Newor Media is a leading ad management company working primarily with the monetization of high-quality websites. They provide optimized ad monetization technology, insightful reporting and analytics, and a team of Ad Ops experts ready to help all website owners earn more.
Megan Rafferty, Co-Founder and current COO, sat down with us to talk about building a company from scratch and the resilience it takes to weather the storms of business. Megan started her career as a web developer and took those skills into sales and marketing for the web.
MR: The idea for an ad management product came to us pretty organically because in the years leading up to founding Newor Media, we were actually website owners ourselves. As publishers, we were pretty unhappy with the options available to us to monetize our sites with display ads, and we found it was a pretty common pain-point with other web publishers. We were able to lean on our development backgrounds and leverage our existing relationships with some premium ad networks to develop our own competitive ad product and managed service. The idea was to be an antidote to the ad monetization options that were currently available to most publishers, and to attract publishers not only with a great product, but also with superior customer service.
MR: The biggest challenge was probably trying to break into an industry that was dominated by big name brands. Our product was pitched as an alternative to AdSense, which is a very popular Google product. Getting website owners to try a new, unestablished company over one of the most recognizable and credible brands in the world was certainly a challenge. Beginning to establish brand credibility through referrals and some helpful positive reviews on client sites and public forums was key for us. We also didn’t rely on marketing much in the beginning and acquired most of our customers through cold outbound reach out, so there were a lot of challenges in figuring out how to do this efficiently and effectively. Once we figured out who our ideal customer was, it got easier to refine our messaging and our reach out efforts became more successful. If I could go back and do anything differently, I’d probably invest a bit more time and money in marketing strategies from the get-go.
MR: At Newor Media we’ve been super service-oriented since day one, and to me that’s the number one thing that has consistently set us apart from some of our competitors. We treat all of our publishers the same, regardless of the size of their site or the revenue they’re bringing in. We try hard to respond to all emails quickly, and to be there for our publishers not just when an issue arises, but proactively as a friendly resource to help make sure their ads are as optimized as possible.
MR: Making our first hires was pretty nerve-wracking. The prospect of building a team was exciting, but also overwhelming, especially because we had kept our team very small for the first few years and then hired a bunch of people all at once when we got to the point that we felt we couldn’t sustain our current growth rate without having some extra hands on board. Initially, we did have some churn with the people we brought in, which was painful, but ultimately we ended up with a supportive, hard-working core team that worked very well together and was a solid foundation for a lot of growth. For me, putting our young team together and seeing how far they’ve all come within their roles is one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had when it comes to growing Newor Media.
MR: 100%. As a control-freak, I still struggle with this sometimes…but the more I’m able to let go of, the easier it is for me to delegate more. As a business owner or founder, you can’t expect employees to care about your business as much as you do. But if you have the right people on your team, once you start delegating tasks and responsibilities, you’ll realize that you don’t need people to care as much about your business as you do in order to get the job done, or even do a great job. For me, what really helped was realizing that just because I can do something, doesn’t mean that I am the best person for the job. Very often when I delegate something, the person I hand it off to offers a much-needed fresh perspective and is able to offer a different (and often better!) approach than I would have taken.
MR: Helping to start and scale Newor Media totally changed my perspective on what I can accomplish. What we’ve achieved with Newor Media would have seemed impossible to me six years ago — even now, it can still be kind of hard to believe — but ultimately my experience at Newor Media has helped me grow as a person and has made me feel more confident in what I am capable of, and I think that confidence has expanded to parts of my life outside of work as well.
MR: Treat your team well. The people you hire as you scale are either going to help take your business to the next level, or they’ll slow you down. Treating your team with kindness and respect and letting them know you value them and their contributions is essential to creating a supportive, productive working environment.
