Baggage claim

J. D. Salinger once said: “It’s really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs.” I guess AdCumulus was quite lucky to find a roommate with baggage in the same range: the leading mobile advertising network in south-east Europe, ClickAttack.

According to a very general definition, an advertising network is an advertising company which administers the sales, billing, serving and collection of ads for web sites. However, this definition only scrapes at the surface of ClickAttack’s daily activities.

In the other corner of the room, in any one of our international offices, AdCumulus team is dedicated to building software solutions for affiliate networks, ad networks, advertisers and media buyers, our most prominent products being Affiliate Software and Ad Server.

Roommates who AdServer together, stay together

The latter is a cloud-based solution specialized for mobile ad delivery with many available targeting and ad delivery options to improve campaign performance. Its super special & unique feature is the support for fully interactive HTML5 ad units, which open an entirely new space for creativity.

You know that feeling of pride when your roommate wants to use something of yours? Ad Server is used and loved by ClickAttack. They help advertisers and agencies get a direct connection to desired target groups through largest mobile publishers and developers, while publishers and developers get the opportunity to create profit through banner impressions from prominent advertisers and agencies.

Although initially this was a mobile ad server, it was easy for us to add support for desktop web and merge two worlds into a single solution.

The DOs and the DON’Ts

Mutual cohabitation gave us profound understanding of each other’s needs, wants and fortes, which ultimately benefited both of our businesses. Now, we are going to reveal to you the five most significant lessons learned from the day-to-day exchange with our roommate, ClickAttack. But first things first.

1. Roommates are busy with their own stuff

And they don’t like a whole bunch of clicks. No, we aren’t talking clicks & conversions here, but the actual clicking through the software. The time a developer spends working on a certain project, combined with the subject knowledge he has, might disable him to neutrally evaluate the usability level of the software they develop from an average user’s point of view.

Is it simple enough for a non-tech person to use? How quickly can you exit it if your roommate barges in unexpectedly? Although ClickAttack’s claims that our solution was not simple enough were annoying at times, they have also eventually resulted in what today is one of the simplest and most user-friendly ad server interfaces out there.

2. You’ve got to learn when to compromise…

Doing high priority stuff is important. So is having roommates who will stack you up on Red Bull when there is high priority stuff to be done.

If a valued customer expresses the need for a functionality or requests the development of a certain feature to ClickAttack, we will roll up our sleeves in AdCumulus and work as many hours as it takes in order to deliver the feature to the customer promptly. Roommates should periodically supply food.

3. … and when you simply have to refuse

Agile methodology isn’t (always) agile (enough). The ‘I’ll do it in a sec’ methodology might work for dirty dishes, but when it comes to developing high-quality solutions for our customers, time is of the essence. The desired features and requirements have to be communicated on time.

Sometimes, a requirement will come in too late in the development phase, in which case the product manager will have to turn it down or postpone it for later development.

4. You can learn from their experience

Remember that time when your roommate accidentally colored all of his clothes? That taught you the double-check-everything lesson. For AdCumulus, the greatest benefit of house sharing with the largely successful ad network ClickAttack are the real-life situations we witness and the valuable experience we gain along the way.

Dealing with actual business cases allows us to identify niches in the market and respond to customer needs we hadn’t been aware of. For illustration purposes, it was actually a request by ClickAttack’s important client who wanted to target private and business users separately that inspired us to recognize the need for that functionality and develop the retargeting feature in our system.

5. Instant non-sugar-coated feedback is great

We all have that friend who is too nice to speak their mind, so they find creative and funny ways to gently tell you what you can do to improve. Well, roommates are most certainly not that type of feedback givers. They will instantly spill out whatever comes to their mind first.

During our co-operation, we have found this to be an effective way of quickly communicating information, a straightforward way of giving feedback and a simple way to build cohesion between the orderer and the service provider.

Don’t forget to buy milk

As you have just seen, house sharing with ClickAttack has definitely been beneficial to AdCumulus.

Our joint efforts have proved to be a great mix for the making of a complex yet a simple-to-use solution as well as for efficient development of product features, while the straightforward communication with our roommates has helped us constantly identify niches and prospective business opportunities.

And last but not least, it is great having around somebody who can give you a hand with your suitcase.