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Why Publishers Need Both Guaranteed and Expected Deliverables

Learn how guaranteed and expected deliverables boost confidence, grow deals, and drive upsells in Campaign Builder

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Written by Avid Admin
Updated over 3 months ago

Read Time: 5 minutes

Publishers can increase deal size and proposal confidence by including both guaranteed and expected deliverables in their content products to provide advertisers with clarity, trust, and upsell potential


Why Publishers Need Both Guaranteed and Expected Deliverables

A simple change that helps increase deal size and proposal confidence

If your content products don’t include clear deliverables, no guaranteed views, no expected reach, you’re likely missing out on revenue.

Many proposals are still built around organic traffic drivers like social posts or newsletters, without paid support or performance benchmarks. And while the content may be high quality, the lack of predictable scale makes it difficult for advertisers to justify larger budgets.

The result? Smaller deals. Missed briefs. And limited ability to upsell or grow client spend.

The Problem: No Guarantees = Smaller Deals

When your products don’t include clear deliverables, media buyers struggle to justify spend. Even with strong creative, a lack of defined reach creates hesitation. This caps budgets, weakens proposal appeal, and results in lower average deal sizes.

The Solution: Include Both Guaranteed and Expected Deliverables

A simple shift in how you package your products can make all the difference. In Campaign Builder, publishers can set up every product with:

  • A minimum benchmark (guaranteed deliverables)

  • A performance estimate (expected deliverables)

These two numbers work together to provide confidence and clarity for buyers, while giving you more room to increase deal size and unlock upsell potential.

What’s the Difference?

Guaranteed Deliverables

A fixed commitment—e.g. 20,000 article views or 3.5M impressions. These minimums can be met through your organic drivers, but often need to be topped up via AmpPlus to ensure consistent delivery.

  • Builds buyer confidence

  • Allows premium pricing

  • Ensures you only commit what you can deliver

Expected Deliverables

A projected estimate based on performance history or audience behavior. These figures show what’s possible, especially when using strong integrations or additional amplification.

  • Demonstrates potential campaign value

  • Supports upsell conversations

  • Helps justify incremental spend

Why Both Metrics Matter

Together, guaranteed and expected deliverables make your proposals stronger and more commercially appealing.

  • They increase trust: Clients see a baseline commitment and a stretch goal.

  • They support scaling: Expected performance shows the value of added spend.

  • They enable upsell: Over-delivery can be used to trigger renewals or in-flight increases.

  • They improve competitiveness: Your proposals now align with how most digital media is bought.

Build Smarter Products in Campaign Builder

You can set this up in minutes:

1. Define Guaranteed Minimums

Use your past campaign and performance data to set minimum deliverable benchmarks for each product in your portfolio (e.g. article views, impressions, video views). These should reflect what your organic traffic drivers can consistently deliver—and serve as the guaranteed baseline for buyers.

Set these benchmarks directly within Campaign Builder so your team can consistently reference and include them in every media plan.

2. Add AmpPlus to Extend Reach and Lock in Guarantees

Once your base minimums are in place, use AmpPlus to extend scale and help guarantee delivery.

Within Campaign Builder, you can:

  1. Add off-network amplification to any product

  2. Choose from premium channels like Meta, Apple News, Premium Native, and Social Display

  3. Select from over 500+ AmpPlus custom audiences to match your organic audience

  4. Use lookalike modeling to find new users similar to your best-performing segments

  5. Refine targeting further with geo and demo filters for national, regional, or age-based targeting

This gives your sales team a clear framework for confidently pricing, packaging, and pitching scalable content campaigns.

3. Set Expected Metrics

Once guaranteed lines are locked in, layer in expected deliverables to show projected upside.

Expected impressions or article views can be modeled based on:

  • Historical performance across similar products or audiences

  • The channel mix and audience selected in AmpPlus

  • Anticipated performance based on known traffic patterns or integrations

You can set these as soft benchmarks within Campaign Builder’s product descriptions or include them in the downloadable media plan to show potential over-delivery alongside guarantees.

Final Thought: Predictability Sells, Possibility Upsells

Advertisers want to feel secure in their investment, but they also want to see what’s possible. By offering both guaranteed and expected deliverables, you're giving them a reason to trust you and a reason to spend more.


Want help updating your product setup in Campaign Builder?

Reach out and we’ll show you how to implement guaranteed and expected deliverables across your portfolio.

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