Advertising sales often require a prospect to make a leap of imagination. A rate card can describe dimensions, impressions and placement. But it cannot necessarily help a business owner picture the finished campaign—or understand why one digital idea may be more valuable than another.
Independent publishers can remove that uncertainty. They control their sites and can show advertisers how a message will look inside a trusted editorial environment.
Broadstreet builds advertising-management and sales technology specifically for independent news, magazine and B2B publishers. Its platform helps publishers create, deliver and report on direct-sold digital campaigns while offering formats and sales tools designed to compete with the standardized products available through Google and Meta.
Broadstreet founder Kenny Katzgrau knows that giving advertisers something tangible to evaluate is one of the clearest advantages an independent publisher can bring into a sales meeting.
A finished idea in minutes
Diane Bedard is the owner and publisher of NatureCoaster.com, an online magazine serving Florida’s Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties. The publication reaches approximately 20,000 readers each month, and Bedard operates it with a staff of one: herself.
Her advertising and marketing background made her comfortable creating campaigns manually. After meeting with a prospect and discussing its needs, she would develop two or three concepts and work through revisions. That personal process remains important, but creating every initial idea herself added another production responsibility to an already full workload.
Magic Spec is Broadstreet’s sales-prospecting tool for turning a business’s existing online content into a customized sample advertisement. A publisher enters a prospective advertiser’s website, social-media page or content URL, and the tool uses available logos, images and messaging to assemble an ad the prospect can see before buying.
Bedard first evaluates the prospect’s website. If it presents the business well, she uses that URL. If not, she may draw from Facebook or Instagram. The result arrives in “minutes,” she said, allowing her to bring a professional concept into the follow-up conversation and give the prospect something specific to consider.
Kenny Katzgrau’s strategy: make the value visible
For Katzgrau, Magic Spec advances the question that has guided Broadstreet from its beginning: “How do we make it more attractive for an advertiser to work with a small publisher than it is to work with Google or Facebook?”
His answer is not to imitate standardized products. Broadstreet offers approximately 100 formats that publishers can use instead of a conventional banner. The goal is to give the local salesperson something distinctive to believe in, demonstrate and tailor to the advertiser.
“I can’t sell banners because I don’t believe in banner ads,” Katzgrau told E&P. “If I’m going to sell, it has to be something that I would buy if I were them.”
Magic Spec brings that philosophy into prospecting. Automation performs the initial assembly, but the publisher still supplies the judgment: which business to approach, which content best represents it, where the ad should appear and how the campaign should evolve. The technology makes the possibility visible. The publisher makes it valuable.
Turn existing content into a sales presentation
Troy Dodds of Western Sydney Publishing Group explains how showing a prospect a customized spec ad helped him secure his first significant digital advertising sale—proving that sometimes seeing the campaign can help sell it.
Katzgrau explained that Magic Spec can begin with content a business has already created. A publisher can enter the company’s website, social-media page or a specific piece of content, and the system uses those existing assets to assemble a customized sample ad.
The publisher can then show the creative by itself or preview it within the publication’s website. That changes the sales conversation. Instead of describing where an ad might appear or asking the prospect to imagine the reader experience, the salesperson can present the message, format, placement and editorial environment together.
The initial result does not replace the publisher’s thinking or the advertiser’s input. It provides a starting point that can be revised around the prospect’s goals. Images, copy, calls to action and placement become part of a more useful conversation because both sides are reacting to something visible.
Industry benchmarks vary, but media sales trainer Ryan Dohrn has cited data suggesting that using spec ads can increase closing rates to as high as 44%. Yet fewer than 20% of sales representatives regularly use them—often because creating customized ads for individual prospects has traditionally required too much time.
Magic Spec is designed to remove that barrier by turning a prospect’s existing content into a professional sample ad in minutes
A spec ad that produced serious digital revenue
In his interview with E&P, Katzgrau cited the experience of Troy Dodds, general manager of Western Sydney Publishing Group. During a sales workshop, Dodds built a Local Authority execution for a prospective legal advertiser and sent the business a preview of the proposed campaign.
