AdTech Platforms Publishers Inside Agentic Advertising: Publishers, Platforms & Payments Agentic advertising has quickly become one of the most talked about topics in AdTech. AI agents buying and selling media on behalf of advertisers and publishers promises a more automated, efficient, and intelligent ecosystem. But beyond the headlines, where are we actually today? In Episode 2 of the Revving PubCast, our co-founders Chris Pettit and David Mandeno sat down with Andrew Mole, CEO of pubX. pubX connects publishers and advertisers through a transparent, data-driven marketplace built on five years of publisher-side trust and data. Its agentic technology operates across every auction in real time, helping drive better yields for publishers and stronger performance for advertisers. Together, they explored what agentic advertising really means in practice, where adoption stands today, and why the conversation extends far beyond media buying alone. Beyond the Hype Much of the discussion focused on separating genuine progress from industry excitement. While agentic advertising has become a major talking point, Andrew explained that adoption is still in its early stages. The technology is real, but the industry is moving through the work of testing, learning and proving where AI agents can create genuine value. Rather than replacing people, the opportunity lies in allowing software agents to manage the operational complexity that humans simply can’t optimise at scale. “It solves the human capital problem. Humans are limited by scale […] Agentic gives us the opportunity to get the best job done, not just get the job done.” Andrew Mole, CEO, pubX Putting Publishers Back at the Centre One of the strongest themes throughout the discussion was the role of publishers. Programmatic advertising has created extraordinary scale, but that scale hasn’t always translated into better outcomes for the publishers creating the inventory and audiences advertisers want to reach. Andrew argues that agentic advertising offers an opportunity to rebalance that relationship. By helping publishers surface the right audiences, package value more precisely, and transact more efficiently, agentic systems could give publishers greater control over how their inventory is valued and sold. As the conversation explores, the winners won’t simply be the platforms with the most automation, but the businesses that create the most value for the ecosystem. Simplifying a Complex Ecosystem Another theme that surfaced was operational complexity. AdTech has become dense with manual workflows, fragmented systems, and intermediaries built to solve specific problems. Over time, that has made the ecosystem harder to navigate for everyone involved. Rather than adding another layer, Andrew sees agentic advertising as a chance to simplify how work actually gets done. Routine tasks that consume traders, sales teams and AdOps functions today could increasingly be handled by agents, freeing people to focus on higher-value decisions, relationships and strategy. “AdTech has spent 15 years trying to fix the problems that AdTech has created [ …] Agentic gives us the opportunity to rewrite the strategic problems of the industry.” Andrew Mole, CEO, pubX Payments Can’t Stay Outside the Workflow While AI is transforming how media is bought and sold, Andrew, David and Chris highlighted another challenge sitting underneath the industry: payments. Campaigns may eventually become increasingly autonomous, but payment infrastructure still relies on processes and settlement cycles that were designed for a very different era. As David explains during the conversation: “Payment terms should be a choice that either participant of the transaction can choose into, rather than that being dictated.” David Mandeno, COO, Revving The discussion explores how financial infrastructure could evolve alongside agentic workflows, giving businesses greater flexibility over when revenue moves through the ecosystem rather than treating payment timing as a fixed constraint. Building What Comes Next The episode closes on a clear point. Agentic advertising isn’t just another optimisation layer; if it takes hold, it changes how media is transacted, how value is created, and how the infrastructure around those transactions needs to operate. As Andrew puts it: “I do think agentic is inevitable. I do think this is the way media is transacted, and I think in three years from now it’s going to be normalised.” Andrew Mole, CEO, pubX For publishers, there is immense opportunity to regain more control over how inventory is valued, how audiences are activated, and how value flows back through the ecosystem. That is what makes this conversation bigger than automation. It’s about what the next generation of advertising infrastructure could unlock, and who it’s ultimately built to serve. Watch the full episode above to hear the discussion in full. Learn more about pubX: https://pubx.ai/
AdTech Platforms What Happens To Payments When AI Agents Start Buying Media? A buyer agent queries seller agents for available inventory, assesses the options against a campaign brief, and executes the buy within agreed parameters. Budgets adjust as performance changes, and optimisation continues in the background. That idea would have sounded unrealistic in advertising not long ago. Increasingly, it doesn’t. Across AdTech, more businesses are exploring how agentic systems could automate parts of campaign execution that currently rely on manual coordination between traders, AdOps, teams, platforms, finance teams, and intermediaries. The appeal is obvious. Media buying environments are fragmented, operationally heavy, and increasingly difficult to manage manually at scale. Agentic systems promise faster coordination, better optimisation, and decision-making that reacts continuously to live campaign conditions. As the industry starts thinking more seriously about agent-to-agent advertising, another question follows underneath: what happens to the financial workflow behind those transactions? Advertising Systems are Starting to Act More Independently In many ways, agentic advertising feels like a natural extension of where programmatic infrastructure has already been heading for years. Campaigns already optimise automatically, inventory is traded programmatically, attribution, targeting, pacing, and bidding decisions increasingly happen in real time through systems reacting to live performance data. What agentic environments are doing is pushing that coordination further. Rather than workflows being managed manually between buyers, sellers, verification providers, and platforms, software agents begin handling more of those transactions directly. Buyer agents can discover and purchase inventory, seller agents can respond with pricing and availability, and campaigns can adjust dynamically as conditions change. The Financial Layer Hasn’t Evolved at the Same Pace The operational side of digital advertising already moves incredibly quickly. But even in highly automated advertising environments, liquidity coordination and payment handling still often sit inside long validation cycles, invoicing workflows, reconciliation processes, and extended settlement structures. In many cases, the transaction itself may happen in milliseconds, while the payment attached to it takes weeks or months to fully settle. That delay is creating pressure throughout the ecosystem. Agencies often end up carrying the working capital burden between media spend and advertiser payment. Affiliates can generate strong performance long before commissions become usable cash. Publishers continue serving demand while revenue sits inside validation and settlement processes run quietly in the background. None of this is new, but agentic environments make the disconnect between operational coordination and financial coordination much harder to ignore. Campaigns May Become Autonomous Before Payments Do As more transaction coordination starts happening directly between systems, liquidity handling and payment flexibility start becoming embedded more directly into the workflow itself rather than being managed separately afterwards. That’s one of the areas Revving is currently exploring through early testing around agentic transaction environments. In practical terms, that could mean a funding agent participating alongside buyer and seller systems to support enhanced payment terms or accelerated access to liquidity as part of the transaction flow itself. Agentic Workflows Also Create Richer Operational Signals One of the less talked about parts of agentic environments is the amount of operational information they naturally generate. Right now, understanding what’s happening financially across advertising workflows often requires stitching together reporting from multiple systems after the fact. Campaign delivery, payment status, reconciliation, settlement timing, and counterparty performance frequently sit in different places and update on different timelines. As more workflow coordination happens directly between systems, that visibility starts becoming much more continuous. Buyer agents, seller agents, verification systems, and funding infrastructure all generate signals around transaction behaviour, delivery