Looking to scale international operations and leadership, xAd is expanding across Europe, maintaining focus on accommodating interest from global and regional marketers and agencies in key markets.
The mobile location targeting company claims that in Western Europe, consumer adoption is driving marketers to shift ad budgets to mobile. Meanwhile, eMarketer estimates the channel’s share of digital ad spend across Western Europe will climb from 24% to over 60% by 2018.
Under the management of Theo Theodorou, xAd’s Head of EMEA, xAd has directed its focus towards Europe, covering the continent’s top advertising markets. Efforts to increase coverage and scale operations in UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy were undertaken within the space of a year.
“The power of location in linking the physical and digital worlds is now really being understood by advertisers, particularly retailers,” said Theodorou.
“Our expansion throughout the EMEA region is testament to the value of mobile as a connector, and we are really excited to extend our brand and agency relationships into new markets.”
Driving innovation
With ever-increasing demand for location technology and expertise in advertising, xAd will also be expanding its global sales leadership team, starting with the appointment of Brandon Starkoff as VP of Global Brands and Agencies.
“With Brandon on board and our expansion into Spain and Italy, xAd is enabling global, regional and national advertisers to leverage the context of location at scale to create meaningful mobile advertising experiences,” said xAd CEO, Dipanshu Sharma.
Starkoff will be based in Chicago and work towards driving strategy and relationships with global agencies and marketers, maximising growth opportunities in mobile advertising and location-based insights.
If recent research is anything to go by, xAd’s efforts over the last year may have put them in an advantageous position in the market.
Swedish market research company Berg Insights recently predicted that geo targeting will become “ubiquitous” in mobile advertising worldwide, while an IAB survey of top European agencies reported that 7 in 10 respondents had shifted budgets from other media to mobile.