Freestar is excited to welcome Tim Glenn as our VP of Video. With his years of experience and passion for video, he’s exactly what Freestar needed to grow our video advertising business.
Glenn has over 15+ years of experience in business development, strategic partnerships, and sales in the ad tech and digital publishing space. He’s responsible for developing innovative video solutions with publishers globally and driving video revenue growth. Glenn works closely with digital publishers, video content owners, and demand partners to generate monetizable video views and revenue.
We had the opportunity to sit down with Glenn so you can get to know more about him!
Note: Responses may have been edited for clarity.
You’ve been working in Ad Tech for years. Tell us about your experience and what’s changed over the years.
I started working in Ad Tech for a company called Alloy Digital. It was before programmatic advertising even existed. I started in the sales planning side of the business but as the business really started to grow, we naturally needed more publishers and inventory to monetize so I jumped at the opportunity to start managing and developing new relationships with publishers.
Over the years, as video started to grow exponentially, I gravitated towards the business development side of it. That’s what I’ve focused on in the last 10 years or so of my career. I’ve enjoyed working with entrepreneurs and publishers to scale video in unique ways that are specific to their site/app. I want to work with them to figure out how we, as an ad monetization solution, weave video into that experience that best serves our publishers’ audience.
What led you to this career?
Actually, I went to school for Finance but even in high school and college, all of my summer jobs and what I was focused on outside of school was making money on the internet. It was a bit different back then than it is now, but I was laying the groundwork.
The ability to monetize an audience was more challenging back then and we didn’t have search (it was still in its infancy) or social media to attract an audience. Making money on the internet was more focused on selling something or adding banner ads to your website or building web experiences for companies. I was very passionate about this space. It was only natural that I tried to get into a role that encompassed this so I figured out how I can make money doing something I love.
As the whole internet advertising space evolved, I naturally gravitated towards areas that have interested me the most. I’m curious to learn about new ad technologies, learn how to engage an audience and monetize that experience and video fits right into that. I really enjoy unlocking complex problems and video offers that also help publishers make money with new video solutions.
What behavior or personality trait do you most attribute your success to, and why?
There’s probably two elements of my personality/work ethic that I have benefitted from:
- My desire to dig into the data. I am willing to roll up my sleeves and personally find the root cause and dig into the numbers for myself rather than have someone else figure it out. I believe it’s important to be able to analyze the information and have my own take away from it.
- I really enjoy meeting entrepreneurs and independent publishers to build relationships. I’ve been able to build a lot of trust and help educate them about various solutions that they should consider. On the other hand, I’ve learned alot from them as well from learning to respect their audience and finding solutions that respect the relationship with their audience.
We’ve all experienced certain video ads that feel like they’re too much and there’s a line you don’t want to cross. There are certain solutions and products I choose to present to publishers that can be a balance between revenue and the publisher’s audience/loyal users. I wouldn’t know exactly what that is if it wasn’t for building rapport with them.
What energizes you at work?
I enjoy uncovering opportunities to make more revenue for our publishers. Our core value at Freestar is Publisher First so if we can work together to find the right way to weave video into their property, it can be extremely lucrative for our publishers.
What’s one thing you’re learning now, and why is it important?
I’m personally learning how to get various groups to work together to achieve a common goal. It might sound like a simple concept, but put into practice, it can be quite difficult. The question is “how do we help publishers make money with video and have all the various groups that are not necessarily focused on video to align on what we need them to do to execute on our video products?”
We want to create a robust menu of video solutions that our publishers can take advantage of. We want our products to be vetted and have our publishers know they can trust it’ll have the results they’re looking for.
In this new role, what are you looking forward to the most?
I’m looking forward to working with publishers to identify video products or experiences on their site that naturally make sense. We want to be respectful of their users and loyal fans while simultaneously generating meaningful revenue for the publisher. In some cases, they have multiple streams of revenue (subscription, e-commerce, etc.) but for a vast majority of sites, they are reliant on digital advertising and video is a lucrative form of digital advertising. It can be 2-5X CPMs from what they generate on their display inventory.
Lastly, for anyone looking to get into Ad Tech or grow in their career, what tips would you give?
I would say find a company and/or manager/mentor who is going to invest in you. You need someone who is going to help you learn and give candid feedback.
I do see this being especially challenging since Covid made remote work more common. If you’re early in your career, there’s nothing you can benefit from more than a manager/mentor that you can meet with on a regular basis to ask questions (even the dumb ones) and learn aspects of your career/role that would be helpful for you to understand. You don’t get that water cooler talk or coffee/drink after work in the remote work life. I know for myself, I was surrounded by constant opportunities for networking, absorbing information and growing in the career field. Find at least one person who will be your sounding board.
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