Data Based, Business Driven: an Interview with Patrick Mee of AdRoll [Audio]

For every 50 new visitors who check out a product on your website, only one will buy from you on their first visit. But behavioural re-targeting services like AdRoll allow you to keep in touch with the other 49, so that when they visit other sites, they’ll see your ads reminding them to come back and finish the purchase.

Patrick Mee is AdRoll’s VP of Engineering, and our guest on today’s podcast. Click on the player above to listen to the show, or download it here: 13:50; 13MB; MP3.

AdRoll collects 150 terabytes of data every day, and stores 5 petabytes. It’s a big responsibility, he acknowledges, pointing out that they comply with international data protection rules and do not retain personally identifiable information.

He points to the importance of the advertising business model for the internet. Paywalls and alternative revenue models have had limited traction, but the vast majority of people will not pay for content. Retargeting companies like AdRoll offer better conversion rates for advertisers and revenue for content creators, and it also benefits the end user he says:

“If you’re going to see ads, you might as well see ads that are relevant to you”

A native of Dublin, Patrick has spent the most of 20 years working in Silicon Valley, beginning with Apple and moving on to a series of startups. He’s back in Dublin for a few days to work with staff in AdRoll’s Dublin office, which has about a hundred people working mainly in sales and account management.

Dublin today is a very different place to the city he left in the 1990s, and he’s encouraged by the growing startup ecosystem which has the potential to develop a positive feedback loop of exits and re-investments.

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