Advertising Sales Job Description and Salary | Ad Sales | Newspaper Jobs

An advertising sales job is also commonly known as account executive or advertising sales rep jobs. They sell advertising space for print publications like newspapers, magazines, and newsletters as well as for air time on television and radio programs.

Virtually all of the revenue of these media communications companies come from the advertising revenue that these jobs bring in. Advertising is a huge industry and a career in an advertising sales job can lead to many other areas of this industry.  In fact, marketing manager is one of the highest paying jobs in America today.

I'll first go into the advertising sales job description and explain what the field looks like. Then I'll go into the kind of salary and compensation they receive. These jobs can be categorized into two levels of sales, at the local and national level. And the barriers between the two levels don't have to be high.

On the national level, ad space and commercial air time is sold by account executives that work with media buyers at advertising agencies who buy ad space or air time on behalf of their clients who want to conduct national ad campaigns. A National sales manager of a local media outlet will typically handle these campaigns with the ad agency's media buyers and not with the client needing the advertising.

In addition an account executive in a national advertising sales job will typically work with large corporations who want nationwide exposure of their products and services. These jobs are usually with nationwide media outlets like TV networks like NBC, ABC and CBS.

Others work for national magazines like Time, Forbes or Newsweek. And then other account executives work for national newspapers like the Wall Street Journal or USA Today.

These national advertising account executives typically work with media buyers who work for these corporations to sell them ad space. They will do all the negotiation and selling to these positions.

Local Advertising Sales

On the local level, there are inside sales reps and outside sales reps. Inside sales reps make sales calls over the phone and internet in their offices. This will typically involve cold calling to book appointments for outside sales reps to sell advertising.

Inside sales reps also handle incoming inquiries to buy ad space. Outside sales reps typically make a lot of cold calls to book sales appointments outside the office. They will also walk around door to door to businesses to solicit ad business.

When an advertising sales rep first meets with a potential client, he must try to find out as much about the business as possible. Especially if it's at the local level, the sales rep might have to coordinate the actually advertising campaign for his client to sell the ad space. 

So it's critical for him to understand his client's business and his industry and target market. The sales rep will ask a lot of questions, find out about previous ad campaigns, and the scope of their target market and audience to find the best advertising solution for them.

Once the preliminary interview is done, the sales rep will prepare a proposal for the potential client laying out the ad campaign like what media they will use, sample ads, and how much it will cost.

If the proposal is accepted by the client, the advertising sales rep will then act as the main point of contact to execute the campaign. He will be the point person to make sure all the requirements in the proposal are met, they will continue to maintain the client relationship and will generally ensure final payment once the advertising campaign is done.

On top of all of the sales and relationship management, they must also keep up to date on the latest in marketing data and advertising industry information, changes in market demands, changes in ad prices, and keep track of the constant changing face of media and communications technologies.

Because of all their responsibilities and their requirement to maintain monthly sales quotas, advertising sales jobs can become very stressful. Although most work more than 40 hours a week, most sales reps also have the freedom to set their own hours and flexibility is a huge benefit to the job. Additionally, the advent of the internet, cell phones and laptop computers have made the job a lot more easier and streamlined than it used to be.

Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics say that advertising sales jobs will grow faster than average because of the constant emergence of new media outlets like the internet and cable television. Those with good sales skills will have ample opportunities.

Most employers pay a combination of base salary, commissions and bonuses. Median annual earnings, including commissions, for advertising sales jobs in May 2006 was $42,750. The middle 50 percent of them earned an annual income between $29,450 - $63,120. The lowest 10 percent earned an annual income of less than $21,460, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $91,280 a year.

Median annual earnings for sales agents in the industries in which they were concentrated were:

Motion picture and video industries $55,340

Cable and other subscription programming $50,260

Advertising and related services $47,640

Radio and television broadcasting $41,110

Newspaper, periodical, book, and directory publishers $36,880

On top of their salary, other perks include expense accounts to entertain clients or potential clients and for business meetings as well as benefits like health insurance and vacation days. Some employers also offer vacation packages and other gifts for good performance.