Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Rob Jewell, Founder and CEO of Spruce Media (Part 1)

Most marketers today know that a social medium like Facebook is a powerful advertising tool. But in 2008, when Rob Jewell founded SocialCash, Spruce Media’s predecessor, using social media to market businesses, products, and services had yet to become common practice. Although social advertising is gaining traction, there is still far much too unmonetized advertising inventory out there on the Internet, on mobile, on social, and on the Web in general. There are all sorts of communities out there – not just on Facebook – that have unmonetized ad inventory.

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Rob. Let’s start with some context on Spruce Media. Tell us a bit about yourself, about Spruce Media, what you do, what kind of business you’re in, and then we’ll take it from there.

Rob Jewell: I’ve been in the performance advertising space for about 12 years. I’ve been focused exclusively on social advertising for the past three years with Spruce Media. I’m a serial entrepreneur. I started a company prior to Spruce Media, which I ran for about eight or nine years. I kind of dipped my feet into social with that company and saw a huge opportunity three years ago. I realized there’s going to be this new channel developing. I think with my background in performance advertising, it was the ideal stars-lining-up scenario. It was a massive amount of inventory, and it was growing. It was the least monetized inventory on the Web at that time. And it had the most data available to do ad targeting and that kind of thing. That was when I decided to start Spruce Media. We focused on building an ad platform from the ground up exclusively for Facebook. I think when people say social advertising now, they’re primarily saying Facebook.

One of the reasons we thought we could be successful is because Facebook is truly a unique channel. We thought that taking a ground-up, exclusive approach for Facebook would give us a competitive advantage and lead in the market because we strongly believe it is a unique platform. It’s not like other forms of online advertising; therefore, it warrants a product designed and built from the ground up for social.

SM: Talk to me more about how performance advertising ties into what you’re talking about. I’m in line with you. I’ve written a lot about this topic, about there being too much unmonetized advertising inventory.

RJ: Absolutely. When you have massively under monetized inventory, the scenario is that there is a massive surplus of inventory that comes out of nowhere. Facebook is a perfect example. Three years ago, it probably accounted for less than 5% of online ad impressions. Now it accounts for more than 30% of online ad impressions. When that surplus of inventory hits, there’s a massive opportunity if you’re in performance advertising to buy that inventory at scale and work with performance advertisers who are willing to pay you for every customer you send them.

That’s how we got started. I think Facebook is trying to encourage brands, agencies, and so-called premium advertisers to buy more on Facebook, which is the natural shift of inventory. It always is. We’re in the middle of an evolution on Facebook where we’re starting to see the brands and agencies we’re working with starting to spend a lot more and focus a lot more on those types of advertisers, who typically aren’t considered performance advertisers.

SM: Could we take a use case of one of your customers and explain how you’re working with Facebook and how that evolution is taking place?

RJ: Yes, I’d be happy to. One of our customers is Living Social. As you know, Living Social has been in a major horse race with Groupon, really from the start. Facebook, Living Social saw early on, was a large acquisition channel. The team had built out some in-house technology and had an in-house media buying team that bought on Facebook. We came along and had our technology and our in-house media buying team, and we surpassed what Living Social’s team was able to do. It was no risk for Living Social because we got paid a certain amount for each customer we sent to Living Social.

This segment is part 1 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Rob Jewell, Founder and CEO of Spruce Media
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