Adglow is a seven-year old social media demand-side platform (DSP) that partners with advertisers and agencies to provide up-to-date technology that meets clients’ social media advertising needs.
Currently in fourteen different countries around the globe – Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia, Adglow recently opened a new office in the country, located at Bonifacio Global City.
We sat down with Adglow’s Global CEO, Ricardo Reis, to understand more about their company:
INQPOP!: How did you come up with the name Adglow?
RR: Initially the name of the company was ADTZ and then we acquired a company that used to be called Glow. So we merged the names of the two companies and came up with Adglow. And though it is a fusion of the two companies, Adglow signifies this unique and unifying idea: “to make the ads glow.” So we thought it would be a nice name.
INQPOP!: Can you give us an overview of your company?
Ricardo Reis: So I represent Adglow and it is a company that specializes in paid social media. We are partners of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and we are also talking to other social media platforms so we can partner up with them as well. We execute paid social media campaigns to agencies – ad agencies, creative agencies, media agencies, social media agencies, and also to advertisers.
INQPOP!: So you serve as the “middle man” between advertisers and your social media partners?
RR: Yes, we do. Through our tool and also through our people, we help advertisers and agencies extract the most out of paid social media campaigns. So these companies: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, believe that nominating a company like ours as their official partner is the way for them to allow the efficient run of the media in their platforms, as well as to increase the numbers of people reached, and to boost their presence in the market.
We are already present in fourteen different markets, fourteen countries in Europe, Latin America, South Africa (which we just opened the other day), Asia, and just recently opened in the Philippines.
INQPOP!: Is this your first time to visit the Philippines? What’s your setup here like?
RR: This is personally my first time in the Philippines. And we currently have four people working with us now at the moment. In all the countries I’ve mentioned we all have local offices and hire local people to work for us that can execute all of the campaigns.
We are obsessed to be more relevant to our clients. We are obsessed about having the state of the art technology. We are obsessed about growing globally as fast as we can. And we are obsessed in having fun on the way.
INQPOP!: How long has Adglow been around?
RR: Adglow is seven years old, which for this industry we operate in, is quite a long time. We first started operating in Spain, then, we expanded to Latin America: Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile. We also opened local offices in Miami, Italy, UK, New York, San Francisco, South Africa, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.
INQPOP!: What is the idea behind Adglow?
RR: My partners and I think that social media has a great potential. We think that social media is massive in terms of audience and all of the resources that the platforms make available for us. What we do via our tool makes the targeting very precise. So usually all of the results that we have for the campaigns that we run are very good. And we think we can help the industry to grow better, to execute better campaigns, and to deliver better results.
INQPOP!: Can you tell us about the tools that you are using?
RR: We have our own tool – ADAM – the tool links directly with Facebook so it is a lot easier for us to control the advertiser. For example, in a campaign, we break this campaign into many micro-campaigns or subsets so we can test it in many different levels – in terms of creativity and even ad format. We can extract online reports, real-time reports. The tool also helps us give signals – like red or green – against the objective of the campaign. So it gives you signals when you need to optimize or change all of these. The tool or the technology facilitates a lot from the creation of the campaign, the uploading of the campaign, the management of the campaign, and the reporting of the campaign.
INQPOP!: So basically, you monitor everything from the start of the campaign until the end?
RR: Yes that is what we do. We plan, execute, monitor, and then report.
INQPOP!: Can you give us examples of the kinds of campaigns that you have already done?
RR: We have created campaigns for agencies of holding companies, telecommunication companies, fast consumer goods, airlines, finance and insurance, clothing and apparel. We have a very broad spectrum of the kind of campaigns that we do. We adapt ourselves to service in the best possible way for our clients.
INQPOP!: That is exciting!
RR: Yes it is because every time we deal with different industries, we learn different things about those specific industries. So it is a very dynamic work. We are very excited not just in running the campaigns but also trying to come up with solutions that are very innovative to our clients.
The other day, what we did was we developed a special feature for our tool to be fully integrated with the CRM System of our client. So it was a lot faster for the client to get in touch with the leads that in turn got inside the platform of Facebook.
INQPOP!: How do you set yourself apart from other companies offering a similar service?
RR: I think that, we as Adglow, we are one of the biggest Facebook and Twitter marketing partner from a global basis. Not so much in terms of volume but in terms of global reach with the fourteen different offices that we have all over the world. So we have the capacity in executing and really understanding what is the dynamic among these fourteen markets which becomes a very relevant asset for us whenever we will talk to an agency or an advertiser.
INQPOP!: What made you decide to open an office here in the Philippines?
RR: The Philippines for us is a very obvious decision. First, the country is doing very well micro-economically for the last years. We have also observed that the Philippines is becoming the service center of the world. So many people are coming here to take advantage of the very well-educated laborers, the capacity of you guys to speak very good English, and all of these which makes the market more dynamic.
From a consumption basis, most of the global brands are here in the Philippines and are very successful here. And they may need our service.
INQPOP!: Any challenges you’re expecting, starting a local office here?
RR: We opened our office here in the Philippines about four to five months ago. We already hired four people in our company. And I think the challenge for us is to really understand deeply the Philippines and how we can adapt ourselves to that. The same work which we have done in the other countries we have set up a local office at. It is always very intense at the beginning because every country has a sauce –a very different way of doing things. We are already running a few different campaigns in the Philippines quite successfully. And we are learning how to understand the Filipinos’ way of thinking.
INQPOP!: Is that part of the reason why you are hiring Filipinos to be part of your company?
RR: Yes the strategy of our company is whenever we go to a country to start up a local office, we hire from that specific country. It is because what we put on the table are international experience, our technology, and our way of doing things in the campaigns. But these need to be customized for that specific country and it can only be done by someone who knows the nuances of that specific country.
INQPOP!: What is your immediate goal in the country?
RR: We expect that by the end of the year we will have at least three or four deals with the large agencies. We already had the first one and we are very happy with it because of good feedback with our services. Even here in this event (at IMMAP’s first Digital Conference: The Power of X), during the talk, people have been very curious about it so I’m pretty hopeful we are going to succeed.
Further, it is always very challenging whenever we open in a new market. We want to get the correct people, train them in the best possible way, and pitch to clients. It is quite challenging but always pleasurable.
INQPOP!: Any parting messages?
RR: We believe that social media gives a lot of voice and freedom to the people and we are proud to help consumers to voice their happiness by aiding the advertisers and agencies with whatever they want.
INQPOP!: If you can describe your company in one word, what would it be?
RR: That is quite challenging, but I would like to use the word: obsession. We are obsessed to be more relevant to our clients. We are obsessed about having the state of the art technology. We are obsessed about growing globally as fast as we can. And we are obsessed in having fun on the way.
INQPOP!: Very well said! Thank you very much for your time!
RR: Thank you.
For more information about Adglow and their tools, you can visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.