819: AdTech: Bake Off Leads to Major Acquisition and $100m+ In Media Spend Under Management

Sandy Lohr. She’s a mother, wife, dog lover and leader of one of the best advertising technology teams in Silicon Beach. Growing up in the industry, she transitioned from client side to tech provider over 2 years ago. Her team strives daily to help local businesses globally find the best customer with her company, MatchCraft.  

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Jab Jab Jab Right Hook
• What CEO do you follow? – Susan Wojcicki
• Favorite online tool? — Accompany
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5.5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Be humble”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:44 – Nathan introduces Sandy to the show
• 02:18 – MatchCraft performs well and keeps its customers
• 02:46 – MatchCraft is a tech company in the adtech space
• 02:52 – 2018 will be MatchCraft’s 20th year
• 03:02 – MatchCraft matches buyers and sellers and has mastered the craft for doing so
• 03:10 – MatchCraft has 2 founders who came up with the strategy in 1998
• 03:21 – Sandy is the CEO and she joined MatchCraft 2 years ago
• 03:40 – MatchCraft acquired the client side of the company in 2014
• 03:50 – MatchCraft has a technology platform that helps run programmatic searches
  • 04:15 – MatchCraft has been doing it a long time with scalability
• 04:50 – MatchCraft is a managing service and SaaS model
  • 04:59 – The managing service is 70% of the business
  • 05:46 – MatchCraft doesn’t work with any merchants
• 06:06 – Resellers of MatchCraft have over 6000 sales reps globally
• 06:23 – Resellers pay MatchCraft their media fee
  • 06:35 – For the managing service, the fee is 17% to 12% depending on the volume
• 07:08 – MatchCraft has strategy discussions with their resellers
• 07:27 – The SaaS model varies, too
• 07:57 – MatchCraft provides ad copy in different languages and formats
• 08:50 – On the SaaS side, fees can go up to 7% of media spend depending on the volume
• 09:50 – MatchCraft is a privately held company
• 10:33 – Prior to MatchCraft, Sandy was on the client side and she was working for Advance Publications Inc.
  • 11:30 – Sandy shares what she was doing prior to MatchCraft
  • 13:15 – Advance Local Inc. bought MatchCraft and Sandy is now the active CEO in MatchCraft
  • 14:08 – Sandy’s background has always been in marketing and she enjoys learning about technology everyday
• 14:25 – MatchCraft’s team size is nearly 100 and they promote diversity with their global offices
• 15:13 – MatchCraft doesn’t have to raise capital
• 15:39 – “We have extremely aggressive goals”
• 16:19 – MatchCraft has grown 26%, year over year
• 16:45 – MatchCraft has processed more than $100M ad spend annually
• 17:03 – Sandy’s opinion on the idea of Time being sold and what she would do if they buy one of Time’s brands
• 19:43 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. There’s nothing you cannot learn that you really WANT to learn.
2. If your product is performing well, people will remain loyal to you and to your product/service.
3. Acquiring a company requires your due diligence—make sure it’s WORTH it.

Resources Mentioned:

• Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
• The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
• Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives