SCIENCE

Local mobile advertising network, xAD announced the expansion of its national and local sales presence, and an increased emphasis on direct sales and marketing, which it will be pursuing through three executive hires. Ron Merritt is joining xAD as senior vice president of sales, Monica Ho is joining as the vice president of marketing and Dan Hight is the vice president of business development. These strategic hires come at a key time when the U.S. mobile local advertising is poised to explode.

To bring its unique mobile local advertising directly to small- and medium-sized businesses, xAD launched its own direct sales operation in Charlotte, NC earlier this month. This team, under the direction of Ron Merritt, is comprised of experienced sales consultants who will be offering turn-key mobile marketing and lead generation solutions to small- and medium-sized businesses, many of which have yet to run effective mobile advertising campaigns - until now. The sales team is off to an incredible start and is already exceeding expected close rates.

"xAD is part of such an exciting area of growth in mobile advertising," Merritt said. "Our team's early success further validates the need for mobile marketing solutions designed for the small- to medium-sized business. I'm excited to play a key role in the expansion of xAD's reach among advertisers, and to illustrate to local businesses the opportunities within mobile."

Merritt is coming to xAD with 14 years of sales leadership. Prior to joining, he served as vice president of local sales at Yodle, where he helped grow the company from a startup to a company ranked number 35 on The Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies list.

An additional executive hire, Dan Hight will also be joining the team as vice president of business development. In that role, he will lead xAD's efforts on the national side, developing relationships with strategic partners, agencies, national brands, and re-sellers. Hight most recently worked at SuperMedia, where he was director of strategic marketing.

"I'm very excited about joining the xAD team," Hight said. "I look forward to expanding our relationships with our strategic partners, agencies and resellers through our industry leading, local mobile advertising platform."

xAD's strategic hires all focus on expanding the company's footprint with both national and local businesses - many of whom have yet to really embrace the potential of mobile advertising. This is why the hiring of Monica Ho as vice president of marketing is timely, as the seasoned marketing executive is leading efforts to help the company evangelize the opportunities within local mobile search through the development and release of industry-first data on the local mobile advertising market, in addition to building the company's presence and involvement in the industry's most influential associations and industry events.

Monica Ho is joining the xAD team from TMP Directional Marketing, where she was the senior vice president of marketing. With over 12 years of local marketing and advertising experience, she brings to the team knowledge of the advertising sphere as well as the know-how for how to market a company.

"We have an amazing opportunity to bring mobile advertising to the untapped local market," said Ho. "I'm excited about our opportunity and the fantastic response we're already receiving from advertisers and publishers alike."

In addition to the hiring news, xAD today announced that it has increased its traffic across its network of top mobile local search sites and applications by more than 550 percent, when comparing traffic levels from the first five months of 2010 to 2011.

"We believe great people build great businesses, so naturally our goal is to assemble the most talented management team with unmatched experience in mobile local advertising," said Dipanshu Sharma, xAD founder and CEO. "Our mission is to connect local businesses to mobile consumers, and our recent management additions will ensure we reach our goals."
xAD has become the mobile ad network of choice for third-party developers and publishers who specialize in local, navigation, social, and directory applications seeking better content relevance and monetization of their products. Local mobile ads are highly actionable and track-able for advertisers and publishers: 25 percent of clicked-on ads lead to a call to the business.