In Interview with Mr Santhosh George Wilson, Business Leader in mobile advertising and Country Manager of ClearPier in India

Excerpts of an interview with Mr Santhosh George Wilson, Country Manager of ClearPier India, a mobile advertising tech company.

In the interview, Mr Santhosh George Wilson shared with TechStory, information regarding ClearPier India and services offered by the company to Indian customers. Being a business leader in the mobile advertising sector, he also shared his thoughts on the growth and future trends of the mobile advertising business in India.

1. Tell us about ClearPier and the services being offered by the company.

ClearPier is a mobile advertising technology company that develops and promotes solutions that can turbo charge app marketing, brand awareness, and customer retention for brands across the world. ClearPier has its HeadQuarters in Toronto and has offices across many cities.

2. Tell us about your journey so far and the milestones that helped you shape your career

I started my career as an Intern Copywriter at Lowe Lintas, Mumbai. It was way back in 2005. Being so passionate about advertising, I was curious about new trends in advertising and it was when I started hearing about mobile as a new emerging medium, how content was being delivered through it, etc. Without much delay, I joined a company, Enable Interactive, that was innovating on mobile content and related marketing. Mobile advertising was still in its earliest infancy. By 2008 I joined Yahoo as its mobile advertising operations associate and this was when I initially realized the tremendous potential this industry holds. Around this time companies like Inmobi had already come into existence and I had joined a competitor for Inmobi, named as Vserv as its specialist of products and partnerships. These operational jobs and partnership management were so critical in shaping my fundamentals about mobile advertising, and I decided to try my hands into sales. I have worked with a few foreign advertising companies like Crobo, Mobco and Headway to develop their business across APAC markets. I could see myself doing great in sales, as it is propelled by everything I worked on till date. So far this has been a great journey working with industry leading brands and agencies and developing business as part of it.

3. As the country manager of ClearPier, share some key data about mobile advertising in India.

The paradigm shift over the last few years is that mobile has not only replaced every other media as the primary source for consuming information but also allows people to take appropriate actions right there. From making the grocery list to placing a quick delivery, from comparing features to buying a car,  from reviewing different stock opportunities to investing and trading RHRN, everything got transferred to the mobile devices so smoothly. Hence, advertising on mobile devices is now not just an option, but a crucial media plan for every brand. This obviously is fuelling mobile advertising to its new peak every day. 

The share of mobile in India’s digital media spends jumped to 76% in FY21 from 45% in FY19, growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 45% to $1.9 billion. Yet the overall share of digital advertising is relatively lower in India which is about 30% – against the global average of 50%, and you can assume the growth that’s about to come.

From ClearPier’s point of view, we are trying to build unique touch points with potential users for our client’s apps, by innovating on our ad placements and creative experience. Be it programmatic, affiliate or OEM driven ad placements, we are trying to create a diversely dynamic portfolio of supply.

4. What really is performance marketing?

Performance Marketing by definition is ‘result oriented marketing’. With the advancements in digital marketing, key metrics like views of the marketing campaign, interactions with the campaigns after viewing, actions taken by the end user etc are trackable as well as tractable. When the performance of an ad campaign is so transparent, advertisers would obviously attach certain goals along with their marketing spend. In that sense, every digital marketing campaign is a ‘performance campaign’ these days. However, to be specific, when the payment terms are attached to a certain ‘performance goal’, we call it a performance campaign, and otherwise if the objective of the campaign is only brand visibility, we call it ‘a brand awareness’ campaign.

5. Do you wish to share any recent success stories of clients who worked with ClearPier.

I don’t wish to take a specific name here due to NDA compliances, however ClearPier is doing phenomenally well for certain verticals like Fintech, Shopping as well as Mobile Gaming. We were able to scale up on first deposit conversions for an emerging Crypto app in India even while the Crypto market wasn’t doing well in general. We work with some of the biggest eCommerce brands from South East Asia to drive sales via their apps. We are a global user acquisition partner for game publishers from China, Korea and Israel. 

6. How was your experience during the ad:tech 2022 event?

This event came after a big gap due to the covid related restrictions, and hence it was a golden opportunity to meet again those favorite people in the digital marketing fraternity. 

It was a highly packed event for me and my team as we had a lot of meetings in and out of the conference venue. 

In general, the ad:tech Delhi 2022 turned out to be a very happening as well as an inspiring event for the whole industry.

7. What trends do you expect to see in performance marketing and mobile advertising in the near future?

Mobile advertising is one of the most dynamic industries in terms of growth and updates. The industry is led by a number of stakeholders, like the device manufacturers, operating system players, Telcos, Internet Providers, Media houses, Advertising companies, Various brands, Government to an extent and ultimately end users. Most of these are separate industries by themselves. So any changes happening to any of these players tend to create ripples across the entire mobile advertising industry. In my opinion, the industry is still shaping up to its best possible ecosystem with the changes happening frequently.

Performance marketing will see drastic changes in terms of quality control and fraud prevention. With restrictions on third party cookies we see that a lot of companies had to reinvent their whole business engine. This is resulting in something called ‘collaborative marketing’ where companies with different strengths come together for a larger success. We will witness more and more mergers and acquisitions in the coming days. A lot of strategic partnerships as well as outsourcing would be required for smaller players who want to stand on their own.

8. Share a few words about yourself, your family and where you live?

Currently I live in Bengaluru with my wife Steffy, and daughters Isabelle, Evangelyn and Joan. I’m a musician when I’m not at work (Or sometimes at work too, lol)