David Brussin is CEO of Monetate, a provider of testing, targeting, and personalization services for websites.

Earlier this month, the company announced a $15 million Series B funding round led by OpenView Venture Partners.Read more on TechCrunch.

AdExchanger.com: Is the focus of the company eCommerce?

DB: We’re actually not focused on eCommerce. Our mission is really about anyone with a website, who has a commercial goal around the site, because all websites have the same thing in common.

Whether they’re transactional B to C, eCommerce, online retail, direct response or subscription, they all have the same characteristics around needing to provide relevant, compelling experiences for visitors, in order to drive an outcome.

For online retail, that action is purchasing a product that’s probably going to be shipped to them. For direct response, it might be transactional or it might not. But there is a pretty direct connection to some kind of exchange of value transaction.

For media, it’s different. That action might be transactional in nature and subscription oriented, but it might also be engagement and consumption of content, ad views.

We chose eCommerce as our initial vertical, because we actually have some features that we’ve built that are specifically for eCommerce that help that vertical. But we’re now playing in a number of other spaces.

Looking at a HubSpot or Adobe which has its enterprise platform solution – how does Monetate differentiate?

The Adobe products I would characterize as legacy products and came from Omniture, which really started about 10 years ago.

The challenge is that everything a marketer needs to do with those legacy platforms requires IT. That’s really why we have this whole micro‑site challenge in the first place: IT has to be involved and means that you’re looking at six to 18 months to launch campaigns.

If you look at the pace of activity, the agility of marketers working in display and search, those legacy platforms just can’t keep up. What’s needed is a platform that actually allows marketers to work at the same pace they’re working in every other channel.

What do you think about the potential impact of a downturn in the economy for a product offering like Monetate’s?

Well, we’ve seen this before, so my answer is maybe less prognostication and more thinking about the way things happened in the last downturn or maybe the first part of this one, if it goes that way.

Monetate was founded in January of 2008. We launched our product into the market in the summer of 2008. Thereafter, the retail and consumer economy and the rest of the market fell apart.

Monetate actually grew and even got to cash flow positive during that time.

We see two things that drive Monetate in the long term. One is a kind of an effect, where folks actually have to focus on doing better, rather than just doing more. The other piece is we’re just reaching a natural inflection point in the growth of eCommerce. As we get closer to that inflection point, then the growth in this industry will be driven through sophistication. Just as it was 20, 30 years ago with companies like Walmart and Target doing the same things with their large bricks‑and‑mortar empires and starting to pay attention in deep ways to data from their customers and from their supply chains.

Are you starting to bring in the marketer’s offline data to help with online campaigns?

Yes. There are a lot of crossovers. Sometimes the things we’re doing are online campaigns that turn into digital and in‑store coupons to track in that direction. Often we’re paying attention to data that comes from the offline channel, but that we can also use when folks have an online interaction.

You were an outside board member at Invite Media before it was acquired by Google in 2010. Obviously, you have lots of experience in display. In your opinion, is the display space as complex as everybody says it is?

Yes, I think it is very complex. In some ways I think it’s useful to contrast display with search, where there are definitely powerful ecosystems that have built around both. There’s no question that display is more complex, because in search there are really only a couple of controllers of all inventory. In display that’s not true.

What surprises me about display today is that some of the innovations in display have taken longer to take hold than I would have expected given how powerful they are. But when I think of it from the other perspective, in contrast with search, I guess it’s not that surprising because given that the ecosystem is so much more complex, those innovations will naturally take longer to take hold.

I think that the transformation that the exchange has brought to display is an incredibly powerful one.  I look at it through this lens because of Invite Media, but I see that transformation as being a key driver for future innovation in this space. It brings a model that allows for all of the value, the richness of targeting, segmentation and intelligence around data. Whereas before the exchange,  a lot of it was used, but in much less direct ways.

That meant the ROI was lower and more complex. I think that’s one of the reasons that those otherwise really powerful technologies have been a bit slower to take hold.

