Millennial Media, the mobile ad network, has been growing quietly over the past few years, making it to one of the top spots as far as its industry is concerned. With its competitors AdMob and Quatro having been snapped up by Google and Apple to run their mobile ads, Millennial Media is left at the top of the independent food chain. Right now, that’s a great position for the ad company to be in.
Leena Rao sat down with Millennial Media CEO and co-founder Paul Palmeri, going over the company’s beginnings, growth and future. The success story, which took Palmeri from Advertising.com during the first bubble to mobile ads on earlier mobile devices during the second wave, is a fascinating one. However, it’s Millennial Media’s current goals towards an IPO next year that particularly piques my attention.
The interview doesn’t leave us with many details around the possible IPO, but given Millennial Media’s experience and forecast, it could be the right direction for the ad company. Managing private ad networks, hosting mobile ad solutions for large-scale corporations and offering regular reports and analysis, Millennial Media has covered the major bases.
What could take the company to the next level would be fat cash reserves to use towards building out infrastructures, distribution channels and cross-platform analytics. Being able to address the varied methods and demands around mobile advertising means even more than it did 10 months ago. Mobile apps, display ads, shared network information and recommendations have been wrapped up into mobile advertising, creating a range of needs for a given network to address. Millennial Media has considered this as well. From TechCrunch,
“On the device side, Palmieri highlights that Millennial’s platform independence creates more diversification and thus reaches more mobile users. In a given month, 45% of the impressions on the network are from smartphones, roughly 39% from feature phones, and around 16% from connected devices such as tablets and gaming systems.”
Advancing from its independence, particularly with an IPO, would certainly spur growth for Millennial Media’s network, which Palmeri believes will perform as well as, if not better than, Apple’s iAds. That should make investors, including Charles River Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and other leading firms contributing to Millennial Media’s $38.3 in funding, more content.
