Every once in a while, a guest post comes along that takes one of those complicated, eyes-glazed-over issues and makes it wonderfully simple. Our Jacobs DR Director Chris Brunt has done that today, thanks to a controversial ending to a college football game and a couple of clocks that couldn’t agree on what time it was. Chris knows the digital sales world from the inside, and he understands a reality that broadcasters have been wrestling with for years: we have more data than ever, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have more clarity. Clicks, AQH, impressions, TLH, conversions, views, sessions—there’s no shortage of numbers. The harder part is figuring out what they actually mean.
One of my favorite quotes comes from the venerable American author, Mark Twain:
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
And that’s why Chris’ post is about much more than digital sales. It’s about trust—between sellers and clients, managers and staffs, and ultimately broadcasters and the advertisers that support and depend on our industry. As radio continues its transformation from selling :30s and :60s to providing increasingly complex marketing solutions, we can’t simply hand clients a dashboard and call it a day.
Somebody has to know which clock matters, why it matters, and how to explain the final score. Chris makes that case with a story that starts on a football field and ends with a lesson every broadcaster—whether you work in sales, management, programming, or digital—should take to heart. -FJ
What’s In a Number?
There’s a lot of fuzziness in the supposed certainty of digital stats. Just look at college football fans fighting over when the clock reached 00:00 during the Michigan-Western Michigan game a couple of Saturdays ago.
If you missed it: Western Michigan, a nearly four-touchdown underdog, led 12-7 when Michigan’s Hail Mary sailed through the back of the end zone and the clock hit zeros. WMU celebrated. Then officials put one second back on the clock. Michigan threw one more Hail Mary, completed it for a 47-yard touchdown, and somehow won the game 13-12 in the most unlikeliest of ways.
Here’s the part that matters for anyone who sells or buys advertising. Nobody was really arguing about what happened on the field; they were arguing about which clock to believe. Viewers at home watched the broadcast clock hit zero before the ball touched a defender. The replay officials used a separate camera shot of the stadium clock, which showed one second left. WMU’s Mid-American Conference now says the replay protocol required the clock embedded in the TV feed (the one viewers saw), and by that clock, Western Michigan wins.
Every clock was counting, but they didn’t sync up.
Within days, the NCAA issued new guidance spelling out exactly which clock replay officials must use. The rule got clarified after the game that exposed it.
If that sounds familiar, you’ve probably sat through a digital campaign recap.
Two scorekeepers, one campaign
Similarly in digital, numbers mean both everything and nothing. Ask the AE who had to reconcile a “successful” Google search report with the client’s Google Analytics showing a less-than-stellar performance. Or the salesperson frantically explaining why the client hasn’t gotten a surge of sales off his 200,000-impression campaign. I’ve been that person. I’ve come to many client recaps with a great report showing lots of clicks and even tons of phone calls to the client’s number, only to have the client say the Google dashboard was inaccurate and they hadn’t had one new customer.
The uncomfortable truth is that often, both of us were right. Like the clocks in Ann Arbor, the report and the client were measuring different things.
Google Ads counts clicks. Google Analytics counts visits, and it can undercount people whose browsers block tracking or who decline cookies. A “phone call” in an ad report can be a longtime customer checking store hours, or someone who fat-thumbed the Google ad. Or maybe the call went to voicemail. Or an assistant took the call and didn’t tell the boss. The variables are endless.
Google Ads credits a conversion to the day of the click; Analytics credits it to the day it happened. None of that makes the report wrong. It makes it incomplete without someone to explain it.
Reconciling with the client’s view requires a delicate balance, just like when an on-air ad campaign flops. A renewal isn’t always guaranteed, but many times it can be salvaged with the right hypothesis and explanation (plus the assurance that you’re on the client’s side and not just pushing an agenda to get a sale).
“Is that good?”
The number of different numbers required to create a comprehensive media campaign doesn’t make the numbers game easier for AEs to master, especially when a client asks, “Is that good?” Impressions. Reach. Frequency. CPM. eCPM. Click-through rate. Video completion rate. Downloads. Sessions. Conversions. Cost per lead. Return on ad spend. Each one is a real measurement. Each one answers a different question. And no single one tells a business owner whether the phone is going to ring.
The honest answer to “Is that good?” is almost always another question: compared to what? Compared to last month? To the industry average? To what the client expected when they signed? That last one makes or breaks the renewal, and it’s the one we set (or fail to set) before the campaign ever launches.
