AdExchanger.com discussed TagMan‘s new funding announcement (See release.) and recent momentum with Jonathan Baron, co-founder and general manager of Tagman.
AdExchanger.com: What attributes did you look for in a funding partner? How have you found the funding climate?
JB: We sought partners that had an understanding of the online ad marketplace such that they could see the strategic and practical importance of TagMan. This meant, ordinarily, previous experience in founding and/or directing ventures that had shaken the online marketplace. We’re delighted that we were able to find the likes of John Taysom and Andy Phillipps, people who have done just that and that they were immediately convinced enough of TagMan’s ability to deliver on its promise to become involved.
There’s no question there are investment funds available for those businesses that can demonstrate a revenue model that’s already succeeding and something different enough to suggest additional, strategic value. We found plenty of willing potential partners and were able to be discerning about the size and type of money we took.
How do revenues break out these days between the U.S. and Europe?
We are as much a US business as a European one – 50% of our revenues are derived from the States and that’s because TagMan solves the same basic issues that face all sophisticated online marketers regardless of their location – that is that advertiser sites are swamped with tracking tags and the problems their proliferation poses can only be effectively solved in one way – through a container tag that is independent of all providers.
What other trends are you seeing with the TagMan product line?
Some clients start to use us purely for tag management, which for many is itself a pain so large that it’s worth investing in a solution, while others start their business case for investment in TagMan through simple deduplication – that is paying commission only to the partner that really did deliver the last click. But, all clients soon appreciate the value of being able to gain a single view of their customers and to make their marketing truly data-driven outside those more obvious and direct benefits to the bottom line.
Give me one milestone you would like TagMan to have accomplished a year from now.
We would like to have met the top 20 e-commerce site owners in the US and have helped them to understand the precise nature of the problems that tracking tags pose to their business. We’re naturally hoping that, after that, they’ll be persuaded that TagMan really is the solution to all those problems.
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By John Ebbert