How Semafor’s Rachel Oppenheim is prioritizing predictability in the ad business

By the end of 2023, Semafor’s first full calendar year, the company’s co-founder and CEO Justin Smith told Digiday that it achieved two profitable months — a feat for a media start-up that debuted October 2022 during the beginning of a backslide in the ad market. 

A quarter later, Semafor’s CRO Rachel Oppenheim took to the stage at the Digiday Publishing Summit in Vail, Colo. last week to discuss how her sales team was able to add 30 advertising clients to the roster in year one, including Microsoft — adding to the company’s 10 launch advertisers, like Genesis and Verizon — in order to achieve months of profitability. Oppenheim did not speak on their financial terms.

Oppenheim said the goal she instilled in her team was to “maintain a lot of control and momentum in our sales and go-to-market process, versus … being bogged down in the RFP swirl.” And then within those client pitches, she said her team has been focusing on selling its leadership demographic (20% of Semafor’s audience is a C-suite exec) and core products (events and newsletters), as well as tying its major tentpole moments to the known global leadership calendar. 

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