Liftoff with Jeanniey Walden
Matt Conlin, Co-Founder of Fluent, on 16 Years of Reinvention, Performance Marketing, and Commerce 360
Who’s on this episode
Hosted by Jeanniey Walden, founder and host of Liftoff with Jeanniey Walden.
What you’ll learn
- How a mixtape hustle at St. John’s turned into a career in digital advertising.
- The one piece of advice that became a lightbulb: focus on the industry you’re in.
- The origin of performance-based ads, from a Yahoo Fantasy Football thank-you page.
- Why Matt runs the business on a win-win-win for consumer, publisher, and advertiser.
- How enriching the checkout moment became Commerce 360.
- The mantras that carried Fluent through five pivots and 16-plus years.
Episode highlights
- 00:00Meet Matt Conlin, co-founder of Fluent
- 00:37A journey of ups and downs
- 00:50Selling mixtapes at St. John’s
- 01:10Into digital advertising, pre-iPhone
- 01:50The advice that became a lightbulb
- 02:40Every day at work was our MBA
- 03:40Hanging the Fluent shingle in 2010
- 04:50The Yahoo Fantasy Football idea and performance ads
- 06:10The 2015 acquisition for over $200 million
- 07:10Becoming a publisher and building the identity graph
- 08:00Taking back control in 2018
- 09:40The win-win-win philosophy
- 10:46Staying fresh through five pivots
- 14:00Why the industry keeps growing
- 17:00Enriching checkout and Commerce 360
- 18:30The hot take: adversity determines destiny
Episode summary
Recorded at Cannes, Jeanniey sits down with Matt Conlin, co-founder and Chief Customer Officer of Fluent, for a founder story with no shortage of ups and downs. Matt traces it back to 2005 and 2007, when he and his college business partner from St. John’s University got their first taste of entrepreneurship selling mixtapes on campus, back when the hottest DJs were on Hot 97 and missing that Friday-night hour meant missing out entirely. They moved into digital advertising in a pre-iPhone, pre-mass-Facebook era, watched their first employer get acquired, and decided they wanted to build something of their own. The advice that changed everything was almost too obvious: focus on the industry you are already in. From that day, Matt says, every day at work became their MBA, and as roommates they would come home and compare notes on what they learned and which problems clients were facing.
By 2010 they had a blueprint, and they hung the Fluent shingle on their apartment door in Queens. The company went from zero to about $40 million in its first year on a simple thesis: build a great product for publishers first, and if you have the eyeballs, the advertisers will come. Matt tells the story of the idea that crystallized performance-based advertising, a blank Yahoo Fantasy Football thank-you page that they turned into valuable real estate with a relevant, clickable offer, then priced against what a sign-up was actually worth to an advertiser like the NFL. Fluent scaled, and Matt says it was acquired in 2015 for over $200 million by a publicly traded company, an outcome he calls one of the most rewarding of his life because of the generational wealth it created for staff, including an engineer who moved home to India to care for his mother and handed his role to his brother. As a public company, Fluent kept evolving, becoming a publisher itself, building content, cashback, and rewards sites, and developing the identity graph that now powers its commerce media business.
The fit with the parent company was not right, a sale to a large ad agency was blocked, and in 2018 the founders regained control as a standalone public company. Since then the story has been about innovation and iteration, building a suite of solutions for the growing commerce media ecosystem across retail, grocery, and travel. Through all of it, Matt keeps returning to one idea, the win-win-win: every solution has to add value for the consumer, for the publisher or retailer, and for the advertiser at the same time. He talks about the energy he draws from partnerships and results, the discipline of staying fresh through what he counts as roughly five pivots, and the internal mantra to anticipate obstacles and plan accordingly. He argues the industry will keep growing because every CEO is pressing for growth and marketing is core to it, and that performance channels tend to gain share in downturns because advertisers move money to where results are measurable. He closes on where it is heading for Fluent: enriching the checkout moment with a personalized offer and extending it into repeat purchase and loyalty, an idea he calls Commerce 360, and a hot take he holds dear, that what one does in the face of adversity ultimately determines their destiny.
Key takeaways
- 01:50 The advice that changed everything was to focus on the industry you are already in; from there, every day at work became their MBA.
- 03:40 Matt says he and his partner founded Fluent in 2010 and grew it from zero to about $40 million in the first year on a product-first thesis: if you have the eyeballs, advertisers will come.
