• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, January 31, 2014

Magnetic has opened its first international office in London and appointed Luke Hayter country manager to run the sales and marketing office.

The digital advertising company's client base rose 365% during the past two years as a result of the demand for retargeting in the U.S. and now Europe. Hayter will build a U.K.-based sales and marketing team that will eventually expand throughout Europe into Germany and France later this year or in 2015, followed by Asia in mid- or late 2015.

Expansion plans also took the U.S.-based Magnetic north to Canada. The company recently hired someone in Toronto to support the region and build its business.

Magnetic CEO James Green backed away from expanding internationally for about two years. "You want to get everything working at home before you expand internationally, because that expansion tends to replicate what you have at home," Green said. "If you don't do it correctly you can mess up by expanding to early."

Apparently, trends aligned in 2013. The company surpassed its goal to grow between 50% and 60%, reaching nearly 150% by the end of year, from a base of "tens of millions of dollars," Green said. "In a venture-backed business you tend to double-down, spend and grow as fast as you can, but we're actually profitable and cash-flow positive."

Major ad agencies,which make up the majority of Magnetic's clients, got what they needed. The need to depend on data and the ability of the company to deliver on promises is extremely rare these days, Green said. He explains that the company gets its targeting data from shopping, comparison, ecommerce and review sites, so every user profile represents someone looking for something.

Magnetic is not a stranger to developing an international workforce. An office in Slovakia, where about 10 developers work, became the engineering hub more than two years ago. The group works with the Slovak Academy of Science to build out the platform.