Regarding your latest funding round, can you expand on what you plan on doing with the additional funds?

Sure. I talked a little bit about the early path of the company, and growing rapidly to cash flow positive in the bad economy. We did that without raising much money. The nice thing about the way we got started was that we really got the product right, and we made sure that what we were offering is exactly what the market needed.

So our path since then has really been driven by that early work. This expansion is all about being able to serve more customers, and across all areas. Certainly, a lot of it is about sales and marketing, but we’re adding dramatically to our strategic team and our engineering team because we want to stay out in front. We get a tremendous amount of data on what works for customers and what doesn’t. We’ve always been able to use that to keep the product out ahead of our customers.

So a big part of [the new funds] is about continuing to innovate and drive forward for marketers.

Do you think about international at all?

We do. We have a number of international customers, both U.S.-based companies that do significant business in 100 or so international markets, as well as internationally‑based customers who are focused on both U.S. and other markets.

All of our employees are based in the U.S. today. At some point we certainly will expand our footprint and have folks overseas. I can’t tell you exactly when that will be, but it’s something we’re thinking about.

Follow David Brussin (@dbrussin), Montetate (@monetate) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

Open-E, Inc., a global leader and developer of innovative storage management software, creates a strategic alliance with leading hosting provider Simpaticorp, which is now an Open-E Authorized Partner.

Open-E’s Data Storage Software V6 is offered to Simpaticorp’s customers on Windows and Linux Virtual Servers with VMware as a virtualization platform. With vSphere 4.1. full and complete console control, customers are able to control their machines as if they are sitting right next to it.

“Our Storage Software combined with the reliable, VMware based virtual servers from Simpaticorp guarantees users the best possible virtual solution for off-site storage”, states Krzysztof Franek, president and CEO of Open-E. “We are certain that this cost-effective and secure service offers customers an easy way into cloud computing.”

“Open-E DSS V6 is a perfect solution for customers wishing to extend their SAN beyond their current physical facilities. We are seeing great value with the use of Open-E’s Data Storage Software and we are pleased to be able to provide this scalable solution to our enterprise clients”, says Simpaticorp President, Michael Baumann.

Open-E Data Storage Software V6 (Open-E DSS V6 ) is a unified file and block storage management operating system (OS) that provides Network Attached Storage (NAS), iSCSI and Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (SAN) functionality. It provides superior performance, security, and scalability at a fraction of the cost of alternative storage offerings. More information about the functionality of Open-E DSS V6 is available at the website of the storage software.

About Open-E

Open-E, Inc. is a pioneering leader and developer of IP-based storage management software with headquarters in the United States and Europe. Founded in 1998, the company sells its line of storage management software exclusively through a world-wide network of system integrators and reseller partners. The Open-E® DSS V6™ and Open-E® DSS V6 Lite™ line of products are aimed at the SMB and SME markets and enjoy a reputation for best-in-class performance, flexibility, reliability, scalability and return-on-investment.

With an extensive network of over 600 registered OEM, distributor and reseller partners, including over 200 Open-E certified partners, customers have the flexibility to work with the hardware solution provider of their choosing, allowing Open-E to focus on its core competency of storage software development.

With over 20,000 customer installations since 2003 in over 90 countries, Open-E data storage solutions are used by Fortune 500 customers world-wide.

For further information about Open-E, its products and partners, visit http://www.open-e.com/.

About Simpaticorp

Simpaticorp LLC, headquartered in Los Angeles, was founded in 2006 to provide VMware ESXi solutions to SMB and enterprise. Simpaticorp specializes in private cloud data storage with data centers located in El Segundo, One Wilshire, New York and St. Louis.

For further information about Simpaticorp, please visit http://www.simpaticorp.com/.

Exinda, a global provider of WAN optimization solutions incorporating Unified Performance Management, today announced that Inteva Products LLC, has selected Exinda’s solutions to improve the performance of business applications on its corporate network that connects 25 locations throughout Europe and Asia. The Exinda solutions have enabled Inteva to accelerate engineering CAD traffic, and to control internet bandwidth to multiple sites, resulting in a 35% reduction in traffic over its network.