validation, payment timing, and how counterparties are performing against agreed terms. For finance teams, that creates a much clearer operational picture than traditional reporting environments typically provide. It also creates opportunities for liquidity coordination to reflect live operational activity much more closely rather than relying heavily on historic reporting cycles and delayed financial documentation. That direction already aligns closely with Transactional-Based Funding, the liquidity model built around live transaction activity. Liquidity Starts becoming Part of the Workflow A lot of the attention around agentic advertising is focused on the media buy itself, but as more coordination starts happening directly between systems, the financial workflow attached to those transactions becomes part of the same conversation. Digital advertising already operates at a very different speed to the financial infrastructure underneath it. As more of the ecosystem becomes machine coordinated, there’s a growing pressure for the movement of money to become more connected to the pace of the activity itself. That’s one of the reasons Revving is exploring how liquidity infrastructure could operate inside agentic transaction environments, rather than sitting entirely outside them. If agents are going to coordinate the media buy, liquidity needs a place in that workflow too. That’s the opportunity Revving is exploring next. Speak with our team to learn more.
C-Suite & Executive CFO & Finance Leaders Why Payment Delays Are Becoming A Bigger Risk For Finance Teams Payment Delays are Reshaping how Finance Teams Operate In the US, 55% of B2B invoices are overdue, with similar levels recorded across Western Europe. Around 9% of credit-based B2B sales end up as bad debt, meaning a portion of that revenue is never recovered. The same pattern holds in the UK. At any given time, an estimated £26 billion in late payments is owed to small businesses. More than 28% of firms are affected each year, and late payments contribute to around 14,000 business closures annually, costing close to £11 billion. These figures have been consistent for years, and they point to delays being embedded in how businesses buy, sell, and settle payments, rather than the result of isolated operational issues. For finance teams, that creates a gap that has to be managed continuously: revenue is recorded on one timeline, cash arrives on another. Longer Payment Cycles are Extending Liquidity Pressure The effect of delayed payments is reflected in working capital metrics. Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) has increased by 6.6% over five years, which has pushed net working capital days higher and made liquidity harder to manage. Payment terms have extended alongside this. Allianz Trade reports that global payment terms averaged 62 days in 2024, with Europe close behind at 58. Cash conversion cycles show the same trend. Analysis of more than 2,700 US public companies shows the average cycle increased from 83 days in 2020 to 90 days in 2023, with only a slight improvement to 89 days in 2024. The impact is cumulative. When more capital sits in receivables, there is less available for reinvestment, and more reliance on external funding to maintain momentum. Some businesses try to manage this by extending their own supplier payment terms. While that can ease short-term pressure, it tends to push the delay further along the supply chain and lengthen the overall cash conversion cycle rather than reduce it. Limited Visibility is Widening the Gap As payment cycles get longer, it becomes harder to keep a clear, up-to-date view of cash. Only 17% of treasurers report having near real-time visibility into cash positions. A big part of that comes down to how financial data is set up, with many CFOs pointing to poor system integration and a lack of tools to bring data together as the main blockers. Even when the data exists, confidence in it isn’t high. Blackline found that 98% of finance leaders don’t fully trust their cash flow visibility, and over a third have concerns about the accuracy of their financial data. In most cases, that comes back to fragmented systems and processes that rely on manual work or spreadsheets. The result is that finance teams are often working with a lagged view of what’s happening. In the same survey by Blackline, nearly half of CFOs say they’re making decisions based on information they know may already be out of date, and a similar number say limited visibility makes it harder to respond to changes in the market. However, there’s a clear push to improve this, and CFOs are prioritising reporting, analytics, and transformation, but progress is still uneven. Only 22% of finance functions have a fully developed 3-5 year vision of their finance function. 46% see technology as the biggest barrier. Timing Gaps Increase Exposure to Fraud and Leakage When there’s a delay between activity, validation, and reporting, issues take longer to surface. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ 2024 Report to the Nations found that the median duration of fraud schemes is 12 months before detection. In 32% of cases, weak internal controls were a factor, with a further 19% involving overrides of existing controls. Those numbers reflect how long problems can sit inside a business before they are identified. Where validation cycles are slow and reporting is fragmented, it becomes harder to connect what’s happening in real time time with what’s being reviewed. That delay shows up in familiar ways: discrepancies take longer to reconcile, duplicate, or incorrect payments are harder to spot, and disputes remain open for longer than they should. Over time, that increases both the likelihood and the cost of issues. The longer something goes unnoticed, the more difficult it is to contain, and the more it impacts financial control. Liquidity Timing is Now a Governance Issue Liquidity timing is starting to be treated as a part of broader financial risk management, rather than just a working capital concern. EY and the Institute of International Finance reports that 66% of Chief Risk Officers now identify liquidity risk as the top financial risk, ahead of both retail and wholesale credit risk. Deloitte’s Global Corporate Treasury Survey shows that almost all treasury teams now view liquidity risk management as a core part of their role. That change is showing up in what finance teams are being asked to deliver. Reporting needs to be more accurate and more frequent, internal controls need to be tighter, and decisions are expected to be made faster, often across multiple markets and systems. Where payment timing is unpredictable, those requirements become harder to meet. Cash positions are less certain, reporting relies more heavily on assumptions, and it takes longer to build a clear picture of risk across the business. Ultimately, liquidity is no longer just something to manage in the background. It plays a much more direct role in how finance teams maintain control, support decision-making, and give confidence to the wider business. Aligning Liquidity, Visibility, and Control Payment delays, limited visibility, and risk exposure don’t sit separately. They build on each other. As payment cycles stretch, financial data becomes less immediate. That makes it harder to maintain a clear view of cash and ultimately more difficult for businesses to identify issues quickly and act with confidence. What changes this is bringing access to cash closer to when revenue is actually earned. Transactional-Based Funding does this by turning earned revenue into instant capital. By connecting directly to the platforms where revenue is generated, it uses transaction-level data to make capital available as revenue is earned, rather than waiting for invoices to be raised and processed. This changes how finance teams experience the timing gap. Access to capital moves closer to the point where value is created, and the same data that supports funding also improves visibility into revenue and expected cash flow. It also makes control easier to maintain. When transactions, funding, and repayment are linked, discrepancies are easier to identify and resolve, and reconciliation becomes less dependent on looking backwards to understand what has already happened. Where Liquidity Management is Heading Payment delays aren’t new, but the way they affect businesses has changed. As payment cycles have stretched, they’ve started to influence more than just cash flow. They shape how clearly finance teams can see what’s happening, how quickly they can respond, and how confidently they can make decisions. That becomes more noticeable as the pace of the digital economy increases. Revenue is generated continuously and tracked in detail, but access to that revenue still follows a slower, less connected process. Bringing liquidity closer to the point where revenue is generated changes that dynamic. It improves visibility, shortens the distance between activity and cash, and makes it easier to maintain control as businesses scale. If payment timing is influencing how your business operates, speak with our team today. They’ll show you how Revving’s approach to funding helps you keep control.
