The leaky bucket problem: How publishers can turn advertiser churn into new digital revenue

Local publishers know how to generate response. They build campaigns, drive impressions, earn clicks and deliver leads. On paper, the results can look strong. But too often, somewhere between the moment a consumer raises a hand and the moment that consumer becomes a paying customer, the opportunity disappears. The phone goes unanswered. The form submission sits untouched. The prospect moves on. And when that happens, the advertiser rarely blames its own follow-up process. It blames the campaign, and too often, the media company that sold it.

That problem sat at the center of a recent E&P webinar featuring Rachel Nulman-Shapiro, chief marketing officer of vcita, who explained that one of the biggest untapped revenue opportunities for publishers may not be a new ad format at all. It may be solving what happens after the lead arrives. “Churn reduction itself can become a very significant source of revenue for publishers that are looking to broaden and expand their digital revenue,” she said, reframing the issue not as a customer-service challenge, but as a business-growth opportunity.

Why good campaigns still lose clients

For many publishers, the most frustrating part of advertiser churn is that campaigns often are performing. The traffic is coming in. The clicks are there. The lead forms may even be filling up. Yet the advertiser still cancels.

Nulman-Shapiro said the disconnect begins with how publishers and advertisers measure success. Media companies tend to focus on exposure metrics, but advertisers focus on outcomes. “Advertisers look at the end of the month and say, ‘I spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on advertising. I have a great-looking report, but what do I actually have as a return on my investment?’” she said. “How many customers do I now have that I didn’t have last month? How much money is in my bank account because I spent this money with the media company?”

That gap between marketing activity and business outcome is where trust begins to erode. Publishers may believe they delivered exactly what was promised, but if the advertiser cannot see a clear path from leads to revenue, the relationship becomes vulnerable. Nulman-Shapiro’s point was simple: publishers cannot afford to stop at exposure if the advertiser’s real concern is conversion.

That is why she believes the conversation needs to move beyond impressions and clicks. “The shift publishers need to make is moving from an exposure mindset to an infrastructure mindset,” she said. In other words, publishers have to think less about simply creating visibility and more about helping advertisers build a system that turns incoming interest into actual business.

The “last mile” where revenue leaks away

The webinar repeatedly returned to what Nulman-Shapiro called the “last mile” problem. Publishers can do their jobs well, but if the advertiser cannot respond quickly or effectively, the sale may never happen.

“The leads you generate could be top-notch, but what happens if the roofer or plumber is busy when the phone rings?” she asked. That question is at the heart of the leaky bucket problem. A prospect may be ready to buy, but if the business owner is on a ladder, in a service call, with another customer or simply overwhelmed, the lead goes cold.

Nulman-Shapiro described how common this is across local business categories. Even businesses willing to spend heavily on advertising often lack the internal systems to manage incoming demand. “You’d be surprised how many businesses are willing to spend top dollar driving traffic to their websites, but still lack the infrastructure to manage leads and move them through a pipeline,” she said. Large enterprises often have teams, software and formal handoffs in place. Small and midsize advertisers, even successful ones, often do not.

That is where she sees a growing role for publishers. Instead of simply selling media, they can help advertisers close the loop. “When you help deliver and manage the lead in a way that gives the advertiser the best chance of converting it into a paying customer, that’s when you become infrastructure,” she said.

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What Lead Management as a Service actually looks like

At the center of vcita’s pitch is the idea of Lead Management as a Service. Nulman-Shapiro positioned it not as a complicated technology layer, but as a practical extension of the publisher’s value proposition.

She offered a simple example. A homeowner searches online for a roofer. The publisher’s advertiser appears first because of the campaign the publisher placed. The prospect visits the website, likes what she sees and calls. But the roofer is on another job and cannot answer. In a typical scenario, that lead may be lost. In the workflow Nulman-Shapiro described, an AI receptionist answers, collects information, helps book the next step and pushes the details into an app the advertiser can review as soon as he is available. “It’s like providing your advertisers with an assistant that helps them capture more leads, convert more of them into paying customers and follow up with them within a timeline that makes sense,” she said.

