Rebuilding the backbone of publisher ad sales with DanAds’ Johan Liljelund
BY ROB BEELER + JOHAN LILJELUND, CIO + EXECUTIVE VP AT DANADS
We’re hearing the same thing from publishers everywhere right now. Buyers want more transparency, AI agents are starting to knock on the door, and sales teams are stitching together direct, sales-assisted and self-serve revenue across systems that, let’s be honest, were never built to talk to each other. Everyone agrees ad sales has to change, but not everyone seems sure where to start.
So ahead of DanAds Summit 26 on October 14 in New York, Rob sat down with Johan Liljelund, CIO and Executive VP at DanAds, to explore how publishers should take the lead on agentic buying, the legacy processes frustrating buyers, and how to automate without losing the human touch. Plus, who deserves a seat on stage, and the one decision Johan hopes attendees leave ready to make. Read on…
Rob: With ads being sold, bought, measured and negotiated in new ways, which shift is most likely to change the publisher’s role?
Johan: I think the biggest shift is broader than any one process. Publishers are moving toward a more integrated commercial model. Rather than adding yet another sales channel, we’re building infrastructure that lets publishers run direct, sales-assisted and self-serve business from the same inventory, pricing, data and commercial logic, and we’re working toward launching that next-generation platform in 2027.
That’s where the publisher’s role changes, as technology helps them manage their own commercial relationships. It’s also the question behind our opening keynote with Matthew Jacobs from IAB Tech Lab.
Rob: Much of the agenda centers on AI and agentic buying. Where do publishers need to move from watching that conversation to actively shaping it?
Johan: I’d be careful about assuming the industry has already decided what the future buying model looks like. In my experience, advertising has been discussing standards for years without them delivering the transformation people expected. Agentic buying will clearly have an impact, but I don’t think publishers should build their strategy around handing commercial relationships over to machines.
With significant budgets and pricing decisions, there will always be a need for a human in the loop. What publishers can do now is connect their inventory, pricing, customer data and workflows, so they can adopt new technologies without having to rebuild the business each time the market changes. The interactive session “Will Your Advertising Survive the Agentic Buyer?” puts a live publisher-readiness assessment in front of the room, so the audience may well prove me wrong.
Meanwhile, the session “Who’s Really in Control? Agentic Buying and the New Power Shift in Advertising” asks the harder question of whether publishers are gaining leverage from this or quietly losing it. I don’t think either has a tidy answer yet.
Rob: Another theme is rebuilding ad sales around the client rather than the workflow. Where are legacy processes still creating friction for buyers, and what should publishers be rethinking?
Johan: A lot of the friction comes from building around commercial operations and internal workflows rather than the customer. A buyer doesn’t care whether they’re using a self-serve interface or talking to a salesperson. They simply want a transparent view of what’s available, what it costs and what results to expect.
So the first thing to rethink is the infrastructure underneath the sales operation. Pricing, packaging, inventory, campaign management, billing and reporting should be all connected, so sales teams and independent buyers work in the same commercial environment.
Rob: DanAds has championed self-serve for years. What do publishers still misunderstand about it, and what does a modern strategy need to do differently?
Johan: The biggest misunderstanding is that self-serve is a separate category or revenue stream. For me, self-serve simply means giving customers a transparent way to buy without a salesperson managing every step. A modern strategy integrates it into existing revenue streams, so the same inventory, pricing and rules apply whether a customer buys directly, works with a salesperson or moves between the two.
After all, the relationship between publisher and advertiser shouldn’t disappear just because technology is involved. A customer might start out buying independently, then need help with a larger campaign or a more complex partnership. The system needs to support that transition naturally. So I don’t see self-serve as replacing the sales operation – it just makes it more scalable, with people stepping in where their expertise adds value.
Rob: You’re bringing a lot of different perspectives into the room on how automation is changing the buying process. What do you think publishers most need to hear, or challenge, in that conversation?
Johan: I think publishers should challenge the idea that automation automatically means less control. The real opportunity is to use technology to gain more control over your own commercial operation: how you price, package and sell your inventory, how you manage customers, and how you understand your revenue. In this way, automation shouldn’t mean delegating those decisions to an agent and hoping for the best – there needs to be transparency in the system, and a human in the loop when it matters.
Rob: Several sessions explore automation and modernizing ad sales without adding complexity. Where should publishers automate, and where does the human side still matter?
Johan: Complexity should live in the technology, not in the customer experience or the sales team’s inbox. Campaign administration, billing, reporting and repetitive workflows should all be automated, freeing sales teams to focus on customers, partnerships and strategy. But that doesn’t mean the human relationship becomes less important. Quite the opposite.
That’s also why publishers need to look at their technology stack as a whole. When multiple systems handle different parts of a commercial operation, automation can actually add another layer of complexity. Consolidating that underlying stack is what allows automation to genuinely simplify the business.
Rob: You’ve been intentional about who gets represented on stage. How do you build a lineup that reflects the people actually shaping the industry?
Johan: Ad sales transformation is as much a product, data and engineering conversation as a sales one, so we put those perspectives side by side. So we want the Summit to reflect the people actually building and operating the industry, not just the people who traditionally have the most visibility.
It also means making sure we hear from people and markets that don’t always get the same exposure on the industry’s biggest stages – like Pieter van den Bergh from RTL AdAlliance and Phil Lalonde from Univision – as well as moderators like Brian Morrissey shaping the conversation rather than just running a panel.
And this also includes women, who remain underrepresented across adtech leadership. That’s partly why we work with groups like The Women in Programmatic Network, to help keep the stage genuinely fair rather than defaulting to whoever’s easiest to book. This year, that’s people like Anne Coghlan and Angelina Eng.
Rob: If a publisher leaves DanAds Summit 26 better equipped to make one decision about the future of ad sales, what do you hope it is?
Johan: I’d like them to leave thinking seriously about the infrastructure underneath their entire commercial operation. Publishers have accumulated technology over many years, often adding systems to solve individual problems or support individual revenue streams. The result can be a very fragmented stack.
So it’s time to ask: Can your direct, sales-assisted and self-serve business run from the same platform? That’s the question behind our “Build vs. buy: rethinking the backbone of ad sales” panel, which I think could be the most consequential conversation. The future isn’t about creating more separate ways to sell advertising – it’s about giving publishers one strong commercial foundation that can support all of them.
This is our fifth year bringing the industry together in NYC, hosted again by you, Rob, and with partners like tvbeat, Sigma Software Group, and Relevant Digital back on board. Five years in, and it’s become as much about the relationships built in the room as anything said on stage – which, honestly, is the point.
Ready to rebuild your ad sales backbone?
Publishers don’t need to tackle every shift at once. From an integrated commercial model and agentic buying to client-first sales, modern self-serve and smarter automation, the publishers we see pulling ahead are getting their foundations right first, and keeping people in charge of the decisions that count. With a stage that reflects who’s building this industry, we can’t think of a better room to plan your next move.
DanAds Summit 26 takes place on October 14 at Midtown Loft & Terrace, New York. Request your ticket to join Rob, Johan and 170+ publishers, advertisers and adtech leaders.
👉Want to stay in the loop with what’s happening in the Beeler.Tech community? Subscribe to our newsletter. If you’re interested in attending or sponsoring a future event, you can explore our upcoming events here.