A special thanks to our guest contributor, Sharone Hadari, VP of West Coast Operations.

Working in Sales in the digital advertising industry can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. There are thousands of publishers, hundreds of ad networks, and soon, if not already, hundreds of DSPs to compete with for agency brand dollars. This is where a person in online ad sales must really try to stand out and differentiate themselves from the competition. In doing so, you want to put a little creativity in the ways you maintain your current client relationships and in the ways you cultivate new client relationships. The following is one example of my own creative way in helping to maintain an existing client relationship.
I attended a ThinkLA Poker event on a Thursday night with a few co-workers. We wound up spending the last few hours of the night with one of our existing clients. We had a great time together and ended up coming home around 2am!

Waking up the next morning was a little tiresome, but it was Friday and we knew the weekend was right around the corner. Knowing how I was feeling at that moment, I immediately thought that our clients probably felt the same way. With that, I went ahead and called a local pizza place and had a few pizzas delivered to their offices at lunchtime…the perfect cure for the previous night’s festivities! We had the pizza place include a note on our behalf. Once the pizzas were delivered, our clients responded with the biggest Thank You email. They definitely appreciated our thoughtfulness and clearly enjoyed the pizza. Who wouldn’t?

In the days after that gesture we have received have over $150k in new business from that client. Now while I can’t say it had anything to do with my small (but thoughtful) gesture, I can say that it didn’t hurt ; )

Moral of the story…the little things you do go a long way!

CPX Interactive is #154 on the 2009 Inc. 500 list of fastest growing, privately held companies in the US. Rankings are based on percentage revenue growth from 2005 to 2008, in addition to other factors, and CPX recorded a growth rate of 1,187.6% during those years.

CPX was also recognized as #12 on the  New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA regional list, and ranked #19 out of 100 in the Advertising and Marketing industry.  We are very proud of our achievements and look forward to even greater success in the future.

To find out more about our rankings, visit our company page on the Inc. 500 site.

CPX Interactive has partnered with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to serve as a partner for the advertising inventory of the NBA’s online properties in four European countries: Italy, France, Germany and Turkey. CPX Interactive serves more than 30 billion impressions across the globe every month, in addition to having offices in both Italy and Turkey.

For more on this exciting new partnership, read the official press release.

David Shay is the EVP of Marketing at CPX Interactive. Read on to learn about his journey from law school grad to marketing professional at an online ad network.

1. Who are you, and what do you do here at CPX?

As EVP of Marketing, I am ultimately responsible for the messaging, both internally and externally, for the company. Initiatives that come out of the marketing department include, trade shows and networking events, online and print advertising, sales support materials, public relations and use of social media to disseminate information.

2. After college, you went to law school. How did you end up working in marketing for an online ad network?

I always knew I wanted to go to Law School, and I guess I assumed that meant that I wanted to be a lawyer as well. As law school drew to a close, I realized that this was an incorrect assumption. Rather than go the traditional route of a job at a law firm, I opened a private practice with a partner in Hollywood, FL. Three years was enough to prove to myself that I could do it, and also long enough for me to realize that I didn’t have to do it just because I had the law degree. I came up to NYC with my stuff in a duffel bag and found a job at a small advertising agency. Eventually, my career path led me to an online agency called Endai Worldwide. It was here that I met a colleague named Rob Rasko and the rest…as they say…is history.

3. How do you apply what you learned in law school to marketing?

People often question if the two paths (law vs. marketing) are similar at all. I think that they absolutely are. In law school, you are taught how to construct a way of interpreting and explaining facts in a way that is most favorable to your client’s position. Marketing is really driven by the same fundamentals. A marketer’s job is to spin and package information in a way that is most favorable to the company.

4. CPX recently opened a Manhattan office, which the marketing department now calls home. Why do you think it was important for the company, and the marketing department, to have a presence in NYC?

The move of the ‘forward facing’ departments of the company to NYC was both necessary and organic. With the development and growth of the sales and publishing teams, they have both been able to hone their target audiences to a high-profile /brand level. NYC is simply a more ‘target-rich’ environment for them, and being here makes it easier for them to interact socially and build relationships. As for the marketing department, it only makes sense for us to be with the teams we support most directly.

5. What kinds of things are on the horizon for CPX Marketing in the next few months?

We have a couple of interesting projects on our table at this point. In addition to laying the marketing groundwork for some pretty exciting business-level announcements planned over the next six months, we are focusing on taking our philanthropic arm, CPXample^TM, to the next level and we are working to support the online promotion and release of the first completed project by the indie film house, Chaos². Chaos² is owned and run by CPX founders Mike Seiman and Carlton Hickman.

People from around the world have greater trust in online advertising now than in the past. Although, there is still room to grow, the worldwide attitude towards online advertising has improved.

For more, read What Advertising Do Consumers Trust? from eMarketer.

Thoughts from Samantha Karol, Marketing Assistant:

Over the past month or so, I’ve been reading and learning a lot about social media marketing. I’m always eager to take in as much information as I can, so I can make sure that CPX’s social media marketing efforts are as successful as possible.

From keynote addresses and panels at OMMA Social, to articles on Mashable and iMedia Connection, there have been a few consistent themes.  Here is some of what I’ve learned:

• Social media marketing takes a lot of time and effort. As Lisa Wehr put it, “Social media marketing isn’t a quick, free way to impact your bottom line. It isn’t something that you should give to an intern because they know how to set up a MySpace page.” If you want to get a lot out of it, you have to put a lot into it. Consider hiring someone to focus on executing your social media plan.

• Research the various social media channels, and the learn the difference before you build your pages.  Determine which sites are best for you and develop a strategy instead of diving right in.

• On Twitter: Share historic moments like awards, recognition, and new office openings, and give your followers a taste of what it’s like to work at your company.

• The most commonly emphasized point is the following: Be authentic, write with a human voice, and tell the story of your company from a different perspective than can be found on your corporate website.

What We Do:

• I spend the majority of my time working with social media for CPX. I was brought on, in part, because not only do I enjoy and understand social media, but I know how to use it. However, I certainly don’t know everything, and the Internet is a constantly changing medium, so I’m always researching new ideas.

• On Twitter, we have definitely shared historic moments with our followers:

• As for authenticity, we don’t auto-tweet, and all of the content on this and our other blogs and social media pages is  posted by me or someone else in the marketing department. In addition to our company Twitter feed, there are a number of us who tweet on our own.

• Showing a different side of CPX through these social media channels is very important to us. We want you to meet the people behind the logo.

Like I said, we’re always learning and growing, but so far, social media has been a great way for CPX to connect, share and explore.