Vantage media

Vantage Media is an advertising technology company with headquarters in El Segundo, California that specializes in real-time bidding for customer acquisition.

Vantage Media
TypePrivate
IndustryInternet, Online Marketing
Key people
Patrick Quigley, CEO
Rob Chrone, CFO
RevenueUndisclosed
Undisclosed
Number of employees
140 (August 2013)
Websitewww.vantagemedia.com

Clients

Vantage Media's advertisers and publishers exist mainly in three verticals:

  1. Education
  2. Insurance
  3. Home

History and growth

Early history (2002-2006)

Vantage Media was founded by Mark DiPaola. Based in Venice, the company specialized early on in performance search marketing in online education. Clients included University of Phoenix, Kaplan, and other major distance learning providers. The company also became well known within the paid search space claiming to manage over 50 million keywords across the three major search engines.

Expansion (2007-2012)

In March 2007, Vantage Media raised a Series A round valued at $70M led by Montgomery & Co, Scale Venture Partners, Tudor Ventures, and Integral Capital Partners.[1] The company also named a new CEO, Steve Jillings, formerly of FrontBridge Technologies. As noted by Mr. Jillings in an interview with SoCalTech in early 2008, the financing was intended to allow Vantage to expand into new verticals outside of education, including home services, insurance, and consumer services.[2] It also named three new board members: Jamie Montgomery, CEO of Montgomery & Co., and Rory O'Driscoll, Managing Director with Scale Venture Partners.

The company completed its first acquisition in December 2007 with its purchase of the health insurance lead generation company Secure A Quote (SAQ). As part of the acquisition, Vantage brought on SAQ's two original founders, Jon Engleking and Steve Curry.[3]

In October 2010, Vantage Media announced that Patrick Quigley, formerly a senior vice president at QuinStreet, would be replacing Jillings as CEO of the company.

The company completed its second acquisition in 2011, when it purchased leading pay-per-click insurance advertising firm, BrokersWeb.[4]

In 2012, Vantage Media launched SchoolSelect, a clicks product on the BrokersWeb platform that enabled advertisers target a new segment of customers with pre-defined parameters.[5]

Acceleration (2013-Present)

In October 2013, Vantage Media launched a new platform, called Vantage Media Marketplaces. Marketplaces is a self-serve, real-time bidding platform for the insurance, home services, and education verticals. Marketplaces joins together high-traffic publishers with popular, household-name advertisers. It gives advertisers the power to pay what they want, when they want, and how they want, for the exact consumers they want. This is achieved through giving the advertiser the power to control how they want to engage with the customer, and vice versa, through either clicks, calls, or leads.

Awards and recognition

In August 2007, Vantage Media was ranked #31 on the 26th annual Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S.[6] It was also ranked #4 in the nation for the category of Top Companies in Advertising and Marketing.

A few months later in October 2007, the company topped the list of fastest-growing companies in Los Angeles and surrounding counties as recognized by Deloitte and Touche USA LLP.[7] It also ranked 10th nationwide in Deloitte's Technology Fast 500.[8]

In January 2008, Vantage Media named a finalist for the 5th Annual Entrepreneurship Awards 2008 by Entretech, a leading nonprofit association supporting high-tech companies in Greater Los Angeles. The award was offered together with PricewaterhouseCoopers.[9]

Vantage once again made the list of fastest-growing technology companies in the Los Angeles area in November 2008, as named by Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, coming in at #4.[10]

In the same month, it was named one of the fastest-growing private companies in the Los Angeles area according to the Los Angeles Business Journal's 2008 Fastest-Growing Private Companies ranking.

Vantage Media was recognized (as its insurance division, BrokersWeb) in 2011 as the #1 fastest-growing private company in the U.S. in Insurance by the Inc. 500. Vantage Media was honored with the same award in 2012 as well.[11][12]

Additionally, Vantage Media's BrokersWeb division was recognized in both 2011 and 2012 as one of the top 50 fastest-growing companies in the U.S.[13][14]

References
  1. "Search Ad Firm Vantage Media Gets $70 Million Round..." Retrieved 2013-08-20.
  2. "Interview with Steve Jillings, Vantage Media..." Retrieved 2013-08-20.
  3. "Vantage Media Makes First Acquisition: Secure A Quote, Leader in Insurance Lead Generation". Retrieved 2013-08-20.
  4. "Vantage Media Buys BrokersWeb..." Retrieved 2013-08-20.
  5. "Vantage Media Introduces SchoolSelect™ A Pay-Per-Click Marketplace for Post-Secondary Schools..." Retrieved 2013-08-20.
  6. "The 2007 Inc. 5000 List..." Retrieved 2013-08-20.
  7. "Vantage Media Tops Deloitte's Los Angeles Technology Fast 50 Ranking of Fastest Growing Companies, With 14,729.9 Percent Revenue Growth Over Five Years..." Retrieved 2013-08-20.
  8. "Deloitte 2007 Technology Fast 500..." (PDF). Retrieved 2013-08-20.
  9. "PricewaterhouseCoopers and Entretech Announce Finalists for 5th Annual Entrepreneurship Awards 2008..." Retrieved 2013-08-20.
  10. "Vantage Media Makes Top 5 on Deloitte's LA Tech Fast 500..." Retrieved 2013-08-20.
  11. "Top Insurance Companies on the Inc. 2011 list..." Retrieved 2013-10-15.
  12. "Top Insurance Companies on the Inc. 2012 list..." Retrieved 2013-10-15.
  13. "Top Insurance Companies on the Inc. 2011 list..." Retrieved 2013-10-15.
  14. "Top Insurance Companies on the Inc. 2012 list..." Retrieved 2013-10-15.
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