Inteva has installed Exinda’s 4000 and 6000 series WAN Optimizations solutions, which provide visibility, control and optimization of the applications and users on the network, all in a single appliance.

“The wide area network that connects our sites is critical to our ability to collaborate between teams and deliver products that our customers’ stringent requirements,” said Jody Kelley, Infrastructure Manager, Inteva. “To handle the transfer or large files between offices, while minimizing bandwidth consumption, we needed a solution that offered both packetshaping and acceleration of WAN traffic.”

Inteva worked with its technology solutions partner, Amerinet, to manage the installation of the Exinda appliances. “Exinda provided Amerinet with appliances for a proof-of-concept prior to our purchase. After seeing the immediate impact the Exinda had on network performance, we were confident that it was the right solution to connect our 25 sites,” added Kelley.

Exinda’s ExOS 6.1 Release

Exinda’s ExOS 6.1 release, available with all Exinda’s Wan Optimization solutions, includes several key features and enhancements including the Exinda Edge Cache™, increased Optimization Scalability, and support for IPv6. These features address network issues including the increase in rich media such as video traffic on the WAN, the growing number and complexity of users and devices, and the rising demand for a better user experience.

About Inteva Products, LLC

Inteva Products, LLC is a leading global supplier offering value-based innovation and environmentally-friendly products that enhance quality and performance. Inteva serves original equipment manufacturers in six key markets: automotive, commercial vehicle, defense, marine, consumer and industrial. Focused on delivering high-value quality, on time and on budget, Inteva has global resources for engineering, manufacturing and customer service for Closure Systems, Interiors Systems, Motors and Electronics, and Roof Systems. Inteva is focused on sustained profitable growth, providing excellent customer service and being a best place to work for employees. The company is headquartered in Troy, Michigan and employs over 8,000 people in 18 countries. For more information, please visit www.intevaproducts.com.

About Exinda

Exinda is a proven global supplier of WAN Optimization and Application Acceleration products. The company has helped over 2,000 organizations in over 80 countries worldwide improve the end user experience, manage application performance, manage congestion over the WAN and reduce network operating costs for the IT executive. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.

Renowned social media speaker, author and coach Jay Baer (@jaybaer) will be the guest at this month’s ExactTarget Conversation Series, where he will join Jesse Engle (@engle), vice president of social media, to discuss the latest trends and stories driving the evolution of the industry.

Jay Baer writes one of the top marketing industry blogs “Convince & Convert,” and co-authored the book The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Company Faster, Smarter, and More Social. He is a widely sought-after speaker and is frequently quoted in the media about social media and its impact on business and brands. Recent media highlights include USA Today, MSNBC, Fast Company Magazine, and Inc. Magazine.

Details for this week’s event include:

Who:					Jay Baer, author, The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Company Faster, Smarter, and More Social Jesse Engle, vice president of social media, ExactTarget
When:					Thursday, August 18, 7 to 9 p.m. PDT
Where:					ExactTarget Social Media Lab, 301 Brannan Street, San Francisco
RSVP:					http://pages.exacttarget.com/jaybaer

ExactTarget’s Conversation Series features intimate, one-on-one conversations with social media industry thought leaders, held at the company’s Social Media Lab in SoMa, San Francisco. Events are open to the public with prior registration.

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of on-demand email marketing and interactive marketing solutions. The company’s Interactive Marketing Hub technology provides organizations a single solution to connect with customers via email, integrated text messaging, landing pages and social media. Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget’s technology integrates with more sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry, including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Omniture and Webtrends among many others. ExactTarget powers permission-based multichannel communications for thousands of organizations around the world including Expedia.com, Best Buy, Papa John’s, CareerBuilder.com, Gannett Co., Inc., The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Home Depot and Wellpoint, Inc. For more information, visit www.exacttarget.com.

