Q1Media Inc. of Austin expects to see growth in excess of 50 percent this year after introducing its Hydra advertising platform, designed to increase ad revenue for online publishers, into international markets.
The platform was developed over nine months beginning in early 2014 and released in the fall so the company, which helps place display and video ads for small and mid-size online content publishers, could offer customers more options in a move to increase retention. Hydra offers publishers more data on the performance of different ad configurations and offers more ways to extend ad inventory and bring in more revenue.
Q1Media has more than 2,000 publishing clients on mobile and desktop platforms and is responsible for between 10 billion and 12 billion display advertisements per month and more than one billion video ad views per month.
The company has 60 employees and recorded more than $50 million revenue in 2014 with growth of between 50 percent and 60 percent expected for 2015.
The first markets being targeted include the United Kingdom, India and Asia. CEO Phil Banfield said growth will come in part from Hydra's ability to segment ad packages for non-English-speaking markets, which creates more avenues for advertisers looking for ad inventory. The company's plan is to open non-U.S. markets to current publishing clients first and then work to bring publishers in other countries on as clients.
The result of the new platform, Banfield said, is a smoother path to increased revenue for publishers who would otherwise struggle to monetize their advertising potential.
"We saw an underserved community of publishers," he said. "Most of them are working on a Web template created 20 years ago and no one has looked at how to solve the problem of their ad inventory eroding."