- 04:50 Performance-based advertising crystallized from a blank Yahoo Fantasy Football thank-you page turned into a relevant, clickable, priced offer.
- 06:10 He says Fluent was acquired in 2015 for over $200 million, creating generational wealth for staff, which he counts among the most rewarding parts of the journey.
- 07:10 Fluent became a publisher itself, building the identity graph and first-party data set that now power its commerce media business.
- 08:00 After a blocked sale, the founders regained control in 2018 as a standalone public company.
- 09:40 The guiding principle is the win-win-win: add value for the consumer, the publisher or retailer, and the advertiser at the same time.
- 10:46 Staying fresh through roughly five pivots, and anticipating obstacles, is how Matt says a business survives a fast-moving industry.
- 14:00 He expects commerce media to keep growing because every CEO wants growth, and performance channels tend to gain share when budgets tighten.
- 17:00 Commerce 360 is Fluent enriching the checkout moment with a personalized offer, then extending it into repeat purchase, loyalty, and retention.
- 18:30 His hot take: what one does in the face of adversity ultimately determines their destiny, in business and in life.
Questions people ask
Who is Matt Conlin?
Matt Conlin is a co-founder and the Chief Customer Officer of Fluent, a commerce media company. He has worked in digital advertising for about 20 years and has led Fluent through more than 16 years of growth and reinvention.
What is Fluent?
Fluent is a commerce media company that builds solutions for a two-sided marketplace, helping publishers, retailers, and merchants monetize and engage consumers while giving advertisers a performance channel across retail, grocery, travel, and other industries.
When was Fluent founded and what happened to it?
Matt Conlin says he and his business partner founded Fluent in 2010 and grew it from zero to about $40 million in its first year. He says the company was acquired in 2015 for over $200 million by a publicly traded company, and after a blocked sale the founders regained control in 2018 as a standalone public company.
What is the win-win-win philosophy?
It is Matt Conlin’s principle that Fluent has to add value for three groups at once: the consumer or shopper, the publisher or retailer, and the advertiser. If a solution creates value for all three, he says the company is doing its job.
What is Commerce 360?
Commerce 360 is how Matt Conlin describes enriching the post-checkout moment with a relevant, personalized offer and then using that moment to drive repeat purchase, loyalty, and retention, for example with loyalty points or a gift card back to the retailer.
What is Matt Conlin’s advice for entrepreneurs?
Focus on the industry you are already in, treat every day at work as your MBA, keep the business fresh by iterating and pivoting, anticipate obstacles and plan accordingly, and remember that how you respond to adversity ultimately determines your destiny.
Full transcript
Jeanniey Walden: All right, welcome back. I am here with an incredibly talented man, Matt Conlin. He is the co-founder and the Chief Customer Officer of Fluent, which is a commerce media company. Why would he have Chief Customer Officer in his title? We’re going to find out right now. Matt, welcome to Cannes.
Matt Conlin: Hey, thank you, Jeanniey. Appreciate you having me on today.
Jeanniey Walden: I’m so excited, because you are an inspiring co-founder. You’ve been in this business a long time, and you’ve stuck with it. Tell us about the journey.
Matt Conlin: It has been no shortage of ups and downs. I’ve been through every flavor of the entrepreneurial journey you can imagine, but the story begins in 2007. My business partner and I met in college, at St. John’s University, and my first ever foray into starting a business was selling mixtapes on the St. John’s campus, back when the hottest DJs in New York were on Hot 97. If you missed that hour on Friday night, you missed it. So we figured out you could print it and sell it, and it became a big viral buzz back in the day. That was our first business together.
Matt Conlin: We got out of college and into digital advertising, my very first job in 2005. Google had just bought DoubleClick, Facebook wasn’t yet available to the masses, it was still only for college students.
Jeanniey Walden: There was no iPhone.
Matt Conlin: Snapchat was still just a twinkle in heaven’s eyes. It was a very early era. But we got into the industry at the right time, and the founders of the first company we worked for got acquired by a private equity company. We were 21 years old and impressionable, and we thought, that’s pretty interesting, we should build a company. At the time we didn’t know what kind of company to build, so we went to some early advisers, and they gave us this very sage advice: why don’t you focus on the industry that you’re in? It’s such an obvious comment, but it was a lightbulb moment for us. From that day forward, every day at work was our MBA. We were roommates, funny enough, and we’d come home and say, what’d you learn, who’d you talk to, what problems were they experiencing? Back in ’05 and ’06, you could call up the VP of marketing at Coca-Cola and they’d talk marketing with you. It was that era where you could reach a lot of people quickly and learn a lot.
