media, connected Guyton-Bradley’s point to Livas’ question about how to start from scratch when you’re a small player.
“Angel came in asking how to set things up from the start — and what you all gave her is exactly that: frameworks, metrics, and practices to build alignment early,” he said.
One player came to the band asking for help, and that opened the door for dozens of others to harmonize — sharing strategies, mistakes, and lessons learned. One media owner’s challenge became a collaborative moment for a group of peers to problem-solve in real time.
It was a band playing one tune, in sync.
One Band, One Sound
A first timer arrived with a challenge, and she left with actionable steps and the confidence to move forward.
“Now I’ve got a starting point. I know where to focus, and I’m taking these lessons back to my team,” Livas shared.
This is the magic of the Sell Side Summit. It’s when publishers lift each other, sharing what works, and walking out better prepared than they walked in.
If you’ve ever seen the movie Drumline, then you know the moment when Nick Cannon’s character, Devon Miles, finally learns that the power of the drumline doesn’t come from being the star of the band — it’s about learning to move as one.
That’s what this room felt like. One band. One sound.