Name:
Charlie Faulkner
Job title and company:
Business Director EMEA and APAC, Manage.com Group Inc.
In one sentence, how would you describe what the company does?
Manage is a data company with a programmatic advertising and predictive modeling software unit called RTB.com which offers customer acquisition and re-engagement directly with brands and mobile agencies on multiple devices. We enable advertisers to identify, reach, engage and re-engage with their targeted audience on mobile in a highly scalable way.
What are the company’s unique selling points?
RTB.com is mobile specific, employing proprietary algorithms developed at the start of the mobile RTB era. RTB.com is also the largest RTB buyer across the major mobile ad exchanges, enabling clients to reach over 75% of all mobile users globally. As well as formidable data insights, RTB.com is able to offer over 15,000 audience segments across all the main platforms.
Within the last six months/year, what stands out as the company’s major milestones?
In May 2013, the company’s mobile ad impressions increased by 110 percent compared to January of 2013. RTB.com now handles over 15 billion real-time mobile ad impressions each day and is the largest pureplay mobile DSP in the world. In 2014 we also launched our DMP product and aim to become market leaders.
RTB.com work with the biggest spending mobile advertisers in the world. Customers include medium to large game developers, large brands and retailers, and brand agencies. Recently signed customers include game developers Kixeye and Buffalo Studios, international advertising agency M&C Saatchi and online gaming site William Hill. RTB.com is now co-located on all major continents for mobile ad traffic, including North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific Islands. In addition, the company’s platform now supports all major in-app sources, including Google AdX and Mopub.
How long have you been in your current role?
Since December 2012.
Where are you based?
Central London.
What previous performance marketing-related companies have you worked at?
Prior to joining RTB.com I was Business Development Manager at TBG Digital, a leading social media agency.
What are your main job responsibilities?
I have been part of the rapidly expanding team since its early beginnings. Currently, as Business Director for APAC and EMEA, I have successfully grown a portfolio of clients to include marketing leading brand advertisers and the biggest spending performance advertisers. I also support our supply relationships and work closely with our product and tech teams in San Francisco. Our current growth plans means that we are recruiting aggressively and constantly looking at new talent. It is an incredibly busy time but a lot of fun!
Take us through what you get up to on a typical working Monday:
After a huge intake of coffee there is a dedicated meeting to set up the week. The three areas we concentrate on are new client wins, current client campaign performance and internal dependencies. We work extremely closely with new clients to ensure that we meet their requirements during setup. We then tend to current client campaigns to evaluate their performance, report and optimise them. Finally, we analyse dependencies to identify what we require from the rest of the business to ensure we meet our priorities. In a fast moving business, resource allocation against priorities is critical and we look at two criteria’s – revenue and strategic growth.
Following on from the meeting and planning, it is very much about the doing. Every morning we schedule in numerous calls and when possible meetings with clients and prospects from across the globe in different timezones. We pride ourselves on being able to drive the strongest client relationships through clear communication and innovative thinking.
What top three websites can you be found browsing during your lunch hour?
The Guardian, Venturebeat and Techcrunch.
What are your top three tips for someone looking to get their hands on a job like yours?
Clearly, the mobile area is very exciting so to get involved you first and foremost need to love it. You need to be abreast of developments across the mobile market, from the latest technologies, the innovative thinkers to changing consumer behaviour. Companies like ours hire ambitious, like-minded people that want to be a part of something special. It is therefore about showing that you have skill sets and attitude that are complimentary to the business, a commercial mind and the ability to spot an opportunity when it presents itself.
Career-wise, where do you see yourself in three years’ time?
It is always very difficult to predict seeing as the mobile market is changing rapidly and three years can be a long time. I am very ambitious and proud of what we have already achieved at Manage.com. Now is all about taking it to the next level – within two years I want the company at a level where the global business is generating £200 million in yearly revenue. We’ve got a lot of work to do get there, but we are well on our way! Looking further to the future, I would be interested in doing it all over again with the opportunity to start my own business further down the line!
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
That is a tough one, as I would say I am quite an open book. I do have an identical twin though which would confuse my American colleagues if we were to turn up to the office in San Francisco. I won’t be able to do it now though!