**Special Post by Cassie Serrano, ROI Team Manager
The Scene: Ad Tech, San Francisco, April 2007. I’m newly inducted to the FetchBack team and charged with the task of finding networks and publishers to partner with for Retargeting. I wander the floor, not really sure myself how all this Behavioral Targeting works, let alone how to explain it to the publishers I need to buy it from. That’s right, explain it.
Just two years ago “retargeting” was a foreign phenomenon understood only by the genius’s who had created it. I stumbled around the showroom talking to probably twenty different Sales Reps that nodded their heads and smiled- they had no clue what I was talking about. They assured me they could get me inventory at competitive pricing, but they needed to check whether or not they offered retargeting. Ugh the frustration! I went to my hotel wondering how in the world we were going to build this business, based on a product our vendors didn’t even know they offered!
Fast forward two short years and retargeting has become a buzz word in our tight knit industry. Behavioral conferences are popping up like hot cakes and Retargeting is always at the forefront of discussions. All of the sudden we’re beyond explaining what retargeting is and the focus is on improving value and showing awesome results.
It’s been two wonderful years in a hyper-learning state and as I look back I’m awestruck at how quickly, although sometimes it felt like a lifetime, that the interactive industry has changed and adapted. Most marketers now know at least the concept of retargeting, and by golly, our vendors even know they sell it! It’s a testament to the pressures of a tough economy and the necessity to keep moving forward and continue providing increased value to our clients.
What’s been most rewarding though are the results we’ve achieved for our loyal customer base, the ones who believed in us from the start and were willing to take a chance on this crazy new technology. FetchBack has already brought back over $52 million dollars in lost revenue for our clients, growing from a team of 3 to a team of 20+. All the while, maintaining a 94% client retention rate and fostering the development of new innovative technologies. I look forward to the next couple of years and can’t wait to see what we come up with next. It’s exciting times in behavioral advertising and I for one am hanging on for the wild ride!
