Clickable, the web advertising management company that launched at TechCrunch40, has closed a $14.5 Million Series B round led by Founders Fund, Union Square Ventures, and FirstMark Capital. The round brings Clickable’s total funding to $22.5 million, and comes only eight months after the company completed its $6 million two-part Series A round.
Clickable offers users a web-based dashboard that allows them to manage their advertising campaigns across a number of websites. The site also offers a tutorial section called “Clickable University” where users can see how to more effective use and analyze their ads. The large sums of money will be used to “accelerate Clickable’s momentum”, likely by attempting to increase exposure with a marketing push and adding to the company’s workforce.
$14.5 Million? wow…
I’d sign up for a trial with them but for the fact their T&C says “All Fees and pricing terms are confidential, and you agree not to disclose them to any third party”… Unless I know my deal is better than or equal to the next guy I don’t want to play.
I found it odd that there wasn’t a price anywhere to be seen, guess the T&C explains it.
Disappointing.
big yawn!
It’s common place among ad servers (which is what clickable is in many ways) to not disclose pricing publically - doubleclick doesn’t, microsoft atlas doesn’t, etc…
Common doesn’t make it right. These moves by ad companies not to disclose fee and terms are against your right to compare who serves you better. It’s an anti-competitive tactic businesses use to cheat consumers.
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They use to have pricing as of two months ago. It was based at the time on a % spent (1-2%) and a set account fee.
They must be under the gun to keep accounts, b/c their people must call us 3 times a week begging us to begin paying for the service. (We signed up for a free account). We finally told the guy No Thanks, and he threatened to close the account - two weeks later we still have an account.
14.5 million doesn’t seem like they have to do much begging. I get calls from them to but most of them are about how can we help you better? If only all of my vendors were this responsive to what I needed.
Unbeleivable!
Steven,
I’ll talk to our account services team to rectify your issue — sorry about those. As for pricing, it will show up shortly (and transparently) in our new “Pricing & Signup” form. (We’re still in limited commercial availability and launched our new Web site last week.) For the record, standard pricing is 5% of monthly spend for advertisers, and 3% of monthly spend for agencies. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or further feedback. We’re listening and want to constantly improve.
Max Kalehoff — VP, marketing, Clickable
mkalehoff (at) clickable (dot) com
That is a HUGE amount of money for an ad server. How are they going to make that back with a 5c CPM being the industry avg fee for ad serving?
Ridiculous VC’s are backing a company with no real market potential run by people with no ad technology experience.
This is a Dead Pool waiting to happen. 16 million? Are you friggin kidding me?
My guess is that they spend 10m on advertising and go under sometime next year when they realize that there is not enough of a market to support their burn rate and 40 employees
I agree with ad server guy. this raise happened imho because this company is bleeding cash and is VERY worried about the economic downturn coming.
For those saying this is an ad server, perhaps you should actually read the article. They help manage campaigns ACROSS ad networks, they are not an ad network themselves.
It is more like a Marketing Management tool and I think it competes with Google’s latest offering, as well as Omniture. Though crunchbase does not reflect that.
ad_server_guy.. good point.. $14.5m for say 40%, VC only want risks with 10x return potential to balance portfolio.. means they’ve gotta be worth $300m+ in three years… For that run rate at 1% of say $10K/mo under management they need 250,000 paying customers. Conversion rate of 20% trial to live = 1.25m trial accounts, or about 35,000 new signups per month.. at four calls a month to each one they’ll need just under 20 call center dudes making 100 calls a day. Awesome
Are you making an guess at what the typical account would be spending or using some industry average? I am curious why $10K?
Frank,
I think you need to learn what an ad server is…This is an ad server. A system designed to manage advertising, deliver ads and track their results. Whether its on a page or across the web makes no difference.
Ad Networks all have ad servers, Google AdManager is a publisher ad server as is Dart, OAS, MediaPlex and others…
Atlas, DFA and a few others are designed for the buy side (advertiser).
These guys are just going after the buy side with tools (ad server) designed specifically for the optimization of their yield.
Its an ad server. You can confuse that all you want - perhaps you were one of the sheep that invested in this thing. In that case I am sorry for your loss…
ad_server_guy
Well, I believe an “ad server” is a server that serves ads and tracks results (woah, who’d a guessed?).