Kareo, Inc., the leading provider of easy and affordable web-based medical billing software for physicians in the United States, announced today James Mathews as the company’s first Vice President of Business Development.  Mathews will drive the company’s partnership strategy and increase Kareo’s presence and participation in organizations that promote innovation in healthcare technology.

“We are very excited that James Mathews has joined our team,” said Dan Rodrigues, Founder and CEO at Kareo.  “Not only does he have the experience and relationships to drive our business forward, but James has throughout his career made it his mission to find ways that technology, policy and people can converge to make healthcare better for everyone.”

Key career highlights for James Mathews:

• Most recently ran business development and government initiatives for Sage Healthcare
• Served as general manager of strategic partnerships for interoperability provider CAREfx
• Spent 5 years with WebMD as an enterprise sales executive and clinical product manager
• Started his career as a practice administrator driving operational efficiency for group practices
• Serves as an advisor to healthcare organizations including Health 2.0 and others
• Holds BS in information systems from Amravati University in India

“Kareo is an incredible company with a bright future and I’m excited to join the team,” said James Mathews, VP of Business Development at Kareo.  “I’ve tried to be a champion of innovation in healthcare for two decades.  It all starts with getting doctors paid and I’m looking forward to building partnerships that advance the productivity and profitability of physicians.”

Kareo welcomes partners in the healthcare arena who can help achieve Kareo’s mission of making medical billing and practice management easy.  Organizations interested in partnership opportunities can contact Kareo’s business development team by calling  888-775-2736 or emailing [email protected].

About James Mathews

James Mathews is an accomplished healthcare technology executive with more than twenty years of experience in business development, sales and marketing, product management and healthcare administration.  Most recently at Sage Healthcare, James was responsible for identifying strategic growth opportunities with emerging technologies, including Google Health, Microsoft Healthvault and Voxiva.  Previously, James served as GM Strategic Partnership and earlier in sales and marketing with CAREfx, a leading provider of healthcare interoperability workflow solutions.  Before, James spent over 5 years with WebMD as an enterprise sales executive, and initially, as a clinical product manager.  James first moved into healthcare technology with implementation and product management positions at m2 Technologies and Tachyon Healthcare Enterprises.  James started his career as a practice administrator with Northeast Medical Management.  James serves as an advisor for various healthcare and technology organizations including Health 2.0, the Rockefeller Foundation Advisory Group on Health IT, and others.  James holds a B.S. in Information Systems from Amravati University and a B.S. in Accounting and Information Systems from the University of North Texas.

About Kareo

Kareo is a leading provider of easy to use, affordable, web-based practice management and medical billing software to thousands of physicians and hundreds of medical billing companies.  Kareo’s user-friendly and quick-to-implement solution enables physicians to get paid faster by storing patient records, verifying insurance eligibility, submitting electronic claims to insurers, posting electronic insurance payments, billing patients, managing accounts receivable, and much more.  For more information, visit Kareo on the web at http://www.kareo.com/.

Intronis, the world class cloud backup and disaster recovery solution for IT service providers, announces co-founder Neal Bradbury as Vice President of Operations.

Neal was one of the co-founders of Intronis in 2003 and has been instrumental in driving the company to its leadership position in the cloud backup and recovery industry. He came to Intronis with over 15 years of experience in the IT field including networking, security, and systems management.

Throughout his tenure at Intronis, Neal has worn many hats including technical support, product management, hosting operations and information technology. In his return to the role he loves, Neal will focus on running our operations team, keeping the company at the leading edge of online storage technology. Intronis CEO Kent Plunkett commented, “Neal is one of the key reasons we are a successful company. He was part of the original team that brought such an incredible solution to the IT channel. He personifies the type of MSP-centric service we aim to provide our partners.We are delighted to recognize Neal with this promotion and we look forward to his continued contributions as a widely respected member of our executive team.”

About Intronis
Intronis is a cloud provider of backup and disaster recovery services for managed service providers. Intronis utilizes 256-bit AES security and multiple data centers located on opposite coasts to ensure data protection and availability. Intronis offers IT service providers a secure data solution combined with a robust partner program, the convenience of online account management, and an industry leading technical support team.http://www.intronis.com.

