As we head into 2026, the media industry faces a unique set of challenges in sales compensation. Media organizations must navigate aligning pay for performance and balancing increasingly integrated portfolio sales while developing compensation programs that can flex with emerging sales approaches— including hybrid artificial intelligence (AI) agent/human and self-service.
This article explores the key challenges that media firms will face in sales compensation and offers practical solutions to address them. Additionally, we’ll delve into the broader trends shaping media go-to-market (GTM) models, providing context needed to understand how these forces will shape future compensation solutions.
The What, How, and Who of Media Sales is Shifting
First, let’s look at what’s changing. Media sales organizations are redefining what they’re selling. Leaders are increasingly encouraging sales reps to package multiple solutions for advertisers, drawing from a broader portfolio across digital and legacy formats. This approach, known as convergence selling, positions media companies as one-stop partners for advertisers, improving client retention and share of spend.
There’s significant focus on new digital formats like connected TV (CTV), programmatic, shoppable ads, and gaming. Media organizations are building, acquiring, or partnering to offer these products to stay competitive. In recent years, we’ve seen a shift in focus toward performance-based advertising versus pure brand awareness campaigns, emphasizing measurable outcomes and ROI-driven selling.
Account managers and customer success managers are being asked to take on more commercial responsibilities, evolving from technical campaign support to strategic and revenue-oriented roles. Sales job archetypes and organizational structures are creating opportunities for companies that can get it right.
Finally, we’re seeing the continued evolution of self-service models. Media selling is shifting toward hybrid and full self-service for advertising clients, impacting cost to serve, campaign spend, and customer retention. Larger advertisers— not just small spenders— are now using self-serve options to support customer success.
Common Compensation Challenges
As sales organizations shift their models to be relevant in this evolving market, they face a new set of compensation challenges. Among them is ensuring that pay remains as closely aligned with each seller’s true contribution as possible. Some companies rely on individualized plans, some blend team and individual metrics, and others rely entirely on team measures. A 70–80% weighting on individual performance is typical, with the remainder being allotted for team efforts.
As described above, convergence selling and self-service have become strategic priorities for media organizations. These shifts require a new approach to motivating and rewarding sellers. Targeted incentives like uplifts, sales performance incentive funds (SPIFs), or credit adjustments can be helpful here. The question of self-service compensation often boils down to the rep’s influence and involvement. Hybrid models and dedicated self-service roles may warrant 15–25% of variable pay tied to self-service outcomes.
When a rep’s role is to transition or train clients to self-service, smaller retention focused incentives are appropriate. Reps in strategic, agency-facing, or partnership roles often lack direct year-over-year revenue attribution. Instead, their success is measured through KPIs such as account penetration, bookings, milestones, or share within major accounts. Milestone-based objectives and joint business plans with partners or agencies are common practices.
Amid these shifts, sales compensation plans have become more complex than ever. Teaching new product, role, or sales channel tends to introduce additional measures, crediting challenges, or exceptions, often with the unintended consequence of diluting the seller focus. This complexity undermines motivation and makes the plans less effective to drive the desired behaviors. Best practice here is to maintain two to three key measures and clearly prioritize plan weightings to align with strategic intentions.
Practical Solutions to Guide Next Steps
With so many shifts reshaping the media landscape, leading executives are asking how to use sales compensation as a strategic advantage. The following five steps can help organizations redesign their plans:
- Use a balanced mix of individual and team metrics, typically favoring individual performance but including team-based factors for pod-selling models and shared responsibilities.
- Prioritize clear incentives for strategic behaviors; consider uplifts and targeted credit adjustments for these focus areas.
- Define self-service compensation based on the rep’s true impact and consider adding specialized roles for automated channels.
- For strategic, long-term-focused roles, incorporate milestone-based objectives and account penetration metrics rather than relying solely on annual revenue.
- Limit measures and mechanics in compensation plans to two or three, ensuring weightings reflect priority of strategic initiatives, and rely on sound management to drive tactical focus.
Sales compensation in the media industry is evolving rapidly, balancing digital transformation, hybrid selling models, and the need for clear, motivational compensation plans. Firms can achieve greater effectiveness by aligning incentives with strategic priorities, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and keeping plans simple and focused. World class sales compensation programs help solve business challenges, put a focus on what is important, and catalyze change and growth.
Matt Bartels, Partner, Global Head of Sales Compensation, is a leader in the firm’s Sales Compensation practice. He also has widespread experience in a variety of industries, including technology, manufacturing, media & consumer technology and healthcare. Matt has a proven record of working with clients to develop actionable growth-oriented strategies, go-to-customer transformations and productivity enhancements. In addition, Matt is an expert in global and domestic sales compensation design. He is a leader in the revenue growth space, and a frequent speaker and author of thought leadership content. Prior to joining the Alexander Group, Matt was a management consultant at Deloitte and IBM Business Consulting Services. He earned his B.A. in economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Indiana University Kelley School of Business. Matt is also a Certified Sales Compensation Professional (CSCP), WorldatWork.
