Author: AAX Team

For Chirag Shah, ad tech and programmatic are the future.

Shah has spent almost fifteen years working in the world of tech, working closely with top management, top level partners and managing diverse teams that, despite their size, stay close knit and cohesive. It’s been an immersive experience. And it’s exactly that immersion, more than anything else, that he credits with his success. “What you learn on the job,” he says, “end up being the most valuable lessons.”

Now, as AAX’s Director of Partnerships, Chirag is busy spreading what he’s absorbed over the course of his career. Chirag is a constant source of knowledge and inspiration…and adorable videos and pictures of his ten-month-old daughter, Meher.

We talked to Chirag—who’s based in Mumbai—about the path that brought him to AAX, his thoughts on our tumultuous global present, and what exactly makes ad tech and programmatic the future.

 

AAX: You’ve mentioned that so much understanding can be gleaned on the job. What’s one example of this: where you learned something in person, in the workplace?

Chirag Shah: My mind always immediately goes back to a core team I worked with for seven, almost eight, years. I was the main go-to person but the team, as a whole, was responsible for everything it accomplished. We built things from scratch, all together. And that helps you not only become bigger as a person, but evolve as a cohesive unit.

That, I think, is an example of a fundamental learning process that can only be learned through experiencing—it’s impossible to consolidate all of the lessons of working in a team for the better part of a decade into a book or classroom setting—and has changed everyone involved in a significant way.

 

AAX: That sounds really applicable to working in our industry…

Chirag Shah: Exactly. The online advertising space is continuously evolving and changing and you have to be adapting. If you don’t adapt, you’ll be lost and won’t be able to survive. You need to evolve with the industry.

 

AAX: Speaking of adaptation—we can’t hold an interview in 2020 without mentioning COVID-19. How are you adapting to the pandemic?

Chirag Shah: It’s hard not being able to go to the office and see your team. But because I’ve always dealt with so many teams internationally, and because we’ve always operated remotely, we’ve always had a work-from-home culture. Having that culture in place already definitely makes it easier: I realized that when talking to friends and family that don’t have that in place.

I think that one of the ways COVID-19 will change things that people are going to understand that working from home is possible. People won’t have to go to the office five days a week—they can be more flexible. It’s going to create new learnings for everyone around. We’ll save on travel time and, here in India, we’ll be happy not to have to go into the office during monsoon season.

And personally, working from home means I get more time with my 10-month-old daughter. During my breaks I’ll play with her and take her up to the rooftop. Not much good has come out of the pandemic, but that’s a silver lining.

 

AAX: But what will happen in the industry in a post-pandemic world? Do you have any predictions for the future?

Chirag Shah: If I could predict exactly I’d be a millionaire!

The good news for our industry is that online industries are less affected than others. There was some fear, and definitely revenue loss. But things are gradually opening up—maybe not in India, but the internet has no boundaries. It’s a global scene, and countries and businesses opening up in other areas of the world is having a healing effect. Things are looking better in Q3 and we’re seeing signs of life—which is great because it means revenue isn’t going to continue going down. It’s either going to stabilize or get better.

 

AAX: And how will that impact AAX specifically?

Well, AAX can help.

With AAX, publishers can unlock revenue that already exists; publishers can regain lost revenue. It’s a simple integration but we believe this will help the entire ecosystem: when publishers are helped so are advertisers.

AAX has a very strong supply and demand pipeline, and we have the new presence of Scott Schwanbeck as AAX CEO. And that’s going to get stronger as people realize the ease of meeting targets with AAX—we already see AAX becoming more of a presence and a priority.

Tim Cronin is undaunted. An industry veteran, he’s still charged by both the thrill of existing in an ever- evolving and growing arena and by a personal sense of enthusiasm.

Tim began as the VP of Sales at AAX in March 2019, becoming the first AAX presence on US soil. Since then, he says, the AAX position has just gotten stronger…and his excitement level and enthusiasm are just the same as when he started. The fact that there’s “lots of work left to do” only adds fuel to the fire.

We talked about his time at AAX, looked back on a career that began in 1997 when Tim was at his first start-up, and touched on what the future will bring.