This is not an ad server, and you are wrong. Clickable doesn’t serve ads. Go ahead, try and actually read from their site:
” Clickable makes it easy for advertisers and agencies to manage performance across all major ad networks.”
Can you comprehend that? Cclickable helps manage ad spend ACROSS AD NETWORKS. In other words, it helps optimize spending across adsense, atlas, DFA, or any other ad network.
So, if one add netwrok is performing badly compared to another ad network, spending can be adjusted accordingly.
Clickable is not serving ads as you seem to believe.
Thanks Frank, I suppose 12 years of running ad servers and ad networks has been meaningless. My ability to understand the market and the technology must be a facade for all it took was some jackass on TechCrunch to “set me straight” after reading a press release.
Now you’ve cleared up that cloud for me and I suddenly realize that I am not an industry insider or ad server expert but a total newbie. I should hire you to run my companies since you are so smart and have so much insight into the systems that run the ad world.
Thanks Frank I almost went to work today. Now I realize I should just stay at home and read press releases.
I was attempting to be state facts based on evidence (their website), rather than taking some comment tard’s advice about his, “12 years of running ad servers and ad networks.” What source do you have that nobody else does? I’m willing to learn, just show some proof to back yourself up.
I even used qualifiers like “I believe”. You have resorted to condescension, as was the case with noting my “confusion” earlier. Obviously, you are offended (and confused). Never did you EVER refute, with any evidence, anything I said. Apparently, your experience was all for not, since reading comprehension escapes you.
Let me layout my argument, and with your “infinite ad industry wisdom”
and you can correct me:
1) “This is an ad server. A system designed to manage advertising, deliver ads and track their results.”
Wrong, they do not deliver ads. Just go to their home page (the same place from which I quoted before).
Please show me where they claim to deliver ads? One place?
2) From their home page, they are also “Certified Ad Partners” with MS Adcenter, Google, and Yahoo (GYM).
What is it that they are partnering on? GYM lets Clickable serve ads against their search inquiries? Wrong again.
Man, maybe should change industries before you are bankrupt.
Frank
Are you a Wall St analyst? You act just like these myopic morons.
Can you provide examples of said myopia, or just unsubstantiated attacks?
What name will you use next to comment?
How is this for a name?
Seems like Frank is a shill for those thieves on Wall St. You must be one of the fools who invested in this company - 16million? justify that please.
Let’s see where this company is in a year. Rubicon? PubMatic? Right Media? Can another aggregator of ad networks make it? With the nepotism in this business they are really duplicating the services of every major ad network - but I dont suppose you would know that being an “anal ist” now would you?
Go back to your cubicle and bury your head in shame. I dont care to educate you on why you should NEVER listen to a VP of Marketing talk about their company or why this particular company is doomed for failure.
Actually, I work from home, am not a qualified investor (net worth < $1M), and do contract java work for the enterprise (mostly insurance).
At least you now know YOU WERE WRONG and they do not serve ads (as you now say, “aggregator of ad networks”).
I have no idea if they will be successful, never claimed to know. You claimed they served ads, and I couldn’t find any supporting evidence.
Believe me, I’m all for bashing a start-up for shortcomings in tech or business model (it keeps all entrepreneurs honest and on track). But, you can’t make shit up.
To all,
At Clickable, we don’t consider ourselves an ad server, though we do partner with the major ad networks, who serve ads, including Google, Yahoo and MSN. Clickable is an online solution that makes advertising across all the major ad networks simple, instant and more profitable. Clickable answers two fundamental marketer questions about search advertising: 1) how are you doing? and 2) what do you need to do to improve? Clickable answers these questions by consolidating the experience of all ad networks with simplicity and customized recommendations. Clickable is an overlay to the third-party ad-network dashboards and their respective networks, which means that users can go into their individual accounts or dashboards at any time — no strings attached. We simply synchronize and add value: efficiency and effectiveness, and help advertisers mature their skills over time. We also listen closely to our customers so they can inform an aggressive product development cycle.
If interested in learning more, I encourage you to view our tour on our home page (www.clickable.com), or feel free to contact me directly at mkalehoff (at) clickable (dot) com. As all can see from our home page, we even invite visitors to our New York headquarters.
Thanks,
Max Kalehoff
VP-Marketing, Clickable
For clarification, isn’t Clickable for search? If so, shouldn’t Jason at least clarify that in the writeup?
Max, congratulations to you and the rest of team!
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