Home Ad Networks Ad Tech Hockey Stick: Interclick CEO Katz On Company Growth

Ad Tech Hockey Stick: Interclick CEO Katz On Company Growth

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interclickOn Wednesday, online advertising company interclick announced its 2010 financial results as the company’s revenues grew over 80% to $103 million for the year on net income of $4.1 million. Furthermore, according to a press release, “The Company estimates 2011 revenue and EBITDA will be approximately $140 million and $19 million, growing year-over-year by 38% and 40% respectively.” Read more.

AdExchanger.com: On the earnings call, the company briefly discussed the launch of a new video product (see the release).  How will this product differentiate itself from others in the marketplace?

MK: With video, as well as display, we’re differentiated by our data and analytics capabilities. Leveraging our data valuation platform, OSM, we’re able to quantify the effect that pre-roll has on display and vice versa, on a per user basis. By being able to measure the impact, we can optimize media plans holistically, providing our clients with the ability to build more cohesive marketing strategies.

Ultimately, we believe that video execution is ready to get more intelligent. There are too many video offerings merely touting fulfillment, feels a little bit like 2004 in display. While reach and efficiency are very important we’re trying to move beyond the overly transactional nature of ad sales and towards providing real marketing solutions.

What’s the key target market for Interclick  – agencies or marketers? How do you see this evolving?

We’re in a very dynamic industry right now that’s going through lots of evolution and we’re excited by all the change occurring right now but our target market is not changing. Our job continues to be making sure our agency clients look good for their clients, the marketers.

How has Interclick benefited from the demand-side platform trend?

From a vendor selection standpoint, DSPs have drawn much needed attention to true technological differentiation in the marketplace, and the effect on our business has actually been very beneficial. We nearly doubled in size last year crossing the $100 million dollar mark, and with our 2011 guidance, we expect to triple our revenue since the DSP’s came to market in late 2009/ early 2010.

Admittedly, I was quite skeptical of the self-service model at first and in my opinion, from a business model standpoint it’s been a winner takes all game. But DSP’s have been a game changer for certain; there is just too much financial incentive for them not to be, even when they aren’t providing the best solutions for clients.

What’s your view – is real-time bidding (RTB) driving CPMs higher for publishers? Is RTB an important component of Interclick’s technology stack?

RTB will be important to interclick, just not yet. The RTB discussion is one I tend to stay out of because I really have no agenda here, you can let (Yahoo!’s) Ramsey McGrory or (AppNexus’) Brian O’Kelly champion this one.

What is Interclick doing about providing attribution modeling capabilities for your clients?

Attribution is really a client side exercise and while we do provide the analytics to help them refine their models, to address attribution properly its important to take all media into account which often times we don’t have access to.

Interclick works with both Evidon and TrustE -why both? And, why use both DoubleVerify and AdXpose for ad verification services as opposed to just one of them?

We are vendor agnostic. Often times, our clients have preferred partnerships and dictate who to work with so we try to have all of our bases covered. We strive to offer a fully integrated fully customizable solution.

What is the latest on the “history sniffing” lawsuit alleged by Sonal Bose in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in New York in December?

We’re being sued?!? How come nobody told me…

Editors note: On the earnings call, the company said that it believes the charges are baseless and that legal fees associated with the company’s defense would amount to a cost of 50-to-100 basis points of margin for 2011.

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