Dodds offered to run the creative free for two days and proposed a monthly campaign with industry exclusivity. The advertiser purchased it for $1,200 per month. Dodds described it as the first time his organization had captured serious digital advertising revenue.
The advertiser did not purchase a theoretical format. It purchased the campaign it had already seen. For Katzgrau, that distinction explains the selling power of a spec ad: the publisher converts an unfamiliar digital product into a visible business opportunity.
Seeing the sale before buying it
Maggie Phillips of OUT FRONT Magazine shares how a prospect saw the Amazing Cube during a sales conversation and immediately wanted it—demonstrating how the right creative can help sell itself.
Bedard used the same fundamental strategy with one of the three county tourism agencies in her market. She entered the agency’s website, generated the sample and presented it during lunch. The prospect did not have to interpret a list of specifications or imagine how its brand assets might translate into digital advertising. She could see it.
The agency bought the format, and Bedard charged more for the advertising space because the execution delivered greater value. She then showed similar Magic Spec ads to the other two tourism agencies. They wanted the product as well and placed it into their following budgets.
“I increased revenue with all three agencies by showing them Magic Spec ads,” Bedard said.
The ads remain adaptable after the sale. During scalloping season—a major tourism driver along Florida’s Nature Coast—all three campaigns featured relevant imagery. When the season ended, Bedard contacted the agencies, requested replacement photos and refreshed the creative. That continuing attention reinforces her role as a marketing partner rather than simply a seller of space.
Show the creative and its context
Bedard presents each concept in two ways. First, she shows the ad on an uncluttered individual page, with the prospect’s logo positioned prominently. She then sends a representation of the same creative on NatureCoaster.com’s homepage or alongside one of its feature stories.
That second view is critical. The advertiser sees not only the creative but also its size, placement and editorial surroundings. The proposal becomes a visible experience rather than an abstract promise. The business knows what the audience will encounter and where the message will live.
That contrasts with large automated networks, where advertisers may receive extensive reporting but have limited visibility into every placement or its context.
A confidence tool for small publishers
Magic Spec has also changed the kinds of prospects Bedard feels prepared to approach. She is working to expand from smaller businesses into more medium-sized organizations, and she credits Broadstreet’s tools with helping her present NatureCoaster.com more confidently.
“I can be late for a meeting and stop and do a Magic Spec because it makes me look more prepared,” she said. “It may not be what they want, but it shows that I’m taking the time to look at what they do.”
The sample does not replace discovery, creativity or the publisher’s relationship with the advertiser. It improves the conversation. The prospect can respond to something concrete: change this image, adjust that message, use a different button or highlight another offer. Feedback begins with a visible starting point.
Put the prospect inside the campaign
For an independent publisher, seeing is more than believing. It is a practical sales strategy. Walk into the meeting with the prospect’s logo, imagery and message already assembled. Show the creative by itself. Then show it inside the publication the advertiser already knows.
Bedard’s experience provides the business case. Magic Spec saves her time, helps her approach larger organizations and has generated additional revenue from established partners. “Between the professional reports and the Magic Spec ads, it’s well worth the money that I invest in it every month,” she said. “It’s paid for itself.”
Publishers do not need to match the largest platforms’ reach. They can demonstrate the value they control: trusted context, creative freedom, local knowledge and the ability to place a business inside a campaign before asking it to buy.
As E&P reported earlier, Broadstreet’s free Daybreak tool helps publishers identify potential advertisers already visiting their websites. Daybreak can start the conversation; Magic Spec helps the publisher make that conversation tangible by showing the prospect what a customized campaign could look like.
About Broadstreet Ads and Magic Spec
Broadstreet provides technology that helps independent publishers create, manage and report on digital advertising.
Magic Spec turns a business website, social-media page or content URL into a customized sample ad using available branding, imagery and messaging. Publishers can use it in prospecting and presentations—turning “imagine what we could build” into “here is what your campaign could look like.”
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