And of course we talked about what’s keeping Tim, who’s based near Boston, occupied during the era of COVID-19. Short answer? Creating a family-wide “jog club” that keeps everyone fit and reduces stress, and becoming a (sometimes reluctant) star of his daughters’ trending videos on TikTok.

 

AAX: The path that led you to AAX has been a fascinating one—you’re been in tech since the very beginning of tech! Can you tell us a bit about that?

Tim Cronin: Yeah, I was at my first start-up back in 1997. If there was an “aha” moment, it was getting equity—to be young and get stock options is a formative thing!

What that meant to me, in that moment, was the reason we all work so hard: because you have a little piece. And that piece has worth. It has worth monetarily, of course, but it’s also valuable because it points to something bigger. When you’re in a career with so much risk/reward it’s amazing to see that the reward is real.

Plus, when you take the time to look back on it, the reward is seeing how far you’ve come and accomplished and knowing there’s more to do.

I think the success in that first start-up launched me in a very real way: when you experience success you chase that. And I love that about the ad tech industry: it’s always evolving, always presenting new ways to serve ads to the consumer. There’s so much innovation and growth, and I love the excitement of that.

 

AAX: Was it that excitement that led you to AAX, then? Or was it something else?

Tim Cronin: It was another early stage ad tech challenge, and there’s always excitement there! I really saw the need for AAX and a unique value proposition for publishers and brands. We talk a lot about restoring balance between monetizing quality content while providing use controls, and that’s exactly it: AAX brings some badly-needed balance.

When I first came to AAX— I was hired to reach out to American publishers—there was a lot of groundwork to be done to be a presence. I felt comfortable that we had a great value proposition and great product.t. Most importantly, I knew that success was attainable after meeting the team, our most valuable asset.

I was drawn to AAX’s global culture. Work environments need to provide you with a place where you’re primed to succeed: you need a healthy, positive culture. The energy needs to be focused on moving forwards. And that’s what AAX has.

 

AAX: You’ve been at AAX since March of 2019. What’s changed since then, if anything?

Tim Cronin: Our position has just gotten stronger! We’re able to work with some really high quality publishers and reach these unique users.

The pandemic hit everyone, but aside from some changes to me personally (like working from home and eating a lot of the bread my wife has been baking) things are going full steam ahead at AAX.

 

AAX: You didn’t get into bread-baking, then?

No, I went the fitness route! My family started something called Jog Club: just jogging around the track at the high school down the street. Everyone in the family—my college-aged daughters were home during lockdown— was running at different paces, but we started and ended together. That was great for me as a dad.

Then I made a few TikToks with my daughters. I indulged them at first but now it’s a little annoying. Sometimes I’m still in their TikToks, but it’s more in the role of an unwilling star.

 

AAX: From your vantage point, what are some challenges ahead? How is COVID-19 going to change things up for the industry?

Tim Cronin: I’d like to see continued consolidation in the marketplace and fewer middlemen. There have been a lot of middlemen in the ad tech space. What I’m hoping to see in the era of COVID-19 are more acquisitions and consolidation—that’s a good thing.

 

AAX: And what does the future for AAX hold?

We’ll continue to be the marketplace for the web’s most tech savvy, well educated, and discriminating consumers.

And when it comes to these consumers, our focus will continue to be on the choices they make, and their right to enjoy an excellent online browsing experience. AAX will keep prioritizing the serving ads to exclusive consumers and continuing to respect their feedback, letting them decide what the right amount of ads is.

There’s a lot of work left to do—but my excitement level and enthusiasm is just the same as when I started.

On June 8th, AAX ushered in a new phase of growth by welcoming Scott Schwanbeck as CEO.

Scott, an industry veteran with over two decades of experience, has a history of building high-performance teams and overseeing significant business growth.

Before joining AAX, Scott spent eight years as the EVP of Business Development at Yieldmo, closing commercial agreements with top 500 global publishers and facilitating significant expansion and growth. The previous years saw Schwanbeck in highly successful leadership roles at an array of companies including; Vizu (acquired by Nielsen), drop.io (acquired by Facebook), News Corp, and IGN Entertainment (acquired by News Corp).

