How PubMatic Signs Contracts More Efficiently With the Help of Ironclad

Challenges: Reimagining PubMatic’s manual contracting process

PubMatic’s manual contracting process was an opportunity to increase the efficiency of its legal operations through automation.

The challenge was exacerbated by PubMatic’s global reach, with legal having to process not just large volumes of commercial contracts, but also work across different time zones and in different languages.

Without the right tools in place, the contracting process was time-consuming.

PubMatic’s sales team was keen to improve upon the lengthy contracting process.

“We would email our MSAs (Master Service Agreements) back and forth with publishers, redlining, attaching the right version, and double-checking,” says Lorena. “It was a long and frustrating process for all involved.”

To automate its ability to close deals with publishers, PubMatic decided to implement Ironclad’s digital contracting solution—and Lorena was an integral part of rolling it out.

“If we could centralize everything in one place with Ironclad, the whole process would go smoother,” says Lorena.

Ironclad’s Digital Contracting Solution

While most of the PubMatic sales team welcomed Ironclad, some were reluctant because they liked knowing precisely when contracts were sent out for signature.

Fortunately, Ironclad had the flexibility to resolve those concerns.

“We set up automatic notifications that are triggered whenever contracts are sent out. Now, the person who opens the workflow is automatically copied when the contract is sent. It was a big sticking point at first, but it was easily resolved,” explains Lorena.

Workflows shorten sales cycles

Not having to manually email PDFs is just one area where Ironclad’s automation is saving sales and legal valuable time. Rather than having to prepare a PDF, upload it to Adobe Sign, attach it to an email and then send it out, everything is done at the touch of a button.

“It saves me at least two to five minutes every time I send out a contract,” says Lorena. “All I have to do is click.”

Workflow automation also ensures that contracts aren’t lost in email inboxes or delayed if the salesperson is unavailable.

“With Ironclad, I can see when the publisher has responded and is ready to sign,” says Lorena.

Now, it’s not unusual to sign off contracts in just a matter of days—and sometimes even the same day.

“Some contracts are opened in New York in the morning and are signed off on the Pacific coast before the day is done,” says Lorena.

Facilitating collaboration among legal, sales and finance

Today, Ironclad is helping legal, sales, and finance to work together.

“Ironclad’s seamless, easy communication tools have greatly facilitated collaboration amongst our teams,” says Lorena.

For example, the finance team was manually reviewing contracts to retrieve billing information and then inputting that information into spreadsheets, a slow, laborious process.

Lorena helped the finance team by adding a few fields to Ironclad to capture this information, which is then automatically synced to Salesforce.

“Adding those fields may not sound like a big deal, but it was for our finance team,” says Lorena. “Now, instead of all that manual work, all they have to do is pull a report.”

Continuing to scale with Ironclad

Ironclad has been so helpful, Lorena has plans to expand it to other types of contracts, including amendments and vendor contracts.

“It’s proven its value on the commercial side, so we want to keep going and bring that automation and efficiency to our vendor contracts,” says Lorena.

Results: Signing contracts more efficiently

Since implementing Ironclad, PubMatic has automated large portions of its contract management process, which has increased efficiency of its contract signing process.

Lorena agrees that Ironclad is an important component for its legal operations to proceed expediently.

“Streamlining the contracting process—from generating to archiving—enables us to move quickly,” says Lorena.