News Revving Named Awin Power 100 Partner Revving commended for value and innovation after beating competition from over one million partners. May 12 2026: We’re thrilled to announce that today we were named in the Awin Power 100: a globally recognised index of the 100 most innovative affiliate partners. Revving was one of only 100 companies selected from Awin’s network of over one million active partners across 35 countries, including AI shopping tools, price comparison sites, influencers, YouTubers, niche bloggers, FinTech pioneers, global media powerhouses, and coupon sites. Awin’s Most Diverse Power 100 Yet This year’s Power 100 is the most diverse yet, and includes organisations of all shapes and sizes, from billion-dollar enterprises and Series A backed startups. This reflects how affiliate partnerships are evolving beyond traditional models and offering advertisers greater opportunities to scale and grow. Brands on Awin are increasingly able to work with a wider range of partners to reduce dependency on other channels and support discovery, customer acquisition, brand awareness and long-term growth. As the ecosystem expands, the operational side of performance marketing becomes more important too. More partners, faster performance cycles, and increasingly global payment flows create additional pressure around liquidity, reconciliation, and access to earned revenue. That’s where Revving’s integration with Awin fits in. By connecting directly into the Awin platform, Revving helps affiliates and partners unlock earned commissions faster, reducing the friction created by long payment cycles and helping businesses scale with greater confidence. Why This Recognition Matters Being named in the Awin Power 100 reflects how the industry itself is changing. Affiliate marketing now operates in real time. Performance data updates continuously, campaigns optimise instantly, and revenue is generated every second. But access to that revenue still often depends on delayed commission cycles, reconciliation processes, and payment terms that were built for a much slower ecosystem. That gap creates operational pressure across the channel. Affiliates wait months to access earned commissions. Agencies and publishers carry working capital pressure while campaigns continue to scale. Growth becomes tied to payment timing rather than performance itself. That’s the problem Revving was built to solve. Through our Transactional-Based Funding model, we help affiliates, publishers, platforms, and digital businesses unlock earned revenue using live transaction data, giving them faster access to liquidity without relying on traditional funding structures or delayed invoice cycles. As conversations around payment timing, liquidity, and financial infrastructure become more prominent across affiliate marketing, being recognised by Awin feels like an important signal that these operational challenges are becoming impossible to ignore. Chris Pettit, CEO & Co-Founder of Revving shared: “In affiliate marketing, the transaction is rarely the whole story. The real value sits in the relationships behind it. The partner who understands your model, the network who knows where the friction sits, the advertiser who sees long-term value, not just last-click performance. That’s why being named to the Awin’s Power 100 is so meaningful for Revving. It’s not just recognition of what we’re building, it’s recognition of how we’re building it.” See the full Awin Power 100 list.