Moving goalposts
Just when we’ve mastered numbers, their meaning changes. Last month, YouTube changed how it counts a “view.” For years, a public view on a regular YouTube video required someone to actually watch for a while (the commonly cited figure was :30 seconds). As of August 24, a “view” counts the moment the video starts playing, an autoplay is started, or a thumbnail preview plays on mouse-over. No minimum. The change is raising eyebrows in the creator economy.
How is a brand supposed to value an influencer’s YouTube views when some of them last a fraction of a second? For media sellers, the good news is that YouTube’s paid video views still run on their own thresholds, and creator monetization still depends on deeper engagement measures. So on one platform, the word “view” now means at least three different things.
Just as the NCAA had to spell out which clock is official after the fact, the platforms rewrite their definitions all the time. Sometimes it’s planned, but sometimes you find out when a client asks why the numbers suddenly jumped. That isn’t a reason to distrust digital. It’s a reason to never let a number walk into a client meeting without an explanation attached.
Everyone needs a replay booth.
College football moved replay decisions to remote command centers so someone with every camera angle and the rulebook in hand can make the call. It also helps the analysis to be in a quiet room instead of in a stadium in the company of 100,000+ screaming fans. Although this doesn’t eliminate ambiguity (clearly), it ensures someone who knows the rules is accountable for the call, and can explain it.
Clients need their own support system to call on in order to provide some validations their campaigns work. Be that a digital sales manager back at the station or an expert on the corporate team who has put in their 10,000 hours in the minutiae of digital campaigns: the attribution windows, the tracking tags, the platform changes that land without warning. Someone who knows a thing or two because they’ve seen a thing or two, as the Farmers Insurance ads say. That person’s job isn’t to make the numbers look good. It’s to inform the client which clock is official, and why.
You don’t have to love the math.
For many reps, the subordinate digital numbers are math distractions that get in the way of everything else that’s enjoyable about media ad sales, like relationships with clients and community VIPs, the thrill of the hunt, the joys of renewals, and the satisfaction of a commission check. That’s OK. AEs don’t have to be the replay official, but they do have to know who to call. And everyone from the client to the sales rep to the tech team has to set reasonable expectations before kickoff, not after the final whistle. That means agreeing up front on:
- What success looks like for their business, in their words
- Which numbers you’ll report, and what each one proves and doesn’t prove
- How long it realistically takes to see results
- How you’ll connect the campaign to actual customers (a tracking number, a promo code, or simply asking “How did you hear about us?”)
When those expectations are set, a disappointing recap becomes a conversation about adjustments and not a referendum on whether digital “works.”
The scoreboard.
Just like the scoreboard at 0:00, in sales there’s one number that matters most: the boldface number with a dollar sign at the bottom of the contract. Everything else above that is a variable that increases or decreases that number, its profit, and commission earned from it. For the client, the scoreboard is the increase in sales from the campaign.
However many clocks were running back in Ann Arbor, the final score stands. In digital sales, we have more control, and none of this is something to fear. AEs must set expectations, ensure campaigns are optimized mid-flight, and never let a number walk into a client meeting without an explanation attached.
If you’d like to talk digital sales with Chris, contact him at chris@jacobsmedia.com
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Along with his duties at Jacobs Media, Chris develops revenue opportunities for jācapps’ mobile apps clients.
- One Second Left: What Michigan’s Clock Controversy Teaches Us About Digital Ad Stats - September 14, 2026
- What’s In a Number? - September 11, 2026
- What’s On Your Digital Keycard? - August 10, 2026
Do radio reps need to be as versed in digital as the “experts” mentioned in your piece? No, but the curious ones do. While mileage varies, the ones that learn how to tie back the results are often the ones that know how to ask the right questions in their CNA’s to determine the outcome a client is actually trying to achieve. Armed with an agreement on “what success really looks like” allows for any campaign to be molded to the outcome the client wants.
Knowing a measurable outcome allows for the numbers being reported to be measured accordingly. Where the wheels come off is when the outcome is “fuzzy” or when the seller thinks the outcome is one thing but clearly the client expects something else.
Digital revenue growth is well documented BUT the real measurement comes in repeat business. Retention rates measured monthly and quarterly speak to the real results of client satisfaction. Training in “how to” retain business is as important as selling the first order. More important actually.
So, while a seller today may be overwhelmed with the multitude of things to learn, those that embrace that challenge and not rely solely on the digital team will win more, retain more, renew more and drive effective outcomes for both clients and media companies.
100% agree with you Jon. The better trained an AE is in digital AND the blocking and tackling of sales, the more effective they will be. Thanks for your input!