I’ve spent most of my career working at companies best described as Ad Networks. My role has been to work directly, or lead teams that work directly, with publishers who host advertising on their websites. The web publishers host the ads as a means of supporting the web services they offer the public for free. Most see the results of my work as the banners that appear on sites like Dictionary.com or Tribe.net. In the past, I’d often spin my role within greater society as “I help keep the internet free.” A noble cause in the face of flashing banner ads imploring you to “punch the monkey and win $20 banana bucks” to be sure. In many respects, this is really not a very fun job. Serving as the middle man between publishers who believe they’re entitled to more targeted advertising from more relevant advertisers at higher rates, and advertisers who want results from every penny spent and will cancel at the first sign of lack of ROI, could be thankless at times. It’s a tough business, but an admittedly interesting one as the internet and it’s marketing vehicles have evolved into new implementations. Take, for example, some of the video creative that allows the user to initiate a play of the ad, like this one for Sin City. Creativity is driving new ways for users to engage in marketing messages that are continually evolving.
I hear a lot these days from firms desiring to form their own ad network. In fact, the founders of the first ad network I worked for, Flycast, even started a company whose primary offering is to power the technology of ad networks with the idea that you could potentially power hundreds of niche gatherings of web publishers. The flavors run the gamut from Mobile Gaming Ad Networks to Specialty Blog Networks like John Batelle’s Federated Media, and F*#$edCompany’s founder, Pud’s gigantic ad network, AdBrite. There isn’t a single firm that doesn’t seem keen on building an ad network– and I’m flattered with a lot of recruiting calls as a result. But a word of warning: running an ad network is no picnic. It’s an already hugely competitive market, with a number of large players from AOL’s Advertising.com, publicly traded ValueClick and my previous company, Tribal Fusion dominating the top 3 spots. It is hard to gain traction in an “up” market where at the end of the day, the advertiser just wants clicks and sales and the publisher just wants high rates and a big check each month. I’ve done it once before and I wouldn’t wish building an ad network from scratch, in this market, on anyone.

August 23rd will mark my 5th Anniversary with Tribal Fusion– and I’ve decided to make August 25th my last day. When I joined the company 5 years ago we were 5 people trying to eek out an existence in a horrible online ad economy. September 11th was soon to follow and if there were any advertising budgets left, few of them were online.

Still, we kept costs low and took advantage of the down market to slowly claw our way to profitability. It provided me an amazing opportunity to work closely with our CEO and founder, Dilip DaSilva and play a key role in the generation of a company. It was a fantastic experience to make huge contributions and experience successes and failures that were all my own. Before long I found myself as a Vice President at one of the web’s top media companies. I was invited to speak on panels, and I built a fantastic 10 person team to whom I’ll be sad to say goodbye. I’ve been on top of the world in many regards and yet I was itching to begin something new.

On September 5th, I’ll begin work as VP of Network & Partner Development for ViTrue a small start-up based out of Atlanta focused around user-generated video advertising. I’ll work from home and I’ll be starting from scratch. I’m certainly out of my comfort zone on this– but I’m hoping to grow through a new set of unfamiliar challenges. So, here goes…