Insertion order template for out-of-home: what it must include

Every out-of-home sale runs through one document: the insertion order. It states who is advertising, where, when, for how much and who pays for what. But in the rush it often goes out half finished. A vague date here, a price with no discount there, and what was a closed deal turns into thirty days of messages trying to work out what was agreed.

It helps to separate two situations, because the risks are different. When the sale comes through an agency, the IO usually arrives ready, issued by them, and your job is to check it before accepting. When the sale is direct with the advertiser, the document is yours, and it has to be complete from the start.

The insertion order is what turns a conversation into revenue. When it goes out incomplete, the blame always lands on the media owner.

What a complete IO looks like

Before the field-by-field list, it helps to see the whole document. It's simpler than it sounds, and every block exists to answer a question someone will ask later.

What every insertion order needs

Use the list below to check your current template. You can tick items off as you go.

When the IO comes from the agency, check these

Before accepting, look at three things: whether the sites listed are exactly the ones you held, whether the period matches what is blocked in your inventory, and whether the net figure, after commission, is what was negotiated.

Then the most important part: release the hold and mark the period as sold at that same moment. An IO accepted and not entered is the beginning of a double booking.

An expensive mistake: the IO that never becomes an invoice

It happens more than you'd think. The campaign runs, the proof is sent, the client is happy, and the invoice never goes out because nobody noticed that IO was left behind.

Keeping a list of accepted IOs, showing what has run, what has been invoiced and what has been paid, solves this far better than any memory-based follow-up.

Where Hivestr comes in

Hivestr is an ERP/CRM built for OOH and DOOH operators, developed in Brazil by people who also run out-of-home media. The proposal becomes an insertion order, the order releases the hold in your availability and carries on to proof of posting and billing, with nobody rebuilding a document in Word for every sale.