XBIZ World is pleased to present “Execs of 2015: The Year in Review.”
Each of the executives we spoke to below has one thing in common — they are among the finalist nominees for the online industry edition of the 2016 XBIZ Exec Awards.
Optimization is a very useful and complex task. It requires a lot of highly qualified resources if done manually and may cost a lot of money if not done properly. -Laurent Baquiast, Affil4You
XBIZ captures the thoughts of these influential and motivational leaders as we sought their take of the year 2015.
The following question about the year in review was asked to those running for the Chief Executive of the Year:
XBIZ: What developments, innovations do you attribute your company's success to this year?
Brad Mitchell
CEO, MojoHost
“2015 has been a very exciting year of growth and development at MojoHost across two continents. The addition of a second U.S. data center coupled with the launch of our new entity MojoHost EU in the Netherlands catapults our global footprint to a whole new level of uncompromising ability. Entering 2016 with Europe’s newest and fastest hosting network is a dream come true for us, our clients and that entire underserved market who never before had the option of such high levels of service, performance and reliability. With new locations, more staff and the best cloud technologies coming out of our sandbox for customer use, I am proud to say our future is brighter than ever — and we are ready for anything.”
Laurent Baquiast
General Manager, Affil4You
“This past year, we invested a lot in optimization. We have developed our own optimization engine and applied it to all area of our business: selecting the best banner, the best landing page, the best billing option, the best advertiser in case we do not monetize ourselves. Optimization is a very useful and complex task. It requires a lot of highly qualified resources if done manually and may cost a lot of money if not done properly. This is why investing in optimization tools is difficult but important. Having tools able to smoothly run multiple A/B testing, taking into account various context dimensions — carrier, handset, time, language, subject — and adapting to real time what you will display and what you are willing to pay to display it are huge assets. We have this now and are offering this to our affiliates and partners.”
Ron Cadwell
Founder and CEO, CCBill
“Over the past couple of years, there have been some interesting developments on the technology side as it relates to content. Now, people are accessing from smartphones, tablets and even their TVs, using a streaming media device of some sort. As merchants have branched into these newer platforms, the corresponding results are becoming more and more positive for all involved. With CCBill specifically, one thing that has highlighted the evolution of online business has been the increase in business-to-business partnerships through things like our Merchant Connect. By providing opportunities for merchants to implement one-click upsales quickly and easily, Merchant Connect has been able to directly provide an additional revenue stream to its participating merchants and merchant affiliates. Somewhat related to this concept of success through business relationships is our Integration Partners system, which is offering a great way to identify and leverage an application or software that can open up more sales opportunities.”
Luke Hazlewood
CEO, Grand Slam Media
“2015 has been the year of progressive technology for GSM. Our ability to monetize traffic through a direct sales model and through a real-time bidding platform has made a world of difference. The market is really changing, and we find it difficult to penetrate that conversation with companies at times but remain motivated to educate and drive this model forward. Squint your eyes and look forward 24 months, and you will see everyone buying and selling through progressive targeted technology.”
Greg Clayman
President and CEO, Flirt4Free
“If I had to choose one development which I feel has contributed to the company’s success the most this year, it would have to be how we adhere to our internal task system. Each and every task targeted for the quarter along with tasks that come up throughout the quarter are logged into our company task system. This actually accomplishes two major factors. The first factor is that it provides each employee assigned to the task with a roadmap as to what’s needed to accomplish the task within the given time period. Secondly, it provides management with an outline regarding what tasks have been accomplished and which tasks have been either put on hold or are lagging behind for whatever reason. This allows multiple people within management as well as the employee themselves to keep a finger on the pulse of the task at hand and hopefully, identify any lagging issue prior to it possibly becoming an issue.”
Nicolas Chretien
Co-Founder, CrakRevenue
“I can’t think of a more significant development than the continuous growth we’ve seen. We’re focusing all our efforts to increase our performance on an even higher scale thanks to programmatic media-buying techniques, better billing, and advanced business intelligence. Everything is set to enhance our services and the value of our products. In this context, we made a lot of headway in the geo-targeting landscape, having made our signature Geomatik tool better than ever for affiliates. Additionally, we more than doubled our affiliate support/affiliate advisory team to ensure that our vast network of affiliates receive only the best service out there. All of this combined, we believe, keeps us ahead of the pack and ahead of our competition, while seeing an increase in lead generation by 53%. I’m proud to be nominated but even prouder of what my teams have achieved this year.”
Karoly Papp
CEO, LiveJasmin
“Our company’s success this year can be attributed to a number of factors, whether technological, human or creative. The main project was the introduction of the model channel system, which has also engendered the creation of high-quality image and video content provided by the models. We have also introduced the new model center, enabling easier registration and management for models and studio — and we have created a very popular model awards system. We worked on the quality and the performance of our live streams to decrease the loading time and increase picture quality. We have optimized our model list page, the model recommendation system, and the Flash applet — and we have developed a new version of the mobile site. On the human side, we have also been hiring some really good talents, and the different teams have been performing better in general. All in all, it has been a really good year for us.”