She described the category more broadly this way: “Lead management is an emerging category that includes tools that help advertisers capture more leads, nurture them easily and convert more of them into paying customers.” In practice, that may include an AI phone receptionist, a website chat receptionist, a CRM, instant lead alerts and summaries that help the advertiser prioritize the hottest opportunities.

Importantly, she said these tools do more than help convert leads. They also help qualify them. Publishers often hear advertiser complaints not only about too few leads, but about the wrong leads. Nulman-Shapiro argued that modern lead-management tools can help filter spam, summarize intent and surface the leads that deserve fast attention. “These tools don’t just help convert leads, they also help qualify them, filter out the noise and highlight the leads that matter most,” she said.

Why publishers do not have to become software companies

One of the most predictable objections in any media organization is operational: Are we now supposed to become a software company? Nulman-Shapiro addressed that concern head on.

“No one has to build this themselves,” she said. “These are products that take years to build.” Instead, she described vcita’s model as partnership-based and white-labeled. The publisher does not need to create the technology from scratch. It can bring a branded solution to market under its own name. “It’s your app, under your brand, with your logo on it, and it becomes the place where advertisers receive leads, manage conversations and stay connected to your services,” she said.

That distinction matters. It means the publisher can strengthen its role in the advertiser relationship without taking on the burden of being a software developer. Nulman-Shapiro emphasized that some partners bundle the technology into campaign pricing, while others sell it as a stand-alone or tiered solution. “Some publishers don’t sell it separately at all. They factor the cost into the campaign and offer it as a complementary lead management app,” she said.

Even when the tool is sold separately, she argued the sales story is simpler than many reps fear. “The story is actually very simple: you’re already spending money to generate leads, this is the extra piece that gives you the best chance of converting them,” she said. For a traditional rep, that is a much easier conversation than trying to explain software features. It is a business case tied directly to advertiser ROI.

The one sale that opens the door to more

The lead-management product does more than reduce churn. Nulman-Shapiro argued that it can also create a new base for upselling and cross-selling other digital services. Once the advertiser is using the publisher’s app or platform every day, the relationship changes. The publisher is no longer just the company that ran a campaign last month. It is part of the advertiser’s operational workflow.

“It’s the one sale that opens the door to all the other sales,” she said.

That point may be especially attractive to publishers struggling to grow digital penetration among legacy accounts. Nulman-Shapiro explained that once advertisers are inside a publisher-branded app, that environment becomes valuable digital real estate. It can surface recommendations for additional services, whether that means SEO, website support, social advertising, programmatic or another product. And because the advertiser is already engaging with the platform, those offers can arrive in context, not as cold pitches.

She also noted that publishers can use the data generated inside the system to trigger more relevant outreach. “It’s all about reaching the right customer with the right offer at the right time,” she said. If website traffic drops, maybe the next conversation should be SEO. If a campaign is ending, maybe the system can trigger a renewal prompt or a special offer. If a business is seeing strong lead flow, maybe that is the moment to introduce another service to capture more demand.

This is where the model becomes especially compelling. The initial sale is not just another product in the catalog. It becomes a platform for deeper monetization.

From seasonal vendor to daily business partner

In the end, Nulman-Shapiro kept returning to the same idea: publishers become harder to cancel when they become part of the advertiser’s business, not just its marketing.

“You are essentially becoming infrastructure,” she said. “You’re going from providing a seasonal service to being a core infrastructure partner, providing a solution that your advertisers use day in, day out.” That kind of presence changes the relationship in practical ways. The advertiser sees the publisher’s brand every time a lead comes in. It relies on the platform repeatedly throughout the workday. The value is not limited to an end-of-month report.

For publishers under pressure to diversify revenue, improve retention and prove relevance to local advertisers, that may be the most important takeaway. The future of local media sales may depend less on inventing yet another ad product and more on solving the advertiser’s operational pain points.

Nulman-Shapiro put it plainly: “We’re not a vendor selling SaaS for you to use and billing you monthly. It’s a partnership. This is something that is supposed to generate revenue for you as a publisher, by reducing churn, unlocking new digital revenue and giving you something you can bill your advertisers for on a monthly basis.”

That is a meaningful shift in mindset. And for publishers tired of watching good campaigns lead to cancelled accounts, it may be one of the most practical paths forward.