Suggestions
Christian Scherbel
CEO of Transmatico - Creating New Local Advertising Revenues for Publishers
Professional Background
Christian Scherbel is a visionary entrepreneur and expert in digital advertising solutions, dedicated to empowering local advertisers through innovative technology and insightful strategies. As the Founder and CEO of Transmatico, he has successfully developed a comprehensive platform that enhances the capabilities of local sales teams across diverse media outlets. His mission is to tackle the challenges that come with selling digital ads to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), helping publishers regain their market share in a competitive landscape dominated by tech giants like Facebook and Google.
Transmatico specializes in providing a range of digital products tailored for local advertisers, including advertorials, smart magazines, and localized advertising solutions. With a full-service approach that encompasses technology integration, operations, traffic management, campaign management, and specialized sales training, Scherbel and his team have established a reputation for driving substantial additional revenues for their clients. This commitment to service and excellence is evident in testimonials from satisfied clients, highlighting the tangible results achieved, such as significant revenue growth and improved sales processes.
Education and Achievements
Christian's educational background includes studying Dipl.-Ing. at the prestigious Technische Universität München, where he honed his skills in engineering and technology. Additionally, he has furthered his academic pursuits at Imperial College London, a renowned institution that has equipped him with a global perspective on business and innovation.
His entrepreneurial journey has seen him at the helm of several successful ventures. Prior to Transmatico, he co-founded Smartico, a company focused on enhancing digital marketing strategies, and served as the Founder and CEO at classmarkets and aerosecure. Each of these roles has contributed to his deep understanding of the digital landscape and the evolving needs of local media companies.
Notable Achievements
Under Scherbel's leadership, Transmatico has collaborated with over 200 newspapers in Germany, Switzerland, and the Benelux region, showcasing the company's ability to integrate best practices across a diverse client base. Major media groups such as Axel Springer, Tamedia, and CH Media have partnered with Transmatico, affirming its position as a leader in local advertising solutions.
One of the standout testimonials from Heinz Alt, the Advertising Director at Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, highlights the immediate financial impact of Transmatico's offerings: "Within the first month, the extra revenues immediately offset the one-time setup costs. Within 3 months, we realized >20.000€ of extra revenue with an easy-to-sell online offering." This statement is indicative of the value that Scherbel and his team consistently deliver to their partners.
For French-speaking clients, Robert Hever, the Commercial Director at Saint Paul / Luxemburger Wort, expressed similar sentiments about the benefits of collaborating with Transmatico. He noted the ongoing efforts to digitalize themes and increase both online readership and revenue, emphasizing the intuitive and robust tools provided by Scherbel's company.
Christian Scherbel is not only a tech-savvy entrepreneur but also a passionate advocate for empowering local sales reps. He enjoys engaging in discussions about strategies and concepts that actively contribute to the success of sales teams. His willingness to share case studies, data points, and best practices gleaned from his extensive network of European media leaders positions him as a thought leader in the industry.
Conclusion
With a rich background combining educational prowess and extensive entrepreneurial experience, Christian Scherbel continues to shape the future of local advertising. His commitment to leveraging technology to create actionable solutions for publishers and their advertisers is paving the way for a new era of digital marketing. As he invites collaboration and conversation with industry peers, he remains focused on enhancing the effectiveness of local sales teams and driving revenue growth within the advertising landscape.
Highlights
Lots of publishers are chasing Buzzfeed's content and social media strategy, but the results of their monetization strategy revealed a different story.
With over 100M monthly visits on websites like Buzzfeed and HuffPo, the revenue implications raise questions. The financial results via https://lnkd.in/gtPAZwru show around $5M monthly revenue from programmatic advertising – impressive, right?
However, with 100M monthly Web visits alone, the CPM is less than $1, and even lower when considering all platforms. Extrapolating these figures to an average local media company with 1-2M monthly visits results in very modest programmatic revenue of <1M$ per year. Insufficient to support a full newsroom, especially with impending declines in CPMs due to the end of third-party cookies.
This raises the question: what's the alternative for local media? Strong direct local ad sales, powered by AI, could be the answer. By engaging hundreds of local advertisers, creating ads and landing pages, conducting ad ops at scale, and educating SMB clients on the value of attention over clicks for display ads, local media can thrive.
Buzzfeed's experience underscores that "programmatic" can't solely sustain local ad businesses but can only serve as a valuable add-on to directly sold ads.
What's your take on direct ad sales vs. programmatic? Share your insights on initiatives that have propelled direct ad sales at your publication.
Reflecting on 10 years of building digital advertising profit centres for 500+ news publications at the annual ACP Conference in Norfolk, Virginia. Thank you for everyone joining the session and the great feedbacks afterwards.
Over the last 10 years, we built millions of banner carousel ads, landing pages and reporting dashboards for 100,000s of local advertisers in 10+ countries, and learned quite a bit what it takes to make the 80% small advertisers profitable at scale for news publishers:
-
Build great banners that overdeliver on advertisers' expectations - even if their budgets are rather small. Look for services (like Smartico) that do that for you by pulling together all information needed for the banner, build the banner and serve it. But the banner is the foundation of the campaign. If the banner fails, the campaign will fail, and the small advertiser will not book again ... and might be lost to social media and other channels.
-
Control the landing page. When a small advertisers wants results, they do not necessarily mean website traffic. Online is not their core business which is why their websites are often rudimentary, at best. No latest offers, no mobile optimisation, no lead forms, no call-to-actions, etc. - when you build the landing page for them instead (pulling in all the info from their print ad, social media feeds, etc.), and open it up on your news website as an overlay, users find the information they are looking for quickly and do not leave your page. And advertisers appear professional and digital from A to Z.
-
Change your narrative from clicks to attention. You are not selling clicks and small advertisers are not buying clicks. Why then keep talking about clicks instead of the attention and brand visibility that an ad and the brand message of your local advertiser got? "Fun fact": Tracking that info will show that your banners are 5-8x more visible than the same banners on social media and small advertisers get 100s of minutes of attention - even for small budgets. Isn't that what you should be talking about with your local advertiser? This is a great story for every news publisher! Is proves the quality of our medium for the local advertiser.
Reach out to get a few case studies and a full business cas how we've done that for 500+ titles and learn how to implement that for your publication as well.
Small advertisers are the life blood of local newspapers and we need to treat their ads as relevant local community information and put the extra effort in to make them shine.
Not only for them and our readers but also for the bottom line of our advertising P&L. It's relevant money when done right! So get in touch anytime and let's build some more local advertising profit centres together.
People also viewed
Related People
Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.