And now, from his home base in New York, Scott will be leading the global AAX team, which spans three continents and multiple cities. To mark his sixth week as AAX chief executive officer we chatted with Scott about the past that shaped him, the experience of being a leader in this tumultuous time, and his plans and predictions for the future of AAX.

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AAX: Welcome! Let’s start out with the basics: what drew you to AAX? 

Scott Schwanbeck: The digital advertising ecosystem has always required a balance between content owners, marketers and users in order to thrive. But currently the ecosystem is in need of some recalibration.

I joined AAX because I see an amazing opportunity to restore fair value between users who dislike intrusive and annoying browsing experiences, publishers that need to generate revenue for the content they create, and advertisers that want to reach a high-value audience.

Because that’s what AAX does: AAX works with ad blockers to gain access to consumers who have chosen to utilize an ad blocker but who have also opted-in to view ads that are not intrusive. Then, AAX offers these users to buyers looking to capitalize on an exclusive, high-value audience. We also provide a substantial revenue share to our publisher partners by monetizing an audience they were previously unable to reach.

 

AAX: You’ve been in the industry for 2+ decades, so it’s pretty hard to isolate one learning experience or lesson. But maybe you can share a few of them?

Scott Schwanbeck: Looking back, I can chart the beginning of my early career into digital media. In the mid-1990’s I moved to San Francisco to work with a major financial services client and I noticed that a few of my fellow employees had left to join these new “internet” companies.

It became an inescapable trend and I quickly decided I wanted to be part of it. I saw an interesting future in digital so I took a risk, leaving the path of more traditional media and becoming a pioneer in the internet space.

As far as lessons I’ve learned along the way? While it’s not possible to highlight one single lesson as the answer, there are a couple of important ones that come to mind.

One of these is growth. You have to always be looking for ways to grow; whether that’s growing revenue, developing your team, or working more closely with customers. Growth should always be top of mind.

And, in a similar vein to growth, you want to embrace evolution. You never want to become stagnant. It’s vital to always look for ways to evolve, solve new problems, make your product or solution easier to use, find new customers who didn’t know your company existed. And–a cool side benefit—evolution leads to growth.

And then, of course, there’s trust—which is invaluable. Employees want to work for companies and leadership teams they trust. Customers are more willing to buy products and services from people and companies they trust. Too often people forget how important trust is in business.

 

AAX: The phrase is now infamous: we’re living in unprecedented times. What is the most significant way that COVID-19 has impacted the industry, and how do you see it shaping its future?

Scott Schwanbeck: It goes without saying that these are challenging times for our entire industry. In Q2 we’ve watched publishers experience record breaking web traffic but at the same time have steep declines in total revenue. We’ve also watched the buy-side reduce and in some cases stop all marketing activities due to C19. And we still haven’t addressed the data challenges that regulation like GDPR and CCPA pose much less the loss of the cookie.

Having said that. I do think our industry will emerge stronger and once again thrive and survive starting in Q4.

The good news for AAX is that C19 didn’t have that big of an impact to our CPMs or revenue. We’re seeing explosive growth in the number of publishers that want to further monetize their audience. And we’re seeing more and more buyers spend to reach our unique audience.

 

AAX: And what about the future of AAX? What can you tell us about your short (and longer!) term plans?

Scott Schwanbeck: A few of my main goals as CEO include positioning AAX for the future, establishing market leadership, and accelerating growth.

Our growth has accelerated in 2020. Despite C19, we’re seeing significant interest from publishers, agencies, brand and programmatic platforms.

We also want to continue to change the discussion of ad blocking towards a meaningful dialogue around providing a better ad experience for users—which will help our entire industry thrive in the future. The users we reach don’t use ad blockers to remove all ads; these are users who are seeking a better and cleaner browsing experience.

We’ve now partnered with leading DSPs and SSPs to expose buyers to the savvy, highly educated digital spenders that are our audience.

And, of course, accelerating growth is part of the process. We’re expecting a good return to normal levels of spend, and a decent recovery in Q4 and 2021. It’s impossible to talk about the future of AAX without considering the industry as a whole—we think in terms of interconnectedness and sustainability—and we’re optimistic.