• by February 22, 2007

Founder and CEO, Right Media

Michael Walrath is the founder and CEO of Right Media, a digital media exchange, that was created in 2003. Walrath previously worked at DoubleClick and MaxWorldwide, where he was director of marketing and senior vice president of strategy and development. At DoubleClick, he was responsible for the release of DoubleClick Direct, the company's online direct-marketing service.

>What is Right Media and what is its mission? What other companies play in your competitive set, and how would you say your company is different?

We run the Right Media Exchange, interactive advertising's open marketplace for advertisers, publishers, ad networks, and technology providers. Right Media's mission is to provide the best environment for businesses to trade digital media - an open community where information flows freely, as a remedy for the closed, inefficient brokered systems that have characterized the market to date.

The Exchange gives all buyers and sellers an easy way to access more media, form direct relationships, trade at fair market value, and protect their brands and customers. Currently, over 11,000 participants transact more than three billion impressions on the Exchange every day. Actively trading for a year, the Exchange is comprised of every type of business that touches interactive advertising - marketers, agencies, publishers, ad networks, and technology providers. Businesses research one another, strike up direct partnerships, and transact directly. Companies develop their technology on the Exchange through open APIs and bring new value to the community. Features like Media Guard keep the marketplace safe from harmful ads and sites.

>Specifically, how can marketers tap into the online ad auctions marketplace? What do they need to know about it?

There are two ways marketers can benefit from the Right Media Exchange today. Our Advertiser Media Exchange product lets advertisers access thousands of sites in the Right Media Exchange and consolidate and manage all of their buys on a single auction-based platform. The combination of open access to sellers, a clear view of the best places to spend, and the ability to price each impression in real-time, drives better ROI. Alternatively, marketers can simply work with any of the more than 70 networks that are active on the Exchange.

>What are your company's goals this year?

Right Media's goals for 2007 are to increase awareness around the benefits of open exchanges and how they're more efficient than closed marketplaces, and to continue to drive adoption of the exchange model. We'll be investing in ways to make the exchange more efficient for all involved, and continuing to look for opportunities to reduce friction and operational overhead for buyers and sellers of online advertising. We'll also be expanding our operations to other markets. We're already in Europe, Australia, South America, and the Middle East). Interactive advertising is a global market, and our solutions need to be global as well.

>What are the most vexing issues you face right now?

There are two challenges. First, we need to do a better job of educating the industry on the difference between ad exchanges and closed marketplaces. Exchanges are still a very new concept. While our business has grown more than 10 times in the last year, there are still a lot of companies who misunderstand what an exchange is.

Second, we'll have to come up with innovative ways to expand our talent pool. We've grown the company by over 125 people in the last year to 200 employees. We expect to add hundreds more in the year ahead. We're obsessed with bringing the best and brightest to Right Media; it will be a challenge to figure out how to do it at such a rapid pace.

If you were not in your present position, what would you most like to do?

I'd almost certainly be starting another company. When I founded Right Media, I had no idea how much work it would take, but more importantly how rewarding it would be. To get me to leave Right Media, you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming, but if I had to pick something, it would definitely be another startup.