Affiliate Partners & Networks What’s Actually Changing In Affiliate Marketing Right Now Awin’s ThinkTank Americas event in Chicago brought together a vast mix of partners, platforms, and publishers from across the globe. Many conferences of this scale have a tendency to focus on what might happen next. ThinkTank leaned into what’s already changing. Across sessions and panels, conversations pointed to how the affiliate channel is evolving in real time, and a few themes kept resurfacing. The Channel is Expanding in Scope Affiliate marketing has officially evolved into a full-funnel strategy, transitioning from a strictly conversion-focused activity at the bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU). Sessions exploring performance PR, commerce content, and the “narrative economy” highlighted how affiliates are increasingly involved in upper-funnel brand awareness and mid-funnel consideration, not just conversion. Mike Cessario, CEO & Founder of Liquid Death, reinforced this from a brand perspective. In his keynote session, he shared how creativity and cultural relevance can be used to scale a business far beyond performance channels alone – taking the company from a start up to a $1.4 billion beverage powerhouse. It’s clear that this shift creates more opportunity, but it also adds more responsibility. The role of affiliate partners has become broader, and expectations around content, positioning, and influence are continuing to increase alongside it. AI is Already Embedded in the Way the Channel Operates AI wasn’t positioned as something that’s on the horizon. It’s already having a huge influence on how affiliate programmes are run. Awin’s product sessions on Building for an AI Future, alongside a keynote from Lily Ray, VP of SEO Strategy and Research at Amsive, on AI-driven discovery, pointed to just how quickly things are changing. From how partners are surfaced to how campaigns are optimised, AI is compressing timelines and changing how decisions are made. Discovery is shifting as well. As AI-driven search becomes more prominent, how consumers find and evaluate brands is evolving. The effect is subtle in places, but it builds over time. Execution is faster, iteration is quicker, and the pace of change is becoming harder to ignore. Growth is Fragmented Across Markets As the channel expands, differences between markets are becoming more visible. Sessions like Two Continents. 10 Markets. 40 Minutes and Global Channel, Local Rules, highlighted how approaches to attribution, transparency, and partner relationships vary widely, and what works in one region doesn’t necessarily translate cleanly into another. On the one hand, that creates opportunity, but it adds a layer of complexity at the same time. Businesses looking to scale internationally are navigating a more fragmented landscape, where consistency is much harder to maintain. Underneath it all, There’s a More Practical Constraint Alongside these broader shifts, there was a more operational reality sitting underneath many of the discussions. Affiliate marketing runs on performance. Revenue is generated continuously and tracked in detail. But access to that revenue follows a very different timeline. During the Getting the Most Out of the Awin Platform session, Christopher Pettit (Revving), Natasha Griffiths (Awin), and Rachel Tyrer (Awin) walked through how the Awin platform is evolving and how partners can get more out of it. Part of that conversation focused on how access to commissions fits into that evolution. Revving and Awin’s integration was discussed in that context, highlighting how through Revving’s Transactional-Based Funding model, partners can access earned commissions earlier, rather than waiting for standard payment cycles to run their course. A Channel That’s Moving Ahead of its Infrastructure ThinkTank Americas made one thing clear: the affiliate channel is evolving fast. Its role is expanding, the tools supporting it are becoming more advanced, and expectations continue to rise. For that progress to translate into sustained growth, the infrastructure supporting it must keep up. That includes how revenue is accessed, not just how it’s generated. What was once a background consideration is now part of the conversation. Payment timing is being discussed alongside topics like AI, discovery, and partner strategy, reflecting how closely it’s tied to performance and growth. As the channel continues to evolve, faster access to commissions is increasingly seen as part of enabling that growth, rather than just a financial detail. At Revving, we’re focused on helping platforms and partners access their earned revenue to support their growth and the growth of the entire affiliate ecosystem. Speak to the Revving team to explore how faster access to earned revenue can support your business today.
News Transactional-Based Funding Is Turning Earned Revenue Into Instant Capital Revenue Moves Fast. Cash Doesn’t The digital economy moves in real time. Campaigns are launched, optimised, and scaled and performance is visible, measurable, and constantly evolving. But when you look at how revenue turns into cash, the pace changes. Payment cycles still stretch out to 60, 90, 120+ days, even though the underlying activity has already taken place. That gap between activity and payment sits in the background, but it has a real impact on how businesses operate. “The industry moves at lightning speed, but the infrastructure behind finance and payments is still really analogue. It’s more like a carrier pigeon than a rocket ship.” Chris Pettit, CEO & Co-Founder, Revving Why Does This Gap Persist? The way money moves through the digital economy hasn’t kept pace with the systems that generate revenue. A large part of that comes down to how revenue is formalised. Invoices still act as the trigger for payment, even in environments where the underlying activity is already recorded and verified in real time. That introduces delay by default. Revenue is earned, then documented, then checked, then approved, and only then paid. Each step has a purpose, but together they create distance between the activity itself and access to cash. Over time, that delay starts to shape how businesses operate. Capital is tied up when it’s needed most, and decisions around growth, hiring, and investment are made based on when money is expected to arrive, rather than what performance supports. How Payment Structure Shapes Liquidity The gap between earning revenue and receiving cash is built into how payments are processed. Invoices sit at the centre of that process. Even when transactions are recorded and visible in real time, payment is still triggered by documentation that comes later. This means that over time, cash flow planning becomes tied to expected payment dates rather than what has already been delivered. In fast-moving environments, that creates hesitation at the point where speed would otherwise be an advantage. Traditional Funding Doesn’t Fully Close the Gap Funding is often used once the delay is already in place. By that point, revenue has been earned, invoices have been raised, and the process of validation is underway. Most funding models sit on top of that sequence rather than changing it. Access to capital is still tied to the same checkpoints – invoices being issued, approved, and accepted – before anything can move. Capital becomes available only once revenue has been formalised, not when it is first generated. By then, the moment where it would have been most useful (when campaigns are live, demand is increasing, and decisions need to be made quickly), has already passed. There are also structural constraints to work around. Facilities are typically fixed, reviewed periodically, and shaped around historical performance rather than current activity. The outcome is that funding can support the business, but it rarely matches the pace at which revenue is earned or needs to be deployed. Transactional-Based Funding is Built Around Live Transaction Activity Instead of waiting for revenue to be formalised through invoices, Transactional-Based Funding turns earned revenue into instant capital by unlocking verified transaction data. The process of TBF follows a simple flow: Direct Access to Revenue Data Digital platforms and marketplaces are connected directly, allowing confirmed, transaction-level earnings to be accessed as they are recorded. Real-Time Validation Each transaction is verified continuously, removing the need for manual checks and the delays that come with invoice-based processes. Capital Released in Line with Activity As revenue is validated, funds are made available. Access to capital moves alongside performance, rather than waiting for it to be documented and processed later. Continuous Reconciliation Advances, repayments, and underlying earnings are tracked on an ongoing basis, providing a clear and up-to-date view of position. Because funding is based on verified transaction data, it can be deployed much closer to the point at which revenue is generated. Access to capital follows the activity itself, rather than waiting for it to be formalised and processed further downstream. How Transactional-Based Funding is Managed Day to Day Transactional-Based Funding is powered by data, but it needs to be usable in practice. Revving’s customer portal, RevHub, is the interface for Transactional-Based Funding. At its core, it replaces fragmented reporting and manual tracking with a single, real-time view. Revenue, advances, and collections are visible all in one place, broken down by programme, payor, and currency. Access to funding sits within that same environment. Capital can be requested directly, without stepping outside the platform or waiting for separate approvals. As underlying transactions are validated, availability updates accordingly. Reporting is also built around how digital businesses actually operate. Revenue, commissions, and advances can be filtered and analysed in real time, making it easier to understand current position, track exposure, and support forecasting and month-end processes. For businesses managing multiple programmes or revenue sources, that visibility becomes more important. RevHub connects those streams into a single view, removing the need to reconcile data across systems. The result is a clearer, more immediate understanding of both performance and liquidity, without the delays and manual processes that typically sit around funding decisions. Why This Matters for the Industry When funding aligns more closely with the underlying activity, it reduces the burden on businesses that would otherwise have to absorb delays. Payments reach partners more consistently, and working capital is less concentrated at specific points in the chain, easing the strain created by long payment cycles. Extended payment terms have been a long-standing constraint across the digital economy, limiting how quickly businesses can operate and grow. Through our Transactional-Based Funding model, Revving is projected to fund up to £1.8 billion to UK digital businesses over the next three years, alongside continued expansion and growth in the US market. The impact extends beyond individual companies. According to the IAB, that level of capital injection could have a 4.8x multiplier effect, generating a potential £8.6 billion boost to the UK economy. Transactional-Based Funding Reflects How the Industry Operates Today The digital economy has evolved around speed, data, and continuous activity. Funding models are starting to reflect that. As expectations shift, the gap between real-time activity and delayed access to capital becomes more difficult to justify. For businesses generating revenue continuously but still operating around long payment cycles, it’s worth taking a closer look at how that delay is shaping decision making. Talk to the Revving team today to learn about Transactional-Based Funding and how it can turn your earned revenue into instant capital.
