The Great Recruitment: How To Hire Great Ad Sales Reps in 2026

Over the course of a 25-year publishing career, I’ve hired countless advertising sales representatives. And with a quarter-century of bottom lines to cross-compare these reps with, I’ve honed what I like to think is a sixth sense about what separates even the good reps from the great ones.

Advertising sales is one of the hardest kinds of sales because you’re selling an idea. That prospect of a return. Most sales are around a tangible item, but advertising is a different animal that requires a rep who’s good at selling an idea and a hope that it works. And if the forecasters are correct, there’s quite a bit of hope to be found this year and beyond.

 

The World Cup Is Essentially A Media Budget Vacuum 

I spent the last two weeks doing some informal polling, calling and texting people I trust across the industry, asking them what they’re seeing in the market regarding spend and budget allocations. June is surprisingly soft for programmatic. You would have expected to hear things were up, given that the World Cup is in full swing, but unless you are a certified World Cup partner, it appears you’re sitting this month out, or at least taking it slow.  

 

AI Content Didn’t Stop Working, Your Metrics Did

For 20 years, traffic was a good indicator of successful content. When a page was valuable, Google directed people there, and your analytics recorded that visit. Since value and traffic often correlated, you could infer one from the other. Now, traffic and value are disconnected. Search Console shows clicks, impressions, and average position, but it doesn’t differentiate between clicks from a traditional search result, an AI Overview, or AI Mode.

 

AI Visibility Depends On Who Writes About Your Brand

If rankings alone no longer determine visibility, what does? Increasingly, the answer is earned media. AI systems consistently favor independent editorial coverage over brand-owned content, making media coverage one of the strongest signals influencing whether a brand appears in AI-generated recommendations.