Matt Conlin: We took the road of learning by helping a venture-backed company out of London launch its New York office, and we scaled that from zero to $25 million over the next three years. We made all the mistakes you could: the wrong hires, the wrong business plans, the wrong partnerships. But we still learned, we still grew, and we built a really profitable business. Three years later, we were ready to start Fluent, and now we had a blueprint. So in 2010 we officially hung the Fluent shingle on our apartment door in Queens, if you’re counting. And we shot a cannon, we went from zero to $40 million in our first year. We had a very simple thesis: if we build a great product and provide better solutions for publishers to engage, the advertisers are going to come. If you have the eyeballs, they will come. A field of dreams scenario. So we built great products to start, and that was the foundation for Fluent.
Matt Conlin: Where we started our journey, funny enough, was helping the likes of Pandora and Yahoo Fantasy Football. This was before post-transaction, this was post-registration. About ten million people every season were going to Yahoo Fantasy Football, creating an account, and getting dead-ended on a blank thank-you page: thanks for signing up. And we thought, that’s pretty valuable real estate, why don’t you put a relevant ad there? Our concept was, I bet if you put an ad that’s relevant, they’re not just going to view it, they might actually click on it and do something. So we had this early concept of performance-based ads.
Jeanniey Walden: Wow.
Matt Conlin: And we’d call the NFL and ask, how much would you pay for a sign-up from Yahoo Fantasy Football? Is that worth a dollar? Ten dollars? So we were covered on both sides. Long story short, we had a wonderful start building products and technology for publishers and performance solutions for advertisers. We scaled it, and we got acquired in 2015 for over $200 million by a publicly traded company. That was one of the most rewarding experiences of my lifetime, because we created generational wealth opportunities for a number of our staff. One of my favorite stories is an engineer who said, this is great, I’ve made more money than I ever thought I would, I’m moving back to India to take care of my mom, but before I do, my brother needs a job, he’s a software engineer, and he’s going to take my spot. It was really special.
Matt Conlin: Then we were part of a public company, but we recognized it wasn’t the best fit. We were a performance marketing business, and we had transitioned from building tools for publishers to becoming a publisher ourselves, building our own content, cashback, and rewards sites. Part of that was to understand how consumers interact directly, to get a better sense of what mattered to them, building out surveys and asking them. That ultimately enhanced our ad serving and targeting and built out our identity graph, which is the foundation of the data set that powers our commerce media business today.
Matt Conlin: A couple of years into the acquisition, it wasn’t the best fit. They were focused on data analytics and data fusion, and we were still performance marketing. We went to auction and were going to be acquired by a large ad agency, but the performance marketing capability wasn’t a fit and the deal got blocked. Next thing you know, we split from our parent company, got back control in 2018, and became a standalone public company. It was a windy road to being NASDAQ-listed, but here we are, so let’s make the most of it. The past several years have really been about innovation and iteration, and today we’ve built a suite of solutions to support the burgeoning commerce media ecosystem. We’re excited by the partners we keep, some of the brightest minds in retail, commerce, and media who look to Fluent to help grow their businesses across retail, grocery, travel, and other industries. Throughout the whole journey, one thing has remained true: we’re deeply rooted in performance. Our business started and continues in how we drive better results for our partners on both sides of the ecosystem, supply and demand.
Jeanniey Walden: There are two things that stood out as you were talking. The first is the customer. When you talk about your title being Chief Customer Officer, and being a commerce media platform with a network of solutions, people might think of the customer on the B2B side, but really it’s the actual customer going through the experience. Even in your early days, the product was about how you give them an experience that makes them feel better than what they went in with, while doing it in a way that is so strategic that you’re making money for your partner’s product.
Matt Conlin: This is cliche, but we always think about the win-win-win scenario. We have to be mindful of the consumer, the customer, the shopper. How do we make sure we’re adding value into the everyday lives of the consumers we interact with? How do we add value to the publishers, merchants, and retailers, and of course the advertisers? If we can develop solutions that create value for all three of those constituents, we’re doing our job.
Jeanniey Walden: With all the changes since 2007, the crash, then COVID, and now AI as the third wave of transformation, you’ve kept the company focused on that win-win-win through it all, not just from a product perspective but from a results perspective. What inspires you to keep that consistent performance out there?
