Jan Huibers, the CEO and founder of global adult advertising network EroAdvertising, knows how to reach his clients — with determined and constant innovation and development of new features, all in order to accommodate changing, fickle and hyper-competitive markets.
Huibers is proud of his company's innovative nature, and he sees it as the company's unique selling points. His team of programmers are constantly focused on finding new ways to create and optimize customer needs. But innovation isn't the only desired trait clients seek in ad networks; customer service also is just as important, Huibers says.
One of the keys to our success are our local account managers and our online support in seven languages. Communicating in your own native language ensures a better and more user friendly experience of our entire platform.
XBIZ World wanted to know more about the EroAdvertising ad network and Huibers, who was honored last year as Tech Executive of the Year at 2013's XBIZ Executive Awards in London, in this recent Q&A.
XBIZ: How did you get involved in the industry?
HUIBERS: I started programming as a hobby in 1998. While I liked the technology in general, my programming wasn’t paying any bills, yet. I worked as an arborist to provide for my family. After a while I developed a muscle disease which made it impossible for me to continue working in a segment that requires mostly intense physical labor.
As I have a family to provide for, I had to find another way of creating income. At that point I decided to take my programming skills to another level, taking it from a “hobby level” to a professional one!
My first project was a mainstream ASP website. It was my first programming language after JavaScript and HTML. Soon after launching this website I got hired by a company that was my eye-opener into the adult industry. I expanded my programming skills and not long after working for somebody else I decided that I had more ideas and visions than I could incorporate in my current job as a programmer.
I took the chance and started my own company in 2006!
XBIZ: What exactly does EroAdvertising do with traffic to make clients money?
HUIBERS: We are a transparent advertising network. With our in-house developed technologies we design creative and innovative features that help keep us performing in the higher segments of the adult advertising industry.
We provide the most challenging filter requirements for today’s online advertising industry. And besides providing clients with all the necessary tools that they need to be successful online, we also have our support employees ready at the desk to help clients fine tune campaigns and create even more revenue.
Because of our transparency and our tracking features, clients can easily monitor and fine tune their campaigns even more (if we haven’t done so for them already!).
XBIZ: Where is most of your business coming from?
HUIBERS: Our strongest market is Europe. Currently we are working on expanding our network in other (future growth) markets to be able to maintain and improve our market leading position. Of course one of our main focuses will be the U.S. market.
For example, we recently hired an account manager based in the U.S. to ensure an excellent service and support for our clients on the North American continent.
XBIZ: What is the story behind EroAdvertising becoming a leading player in the industry?
HUIBERS: EroAdvertising was launched back in 2006 and is one of the oldest and biggest ad networks in the online entertainment industry. The company has been growing considerably in the last few years.
One of the keys to our success are our local account managers and our online support in seven languages. Communicating in your own native language ensures a better and more user friendly experience of our entire platform. It also helps us to manage and monetize traffic more easily and more efficient. It has always been our ultimate goal to provide a high level of service for our clients on a daily basis. We try to think with our clients to make the best return of investment!
XBIZ: What’s coming up for the company as we move on through the year?
HUIBERS: We have great plans for the second half of 2014. As always we are working on improving our platform where we can. Working together with our clients we are constantly developing new features. We are going to expand our market and will hire more and more talented account managers to ensure we can support clients in other languages than we already do.
Beside the U.S., our focus will be on the Russian and Turkish markets in general.
XBIZ: What sector of the online adult business is driving the market these days?
HUIBERS: In my point of view, live streaming content — cam sites — and dating products are among the most successful market drivers. Not forgotten are of course tube sites, which are still holding a large market share in the adult industry.
XBIZ: Do you have any concerns for the health of the adult entertainment industry?
HUIBERS: Porn will always be an interesting commercial sector. However, I have some concerns about possible government regulations, which could cause a decrease in the adult entertainment industry.
XBIZ: What’s a typical day at work like?
HUIBERS: I spend the day in our headquarters in Oss, The Netherlands, with typical daily office activities, which includes working on and discussing marketing activities, attending meetings — both with employees and clients — and replying to various email in my mailbox, phone calls, etc.
My main focus is dividing the daily activities between the people that are most fit to do the job. That leaves me with time to discuss and roll out new features and improvements with our technical team.
I am a so called night person. This often results in spending the late evening hours working on new projects and programming.
XBIZ: When not thinking about the biz, what do you like to do?
HUIBERS: From when I was a little kid, one of my favorite things to do was fishing. I still enjoy catching fish. Furthermore I am spending most of my free time with my three sons.
The weekends are mostly filled with standing long-side the soccer field providing my boys with “valuable feedback” on their performance.
And, which might come as a shock to you, I spend the time that’s left on technologies and programming.