AdTech Platforms The Economics of Advertising Have Changed. The Industry Hasn’t Caught Up By Chris Pettit, CEO & Co-Founder of Revving. Most industry events talk about what’s coming. This one tackled what’s already happening. The Advertising Economic Forum NYC didn’t feel like a conference. It felt like a room full of operators quietly acknowledging the same thing: The economics of advertising have changed. The infrastructure hasn’t. The Industry is Growing, But the Model is Under Pressure On paper, the advertising industry looks very strong. Global Digital ad spend is approaching $900 billion, within a $1.2 trillion total market. Growth is being driven by platforms like Google, Meta, Amazon and TikTok – who now control more than half of that spend. So yes, the market is growing. But zoom in, and the story changes. S&P 500 earnings are up ~12%. Agency revenues? Largely flat. We’re seeing that growth isn’t disappearing. It’s concentrating. And when growth concentrates, pressure follows. Power, Scale, and Control are Shifting As spend consolidates, so does power. Players like The Trade Desk and Publicis aren’t just participating in the ecosystem anymore. They’re re-shaping it. Which raised an important question. Does scale outperform transparency? This isn’t just a commercial question, it’s a structural one. As the ecosystem becomes more complex and more automated, understanding where value sits – and who controls it – becomes harder. And with that, trust becomes more important, but also more difficult to maintain. AI is Accelerating Change – Unevenly AI was across the agenda, but the nuance was important: adoption isn’t uniform across industries. Some sectors, like automotive and financial services, are moving quickly out of necessity. Others are still working out how to apply it meaningfully. At the same time, consumer behaviour is shifting faster than enterprise adoption. Regardless of industry, AI is compressing timelines. Campaigns are built faster. Planning cycles are shorter. Targeting is more dynamic. And in some cases, the traditional funnel is being bypassed entirely – replaced by AI systems surfacing high-intent demand without the journey we’ve spent years optimising for. Whilst that creates opportunities, it also creates pressure on everything around it to keep up. New Growth is Coming. Just Not Where You’re Used to Looking Looking ahead, there’s significant growth expected. There’s another $365 billion in ad spend anticipated over the next five years. But in a few unexpected spaces including: Retail media Influencer marketing Addressable video Community focused platforms (e.g. Reddit) AI-driven discovery environments At the same time, traditional channels continue to decline, with a few exceptions like live sports. The Real Question No One Could Ignore Across all of these discussions of scale, AI, new channels, power dynamics – there was a more practical and operational tension. How does the industry actually operate day-to-day in this new era? Because while performance, targeting and distribution are accelerating quickly, the underlying mechanics and business operations are not. And this gap presents itself in: How quickly businesses can act on opportunity How confidently businesses can invest How businesses can manage partners across increasingly complex value chains A lot of businesses aren’t just struggling with strategy, they’re also struggling with the operations behind that strategy. Where This Starts to Matter In one session, I spoke alongside Tom Triscari (Co-Founder of Advertising Economic Forum) and Sarah Glickman (CFO of Criteo) and the conversation shifted from theory to reality. We spoke about how advertising moves fast, but often the money behind it doesn’t always keep up. We spent time unpacking the practical realities of that gap, how working capital is managed across long, fragmented value chains, where pressure builds, and why payment terms and liquidity are becoming increasingly strategic. This isn’t theoretical. It shows up in the day-to-day mechanics of the business: How quickly campaigns can actually be funded How partner and supplier expectations are managed Where financial pressure builds and who ends up carrying it The advertising ecosystem has become faster, more dynamic, more performance-driven. But the financial infrastructure supporting it still operates like it’s 2016. That’s not a small inefficiency. It’s a structural constraint. The Implication If the industry is already operating on a new model, then the infrastructure around it needs to evolve with it. Financially, not just operationally. Because pace isn’t just a function of technology anymore. It’s a function of economics. The ability to act, invest, and scale increasingly comes down to how well your financial model matches the reality of how advertising now works. That was the underlying takeaway from the Advertising Economic Forum. Not a prediction of what’s next, but a recognition of what’s already changed. The models, speed, and opportunities in advertising have moved forward. The way money moves hasn’t kept up. And that gap isn’t just inefficiency. It’s where friction builds, decisions slow down, and growth gets constrained. It’s also where the next phase of advantage will be created. Not just in better campaigns. In better economics. At Revving, we’re helping digital businesses create this advantage by aligning revenue with performance. Talk to our team today to learn more.
