James Revell, Admitad’s first hire in North America, joined Admitad in summer 2021 as Head of ECommerce, for the region. When we last jumped on a call with James, it’s an early morning in California where he’s based and immediately consults his schedule, and deliverables for the day with Bob Marley tunes echoing in the background. He smiles, turns down the music and tells us about work. This includes current clients, upcoming strategic alliances, what an ideal candidate for the team entails, professional challenges and shares some personal interests.
The ecommerce team in North America
Our US based team is celebrating its first birthday! I was privileged with being the initial hire in North America. My primary goal is to scale our ecommerce partner business and to understand what we need to deliver with the objective to bring partners, earn respect and trust of those partners while taking market share.
Now there are three of us in the ecommerce team. We are a smart, dynamic and passionate group, and most importantly work extremely well as a unit. Our responsibilities include pitching and earning the partnership of brands, merchants and advertisers, and curating exclusive offers. A large part of what we do involves strategic business development. In that capacity, I spend a good portion of the week speaking with my network and leveraging those relationships to explore new, even out of the box ideas with Admitad.
While some connections help to realize partnerships quicker than others, for us it’s not only about the short game, but that of the long game too. Our goal is to open dialogues about our value proposition which supports why it makes good business sense to partner with our affiliate network. We are also aligning with agencies that represent many of our current and forthcoming clients.
Of course, relationships depend on the focus given to a conversation, the dynamic, and the chemistry. In terms of partnership marketing, efficiency and optimization are critical and in the better interest of our clients. Therefore, we prefer to work directly with partners. This enables Admitad and its partner to form a one-to-one relationship enabling direct communication which supports planning, growth optimization and troubleshooting far more efficiently.
We are proud of all of the relationships we’ve embarked on over the past year. Some of those include Chegg, MIRROR, StubHub, TOMS, Truly Free, Vionic, and Walmart.
A perfect candidate for the Admitad US team
When we consider the type of candidates that we look for, they are those who can communicate and articulate clearly and freely and are not afraid to express their ideas and opinions. Whether it’s about improving a business flow, a clients’ campaign or really any approach around how we can do better than we did yesterday at Admitad, that’s the type of thinking we want. We certainly are interested in folks who have had direct experience in performance marketing, but welcome dialogue with those who have larger, broad digital marketing backgrounds.
If an associate, friend, referral or even someone I don’t know approaches me with interest in coming to Admitad, I welcome the opportunity to have a conversation.
Biggest challenges for this year
When I am asked about our challenges or barriers, I immediately think of them as opportunities. And there are many opportunities for the North American team. We are spending most of our days communicating and sharing with brands exactly how Admitad brings value to their business and will further its brand into the marketplace. In doing so, we have a chance to express and demonstrate the differences between Admitad and the rest of the players in this growing and evolving landscape. What’s particularly validating is more and more brands are coming to us intrigued and wanting to know more about us.
Personal life
Outside of work I keep busy with a variety of passions. Health is of paramount importance to me, so I train six days a week which includes both cardio and weightlifting and to break up the monotony of the gym, on weekends, I run at the beach. I enjoy gardening and working in the yard. I am exponentially passionate about music; it’s been a huge part of my life since I was eleven. I enjoy going to concerts (I average between 8-12 shows annually) and enjoy playing bass, guitar, drums, and accompanying instruments. Who knows, I might be recording an album. Stay tuned!
