2016 year in review

Company

2016 was a solid year of growth for MainAd. Compared to 2015, we saw a 46% increase in turnover and EBITDA up by 260%; financed only by our working capital.

“In 2016 we’ve achieved the best result in terms of turnover since we established which is a great achievement”, says Marino Gualano, Co-Founder and General Manager. “With a diverse team, our technological research and commercial development stay at the forefront, honouring our core business principles. 2017 started off great and together with team growth, added value will come from acquisitions started in 2016 and effectuated in 2017.”

 

Clients

We served 40+ billion impressions globally to clients of all industry sectors in 2016, compared to the 26 billion served in 2015. Our expertise in travel, retail and fashion continues to grow; we had a 56% uplift in new client partnerships globally.

We attribute these relationships directly to our continued excellence as a client-oriented service company. Global e-commerce retailers such as CNova, where we are active with four of their brands, continue to benefit from our performance driven approach, leveraged via our programmatic knowledge since our partnership in 2015. The on-going partnership with dominant OTA player, Hotels.com, working across 30+ countries from the Americas through to Europe and Asia, is also an exemplary testament to our client retention ratio.

In the home market, we established an office in Milan at the end of Q3, and have already garnered a nice portfolio of top brands in the travel, retail and telecoms industry within the early months of operations. These activities were bolstered by events, including the industry stalwart dmexco, where ­­we had the chance to show our fun side with the sponsorship of the unofficial party at the OMClub.

Continuing the discourse of our expertise into the New Year, MainAd sponsored and participated in the Fashion and Technology Summit in early January. Organised by Luisa Via Roma and IAB Italy, and hosted at the Teatro della Compagnia in Florence, Italy, we were part of a roundtable discussion on the hot topic of Desktop vs. Mobile. Already active with many global fashion brands, we were able to share our experience and insight with e-tailers seeking to achieve successful conversion results.

 

Tech R&D

MainAd has always been an early adopter of new tech (one of the first EU partners with Appnexus) and has an agile approach to R&D, allowing us to stay ahead of industry trends.

Honouring our roots, it was inevitable that in 2016, our management looked to introduce project after project that would aid to the needs of our clients.

The latest innovation to emerge from our tech hub will be our own bidder. This tech development will harness Big Data in a way that will allow us to revolutionarily integrate into machine learning algorithms and technologies, to create even more advantages in our clients’ interests.

 

Corporate investment

As an independent and self-financed company, MainAd has always championed new M&A opportunities that reflect our entrepreneurial spirit. 2016 was no exception to that rule as we continued to look afield for strategic expansion throughout the year. Researching and evaluating activities across the digital market resulted in investments within growth markets, which we hope will help to strengthen our competitive offering.

 

Commitment to Terre des Hommes

As a company invested in building relationships, we continue our commitment to the Terre des Hommes charity. We used the opportunity of our Summer Party in Q3 to highlight to our clients the work of Terre des Hommes and the causes that we champion with them. We feel that it is important for a company such as ours, growing in this age of technological advancement, that we support those in the world who do not even have some of the basic necessities in their daily life and are living in a less privileged situation than ourselves.

 

Looking forward to 2017

2017 is MainAd’s decade anniversary, and will be one of advancement in our growth and development. Growth of personnel in 2016 has seen us expand our sales team in Italy, with a new office in Milan and appointments growing the UK team; all part of our continued strategy to expand in key markets. We continue to train our teams, honing their expertise and knowledge to ensure we continue to lead.

Our expertise and heritage of digital advertising knowledge materialises with new and exciting innovations, which will deliver a level of competitive specialist service to clients, existing or new. We can’t wait to share our digital adventure with you…watch this (ad) space!