CFO & Finance Leaders Capital Flexibility: Why Modern Finance Teams use Multiple Funding Options In the digital economy, the challenge for finance teams isn’t simply access to capital, it’s timing and control. In markets where revenue is earned continuously but paid out slowly, relying on a single source of capital introduces unnecessary risk because timing is misaligned with how the business actually operates. Modern finance teams are moving away from one-dimensional funding strategies and are instead deliberately designing diversified capital stacks that preserve optionality, protect balance-sheet integrity, and give greater control over when and how liquidity is deployed. The Hidden Cost of Singular Funding Sources Long payment cycles have quietly become an accepted feature of many digital businesses. Revenue may be recognised in real time, but settlement often arrives months later. Over time, this disconnect introduces a structural timing gap between performance and cash availability. When finance teams rely on a single funding source – whether that be a bank facility, retained earnings, or a traditional form of receivables financing – that timing gap becomes a constraint. Capital may exist on paper, but it isn’t always accessible when decisions need to be made. The risk here is subtle but significant. Singular funding structures expose businesses to: Delayed investment despite strong performance signals Deferred hiring and growth initiatives Conservative decision-making driven by cash arrival, not opportunity For CFOs, this creates timing risk: not simply a lack of capital, but a lack of usable capital at the moment it matters most. Capital Flexibility as a Strategic Enabler In contrast, capital flexibility is about designing choice into the funding model. It recognises that not all capital serves the same purpose and that different funding sources can play different roles depending on timing, commitment, and dependency. A flexible capital structure typically blends: Timing: slower, lower-cost capital for structural needs alongside faster, performance-aligned liquidity for operational moments. Commitment: long-term facilities that provide depth, paired with short-term options that deliver agility. Dependency: Multiple sources that reduce reliance on any single provider. The result is a funding stack that lets finance teams act at the moment performance occurs, not weeks or months later when cash finally settles. This shift is consistent with what treasury teams are prioritising. HSBC, citing Deloitte’s 2024 Global Corporate Treasury Study, notes that 62% of treasurers rank enhancing liquidity management as their top priority, signalling that cash timing is now treated as strategic infrastructure, not back-office optimisation. How Modern Teams Structure Capital Stacks High-performing finance teams don’t pursue multiple funding options for variety’s sake. They design capital stacks that reflect the rhythm of the business and the realities of revenue timing. In practice, this often includes: 1. Core Liquidity Stable access via retained cash, revolving credit facilities, or traditional bank lines that support baseline operations and buffer routine cycles. 2. Performance-Aligned Liquidity Capital that scales with revenue actually earned (rather than waiting for invoices to clear), allowing teams to reinvest while performance signals are still live. 3. Contingent, On-Demand Options Flexible sources that can be turned on and off without long-term commitment, used to bridge timing gaps without permanently altering the capital structure. A useful proof point here: Atradius’ US survey shows companies already use a mix of financing sources (trade credit, invoice financing, bank loans, internal funds), reinforcing that ‘one facility solves everything’ is increasingly detached from reality. Why “Playing Well With Others” Matters in Finance One of the biggest barriers to adopting new funding options is balance-sheet impact. Many traditional lending and factoring products change the composition of a company’s balance sheet in ways that introduce friction elsewhere. Loans increase liabilities; secured facilities add covenants. Some factoring arrangements can be structured in ways that behave like leverage, which matters when your world is covenant headroom, investor optics, and board scrutiny. This is where capital flexibility gets practical: the best “additional” liquidity is the kind that doesn’t break everything else. “If liquidity improves but it impairs your ability to service existing debt or meet investor expectations, it’s not flexibility – it’s trade-off. The point you want to reach is staying liquid without disrupting the rest of your capital structure.”Tobias Jaeger, VP of Financial Solutions Capital Flexibility Without Balance-Sheet Trade-Offs One of the reasons finance teams hesitate to add new funding options is balance-sheet impact. Many traditional lending and factoring products introduce friction elsewhere: added liabilities, tighter covenants, or structural complexity that affects existing debt, equity, or investor expectations. By contrast, funding models designed to operate in parallel with existing debt and equity structures allow finance teams to increase liquidity without disruption. This enables CFOs to: Improve liquidity without reshaping the balance sheet Preserve headroom on existing facilities Support growth while maintaining confidence among lenders and investors This is the category Revving operates in. Through our Transactional-Based Funding (TBF) model, earned revenue is unlocked using real-time transaction data. The result is flexible access to liquidity that supports capital flexibility without adding leverage or impairing existing funding structures. Capital Flexibility Beyond Risk Mitigation The benefits of capital flexibility extend beyond protecting the business when conditions tighten. They directly influence how finance teams back performance. With multiple funding options in place, teams can: Activate opportunities as they emerge, not after settlements land Pay partners and suppliers on time during peak periods, strengthening trust Negotiate from a position of control rather than constraint These advantages compound over time. Teams that can act when performance signals are live consistently make better decisions than those forced to wait. Balancing Flexibility With Discipline It’s important to be clear: capital flexibility is not about carrying excess funding or borrowing indiscriminately. True flexibility prioritises precision over volume. Each funding option should serve a defined purpose, with a clear understanding of cost, timing relevance, and strategic fit. The most resilient finance teams maintain discipline by aligning capital deployment to performance, not precaution. What This all Means for Finance Leaders For CFOs and finance leaders, the question is no longer whether capital exists. It’s whether capital is usable when decisions need to be made and whether accessing it introduces trade-offs elsewhere. Relying on a single funding source may feel simple, but it concentrates timing risk and quietly constrains strategic choice, particularly in the digital economy where payment cycles often lag performance. Designing a capital stack with multiple, complementary funding options spreads that risk and preserves control. The strongest capital stacks are built around compatibility: each source serves a different role, supporting liquidity without disrupting the wider structure. Transactional-Based Funding can operate as a balance-sheet-friendly layer within an existing funding stack, unlocking earned revenue without adding leverage, impairing covenants, or forcing trade-offs between liquidity and structure. Get in touch with our team to learn how our Transactional-Based Funding model can integrate alongside your existing facilities and improve access to earned revenue – without balance-sheet trade-offs.