Matt Conlin: I get energy from having interactions like this. I get energy from delivering results, and I’m very passionate about forming partnerships. I lose interest when it’s a bad partnership or not delivering results. There’s something about creating memorable experiences for our partners, having advertisers that have worked with us for over a decade and still want to innovate and grow with us. That gives me joy. The other thing that’s really important for anybody building a business is you have to keep fresh. We’re on our third or fourth pivot, maybe our fifth, I’m losing track. In digital advertising, we’ve been in the space for over 20 years and it’s still not mature. You might argue a $300-billion-a-year industry is hitting maturity, but there are new solutions coming out every single day. We’ve always been about how we innovate and iterate, how we look for really good ideas and keep them true to our core so they deliver great results to our three constituents. And because there’s so much change, there’s always going to be adversity. We hold some internal mantras dear. One is to anticipate the obstacles and plan accordingly. You never know exactly what will happen, but every year something comes out of left field, and you should be mentally prepared to pivot as necessary.
Jeanniey Walden: It’s an incredible feat. Most businesses are out of business within the first five years, and here you are through multiple transformations, always coming back to that same core concept, that the customer is at the heart of every transaction, and looking to deliver not just transactions but success.
Matt Conlin: Exactly.
Jeanniey Walden: So where do you see the industry going now? Do you still see continued opportunities for innovation, or as we hit endemic and non-endemic media solutions, is that it?
Matt Conlin: Short answer is yes, it will continue to grow, and here’s why. There is not a CEO in the world who is not pressing their team to drive more growth. That’s true across every single industry. If growth is paramount and it’s what drives shareholder value and returns for investors, then advertising and marketing is going to be core to that growth. There are only so many brands fortunate enough to grow on the back of a viral moment, and even that still involves marketing. So there are no signs of slowing down. Even in challenged periods, like the big crash of ’07, ’08, ’09, performance marketing didn’t experience it as dramatically, because advertisers started moving dollars to places that were more accountable. They reallocated from newspaper, print, out-of-home, and even TV into performance channels with clear measurement and greater accountability. The same is true now. There’s some instability and insecurity about the future of the economy, not just in the US but globally, and in these times marketers are looking for channels that can deliver results and outcomes. That’s an opportunity we’re very well situated to take advantage of.
Jeanniey Walden: Last question. What is the impact? Does this become a demand-only solution, or is there an impact for the retention team as well?
Matt Conlin: Great question. Let’s back up. Our capabilities today support a two-sided marketplace. On one end are our merchant partners, retailers, travel organizations, and publishers, looking to better monetize and engage their consumers and, ultimately, create incremental revenue. On the other end are advertisers looking for new channels, because there’s a point of diminishing returns on Facebook and Google, where I can only spend so much before my bids go upside down. Fluent is an alternative channel that can drive strong performance across a large audience. On both sides, we have an obligation to keep driving great results.
Jeanniey Walden: What I’m getting at is, if you’re finding new ways to engage customers, I imagine the customer is excited about that. When they think, wow, when I bought something they gave me all these other relevant offers, there has to be something else in there.
Matt Conlin: Totally. One of our main solutions today is to help enrich the checkout experience. Directly after a person completes a transaction, what is a relevant, personalized offer that adds value to that shopping experience? And one of the things we’re experimenting with is how to make that moment not just a value-add to the shopper and a monetizable moment for retail partners, but a way to use that moment to drive repeat purchase, loyalty, and retention. So, engage with this special offer and earn loyalty points back to the retailer, or engage with this offer and get a gift card back to that retailer. We’re always in experimentation mode, and we’re getting a lot of great feedback on this. It becomes this notion of Commerce 360: how do you surprise and delight the shopper as they leave the experience, and help drive that back into the next purchase?
Jeanniey Walden: That’s the holy grail of everything. You’ve got a constant flywheel of success. Brilliant. Matt, thank you so much for being on the show. Our listeners and viewers, I’ve learned a lot.
Matt Conlin: Thank you. And a hot take: one of the mantras our company lives by is, what one does in the face of adversity ultimately determines their destiny. True in business, true in life. We try to hold that near and dear, because there’s no shortage of adversity in building something special. There are always challenges, and how one responds to them ultimately determines success.
Jeanniey Walden: That’s the most powerful hot take we’ve ever closed an interview with. Thank you.
Matt Conlin: Thank you.
This conversation was recorded for Liftoff with Jeanniey Walden and lightly edited for readability.
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