Breaking the Norm: Maxine Manafy, CEO of Bunndle (Part 3)

Sramana: What role does the publisher play?

Maxine Manafy: The publisher who would host your app and promote it to the end user would also be in our network. They have the ability to approve or disapprove the ad in their channel. They are also interested in how relevant the app is to their channel. They want the user experience to be clean. When they agree we show that ad to the end user, it is important to use intelligence in this space or you are losing your ad dollars.

Sramana: It’s not clear to me that something as specific as an autism app would work in your network.

Maxine Manafy: That is a very specific case. We could certainly try. It would be a very different price point as well.

Sramana: Tell me, from your portfolio, what some of your use cases are. Where are you seeing traction?

Maxine Manafy: Our desktop and mobile both use the same model and algorithm. We have seen communication apps which are trying to target a user in email because their application is very email relevant. We target the users by the type of email client they are using. We want to know if they are using Outlook, Gmail, or something else. We can supplement or show the ad to the end user that is relevant to the type of email system they are using.

Another example is a banking application. If an end user is running a banking application then security is on their mind. We would offer them a security application such as an anti-virus or malware product. Business utility users are very heavily trafficked in our network so we are able to match a DropBox with an Evernote. We know there is a high correlation between those products. Those types of relationships are good for the advertiser. Eventually we help pay for their premium product.

Sramana: What does your operation look like? Do you have a regular ad sales force?

Maxine Manafy: We do have an ad sales force. We do direct deals with all of our partners. We do not buy traffic from partners. We work directly with the RealPlayers of the world.

Sramana: Which large publishers are part of that network now?

Maxine Manafy: Right now we have partners like WinZip, BitTorrent, RealPlayer, and many more. We have larger brands that resonate with the end user. We also have some smaller, newer apps like HipGeo which is a blogger travel app.

Sramana: What percentage of the ad revenue comes to you?

Maxine Manafy: We take 30% which is a traditional ad network business model.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Breaking the Norm: Maxine Manafy, CEO of Bunndle
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