Agencies & Media Buyers Creator Economy Fixing The 90-120 Day Payment Gap In The Creator Economy The 90-120 Day Payment Gap is Structurally Breaking Creator Models Creator marketing continues to scale globally, but the commercial mechanics haven’t evolved at the same pace. Advertisers routinely operate on 60, 90, or 120-day payment terms. Validation cycles, invoicing processes, and reconciliation delays extend settlement even further. At the same time, creators expect speed. Agencies and platforms sit directly in the middle of that timing mismatch. They’re responsible for: Managing talent relationships Delivering campaigns on schedule Paying creators reliably Preserving brand confidence Yet the revenue required to do so often lands months after performance is delivered. This 90-120 day gap is not a minor inconvenience. It’s a structural liquidity constraint. Why Creator Payments Become the First Pressure Point Creator agencies and creator platforms are built on speed, relationships, and delivery. When advertiser payments are delayed, liquidity pressure doesn’t sit quietly on a balance sheet, it surfaces operationally. Agencies are forced to choose whether to: Use internal reserves to bridge the gap Delay creator payouts Slow campaign rollouts None of these options are sustainable at scale. Late payments are widely recognised as a persistent issue across B2B markets. Atradius’ Global Payment Practices Barometer consistently reports that over 50% of B2B invoices are paid late worldwide. In layered digital ecosystems, delays compound across intermediaries. When creators are paid late: Confidence erodes Momentum slows Top talent looks elsewhere Brand trust weakens It’s for these reasons that agencies managing dozens or hundreds of creators should consider payment timing a part of their core infrastructure, not a perk. Creator Payment Advances as Infrastructure, Not a Perk Creator payment advances are often framed as a convenience for creators. In reality, instant access to approved campaign revenue is a liquidity strategy for agencies and platforms. An advance allows approved campaign revenue to be accessed before advertiser settlement. The receivable remains intact, but the timing gap is bridged. This changes the operating dynamic entirely. Instead of financing the gap using internal cash reserves, agencies can: Pay creators on time Keep campaigns moving Avoid draining working capital Maintain predictable payout cycles Instant access to approved revenue, when structured correctly, stabilise the ecosystem. They shift liquidity timing from a reactive stress point to a designed capability. The Competitive Implication: Talent Loyalty and Deal Leverage Speed is a competitive asset in the creator economy. Creators gravitate toward agencies and platforms that move quickly, pay reliably, and remove friction. Agencies that can offer fast, predictable payouts differentiate themselves in the talent market. At the same time, agencies must manage brand relationships carefully. Delayed campaigns due to funding friction weaken advertiser confidence and stall growth. Liquidity timing therefore influences both creator loyalty and brand trust. Creator payment advances enable agencies to maintain control over both without waiting for brands to settle on day 120. Why Traditional Funding Often Falls Short Bridging 90-120 day payment gaps repeatedly requires funding infrastructure. Retained earnings alone are rarely sufficient at scale. Traditional bank facilities may add leverage, introduce covenants, or restrict deployment flexibility. For finance leaders, the concern isn’t just access to capital, it’s balance-sheet impact. Secured lending increases liabilities. Some factoring arrangements treat advances as debt, affecting leverage ratios and investor perception. In performance-driven creator ecosystems, agencies need liquidity that: Works alongside existing facilities Doesn’t introduce additional covenants Preserves balance-sheet integrity Aligns with campaign delivery timelines This is where capital flexibility becomes essential. Liquidity Timing as Ecosystem Control The creator economy runs on trust and momentum. Delayed advertiser payment cycles are unlikely to disappear. What differentiates agencies is how they manage the gap. Creator payment advances, supported by flexible funding infrastructure, allow agencies and platforms to: Keep creators paid Keep campaigns moving Protect working capital Outpace competitors constrained by settlement cycles Liquidity timing is no longer a back-office consideration. It shapes execution, talent strategy, and growth velocity. What This Means for Finance Leaders For CFOs and finance leaders operating in creator agencies and creator platforms, the issue isn’t whether advances are desirable, it’s whether they’re funded sustainably. When liquidity can be accessed without increasing leverage or disrupting capital structures, creator payment advances become a strategic tool, not a cash drain. The right funding model allows agencies to: Offer industry-leading payout terms Strengthen talent retention Maintain advertiser confidence Scale without friction In a competitive creator economy, liquidity must be treated as infrastructure. Aligning Liquidity with Performance Revving’s Transactional-Based Funding (TBF) model addresses the payment timing gap by aligning liquidity with how revenue is actually generated. Rather than relying on invoices or traditional lending triggers, Revving connects directly into digital platforms and marketplaces where campaign activity and revenue are recorded. By ingesting transaction and revenue data from these environments, funding can be activated based on verified performance signals. This enables agencies and platforms to access revenue earlier, rather than waiting months for advertiser payments to settle. Because funding is driven by transaction data, liquidity moves closer to the pace of campaign delivery. Agencies can pay creators on time, maintain campaign momentum, and reinvest into new opportunities without financing the gap themselves. And it’s not about replacing traditional facilities (TBF operates in parallel with existing processes). It’s about adding a balance-sheet-friendly liquidity layer that aligns funding with performance delivery. Fix the 90-120 Day Gap Without Restructuring Your Capital Stack If your agency is consistently bridging the gap between advertiser settlement and creator payout cycles, that gap is already shaping your liquidity position. Transactional-Based Funding is designed to operate alongside existing facilities, not replace them. It unlocks approved campaign revenue early, allowing you to fund creator payouts without increasing balance-sheet leverage. Talk to our team today to learn how Revving can integrate into your existing funding stack to align liquidity with campaign performance.
