Passion And Innovation At Clickable

When I joined upstart Clickable in 2007, I said that passion and innovation were among the core reasons for my move. I was part of one amazing team (BuzzMetrics) that made a meaningful impact and was acquired by Nielsen, and I was ready to do it again with another amazing band. I’d like to review these assertions and provide an update.

On Passion, I said: “Passion matters because it’s the ultimate competitive advantage. And passion and high energy radiate from every corner of this early-stage company [Clickable]. The team has a deep sense of mission and it shows in everything they do. It’s in their veins and they pride themselves on that, and I mean everybody.”

On Innovation, I said: “Innovation means to be alive and prosper. If a company’s not innovating, it’s probably going sideways or dying. The team at Clickable is innovating at a rapid clip on the most strategic and tactical levels. “Come up with a solution and go with it,” I’ve already heard dozens of times in my first few days. There’s an opportunity to establish a new category and redefine the way our customers think and do business.”

Sixteen months later, these ideals resonate even stronger for me and the team at Clickable. They are evidenced most recently with the newest version of our flagship tool, Clickable Version 2.0. From a pure product standpoint, Clickable makes online advertisers bionic: able to achieve better results in less time, despite growing complexity, tedious analysis and fierce competition. Driven by customer feedback, a host of innovations come together in one intuitive, online interface to empower advertisers to manage search and pay-per-click performance across Google, Yahoo and MSN’s advertising networks.

Here are some of the broader business and cultural themes that underscore what we’re doing:

• Culture Matters Most: We believe culture leads every aspect of our business, so we’re nurturing it accordingly.
• Marching To Attribution and Simplification: We’re making progress toward full advertising attribution: understanding what online advertising investments move the needle, and which don’t, and how different advertising formats work together to achieve business return. And we’re making it simple and transparent.
• Claiming The Low And Mid Segments Of The Online Advertising Market: Local, small and midsize advertisers comprise half the online advertising economy, and simple tools are the pivotal enabler as the media landscape gets, shockingly, more complex. Clickable, with one of the largest product development teams in the local-to-midsize advertiser spectrum, is leading development, and has surpassed in 18 months what’s taken most players many years.
• Rapidly Innovating, Driven By Customer Collaboration: Ultimately, it’s our customers’ call, but we believe we’re innovating with them. We listen and iterate rapidly, such as with these innovations: the introduction of Google emerging ad formats, including image, local and mobile (for the first time in a tool, as far as we know of); bulk keyword editing and management functionality; and Web site conversion tracking to power an analytical recommendation engine that drives profitability and keeps getting better each month. I know, that’s all geek speak, but if you’re a search advertiser, these things are a big deal.
• Humility: Importantly, we’re humble, and are committed to constantly improving.

As you can tell, I’m very proud of our team’s work and I look forward to the months and years ahead. We’re building something very interesting and I’m honored to be a part of it — especially in light of this down economy.

Finally, there are many readers of this blog who’ve supported our team along the way. For that, I thank you. I don’t discuss Clickable too much here because this is more of a personal canvas. However, Clickable is of great personal importance, so I hope this was a meaningful update for you.