CFO & Finance Leaders How To Use Flexible Funding To Gain A Competitive Advantage In the digital economy, capital isn’t simply hard to access, it’s hard to use at the right moment. Revenue is generated in real time, performance data updates continuously, campaigns, partnerships, and platforms scale dynamically. Yet the financial infrastructure supporting many digital businesses still operates on long, inflexible payment cycles. For finance teams, competitive advantage no longer comes from how much capital is available in theory. It comes from how precisely liquidity can be deployed in practice. This is where flexible funding becomes a strategic tool. Used deliberately, it allows finance teams to reinvest faster, preserve optionality, and support growth decisions without locking the business into rigid commitments. In other words, it’s not just about access to capital, it’s about how you use it to create advantage. Using Flexible Funding Instead of Capital Volume to Create Advantage For years, strong balance sheets and large funding facilities were treated as markers of financial strength. In slower, more predictable markets, that assumption largely held. Today, capital volume alone rarely delivers advantage. Many finance teams operate with healthy revenues and committed funding, yet still find themselves sequencing decisions around cash arrival rather than opportunity. Hiring plans are phased, media spend is throttled, and expansion is delayed. Not because performance is uncertain, but because liquidity is locked behind extended payment terms. Recent industry analysis shows that extended payment terms are no longer an edge case in digital advertising, they are becoming structurally embedded. Many adtech suppliers and intermediaries now wait well over 100 days to be paid, with some major brands reportedly pushing payment terms as far as 360 days. These delays don’t reflect performance risk or delivery failure; they are a by-product of payment practices that shift working capital pressure downstream. In effect, agencies and intermediaries are forced to finance growth on behalf of their clients and absorb timing risks that sit entirely outside their control. Finance teams that gain an edge don’t simply raise more capital to absorb these delays. They use flexible funding to realign liquidity with how value is actually created, restoring control over timing without increasing balance-sheet exposure. Where Finance Teams can use Flexible Funding to Remove Decision Drag The impact of slow payments is rarely dramatic. It’s cumulative. Liquidity delays don’t usually stop decisions outright; instead, they narrow the range of decisions that feel safe. This results in teams hesitating not because ideas are unproven, but because cash hasn’t arrived yet. Over time, this shapes behaviour: Growth initiatives are sequenced around settlement dates Investment is paced conservatively despite strong performance signals Risk tolerance declines even when data supports action Across the UK economy, this pattern is widespread. Coface’s 2025 UK Payment Survey found that 90% of companies experienced late payments, with average delays of 32 days beyond agreed terms. Finance teams that deploy flexible funding use it specifically to remove this friction. By unlocking liquidity in line with earned performance, they prevent timing from dictating strategy and keep decisions aligned to opportunity rather than cash arrival. How Flexible Funding Preserves Optionality in Volatile Markets In stable conditions, locked-in capital can feel efficient. In uncertain markets, rigidity becomes expensive. Fixed structures reduce the ability to respond to shifting demand, pricing pressure, or performance signals. This is where flexible funding becomes an operating advantage rather than a financial convenience. Used correctly, it allows finance teams to: Scale investment when performance justifies it Pull back without penalty when conditions change Avoid carrying excess capital “just in case” The strongest finance teams aren’t those that commit the most capital. They’re the ones that preserve optionality and can redeploy liquidity quickly without destabilising the business. The Cost Myth: Flexible Funding Doesn’t Have to be More Expensive A persistent misconception remains: flexible funding is expensive. This belief is rooted in legacy lending models where speed and optionality are priced as risk premiums. In reality, what’s often expensive isn’t flexibility, it’s inflexibility. Rigid funding structures hide costs in less visible places: Missed reinvestment windows Delayed scaling despite proven performance Margin erosion from waiting Opportunity cost that never appears on a balance sheet Flexible funding makes costs visible, but it also reduces the total economic cost of capital by aligning liquidity with real performance. Industry analysis supports this shift. Industry bodies including IAB UK have consistently highlighted how extended payment terms and slow cash conversion cycles constrain liquidity across the digital advertising supply chain. These dynamics have intensified scrutiny on funding models that can accelerate cash flow without placing additional balance-sheet pressure on agencies and publishers. The finance teams that gain a competitive edge evaluate flexible funding not by headline cost alone, but by how effectively it reduces opportunity cost, preserves margins, and accelerates reinvestment. What Flexible Funding Looks Like When Built for the Digital Economy The reason flexible funding has historically been associated with higher cost is simple: most funding models weren’t designed for how digital revenue is actually earned. Traditional facilities price uncertainty because they rely on delayed invoices, manual validation, and balance-sheet risk. In contrast, newer models are emerging that fund against verified transaction data and assess payor risk, not the customer’s balance sheet. This shift changes the economics entirely. When funding is aligned to real performance and reliable counterparties, flexibility no longer needs to be priced as a premium. Instead, it becomes a more efficient way to unlock capital – without the rigidity, long-term commitments, or hidden opportunity costs that come with legacy structures. Revving operates in this category. Its approach is built around transaction-led revenue and real-time performance data, enabling finance teams to access liquidity in line with how value is created, not months after the fact. How Leading Finance Teams Treat Liquidity as a Strategic Input Traditionally, liquidity has been treated as an operational outcome: forecasted, managed, and reported. In performance-driven businesses, liquidity timing has become a strategic input. It actively shapes: Growth pacing Hiring decisions Partner stability Board-level confidence When capital arrives long after value is created, finance leaders are forced into reactive positions. Even strong forecasting can’t overcome a structural mismatch between performance and settlement. This is why finance teams increasingly ask: ‘Where does timing create hidden bottlenecks?’ ‘How quickly can we redeploy capital when performance accelerates?’ ‘What flexibility do we actually have under changing conditions?’ These questions determine whether finance can actively enable strategy or simply manage around delay. The Competitive Edge: Making Earned Performance Usable Used deliberately, flexible funding delivers a clear competitive edge: it makes earned performance usable at the moment decisions need to be made. Finance teams with access to timely, performance-aligned liquidity can reinvest while signals are still live, protect momentum through long settlement periods, and avoid sequencing decisions around delayed cash. Instead of managing growth around payment cycles, they can act on performance when it matters most. This advantage compounds at scale. Over the next three years, Revving expects to fund up to £1.8bn into UK digital businesses – capital that would otherwise remain locked inside extended payment cycles. Analysis referenced by IAB UK suggests that accelerating working capital at this scale could deliver a 4.8× GDP multiplier, equating to a potential £8.6bn uplift to the UK economy. That context reinforces the point: when earned revenue becomes usable sooner, its impact multiplies well beyond individual firms. The Takeaway Flexible funding has become a competitive advantage because it addresses a core constraint modern finance teams face: the gap between revenue earned and revenue available for use. Applied strategically, flexibility reduces risk. It preserves optionality, supports confident decision making, and allows finance teams to back performance without committing the balance sheet too early. This is the shift Revving was built to support. Funding aligned with how the digital economy actually operates, giving finance leaders greater control over when and how capital is deployed. Book a demo to see how Revving’s Transactional-Based Funding supports capital flexibility without locking finance teams into rigid structures.