Today, OpenView Venture Partners announced that Bill Price will join the firm as a Senior Advisor.

Bill will join the firm as a member of OpenView Labs, the strategic and operational consulting group for its portfolio companies. This essential addition will help propel OpenView’s capability for building and supporting customer service initiatives. The addition of Bill to the team directly aligns with OpenView’s promise to deliver meaningful impact to each and every portfolio company. Bill will primarily work as a consultant, coaching OpenView’s companies on best practices for customer service.

“We are excited to have Bill join the OpenView team. We initially engaged with Bill and his team in 2010 for our Customer Service Workshop and quickly realized the potential for great value for our portfolio companies. His experience and expertise will be a great asset to each and every company in our portfolio,” said Brian Zimmerman, Managing Director of OpenView Labs.

“With customer satisfaction and customer loyalty levels flat or declining in most industries, companies are scrambling to find solutions that meet short term necessities and provide lasting change. I am looking forward to continuing my engagement with the companies in OpenView’s portfolio and supporting their efforts in improving their customer service divisions,” said Bill Price.

“Bill’s experience and track record of success are undeniably impressive. Bill’s true value as an advisor is his unique ability to be both a thought leader in the space as well as a practical, execution-oriented consultant that can see projects though from conception to implementation,” stated James Armijo, VP of Customer Service of Kareo.

Bill Price is the Founder and President of Driva Solutions, a consultancy that focuses on customer contact strategies and operations. He founded Driva to help companies achieve the balance between cost containment and greater customer loyalty. He co-authored The Best Service is No Service: How to Liberate Your Customers From Customer Service, Keep Them Happy and Control Costs (Wiley, 2008) with David Jaffe. Prior to forming Driva Solutions, Bill was Amazon.com’s first Vice President of Global Customer Service, responsible for all customer service activities including managing the company’s contact centers in the US, Europe, Japan, and India. During these years, using the basic premises in this book, Amazon reduced its contacts-per-order by over 70 percent and also scored the second highest-ever customer satisfaction rating for any American company.

“Bill and I worked together to complete a gap analysis of Kareo’s current operations relative to his recommended best practices. Throughout the process, Bill was the consummate professional, always inquisitive and quick to learn the intricacies of Kareo’s business model, while keeping the project on task and delivering an actionable plan,” added James Armijo.

Bill has also collaborated with the OpenView team on content sharing best practices to customer service. To learn more, tune in to Labcast, a podcast series from OpenView.

About OpenView Venture Partners
OpenView Venture Partners is an expansion stage venture capital fund with a focus on high-growth software, Internet, and technology-enabled companies. Through its staff of seasoned operating executives, who collectively bring several decades of technology and management experience to the firm, OpenView is able to help portfolio companies with quickly ramping up Product, Go-To-Market, and Organizational and Operational functions to best practice levels. The firm was founded in 2006 and has a total capital under management of approximately $240 million. OpenView Venture Partners is based in Boston and invests on a worldwide basis.

About OpenView Labs
OpenView Labs is the strategic and operational consulting arm of OpenView Venture Partners, a global Venture Capital fund that invests in expansion stage technology companies. The Labs was formed to assist the management of OpenView portfolio companies build great companies by gathering, creating, storing, and disseminating best practices across all functional areas. The dedicated full-time teams, Senior Advisors, and network at OpenView Labs spend the bulk of their time working on behalf of the OpenView Venture Partner’s Portfolio companies. This work includes incubating methodologies, testing approaches, performing research projects, developing and implementing forums and workshops, gathering the best network and ideas for building great companies, and coaching the management of the portfolio companies.

Central Desktop, provider of the industry-leading cloud-based social collaboration platform for businesses, today announced it has improved its customers’ mobile user experience with Central Desktop for Mobile. Available now for Apple and Android devices and via an Internet browser on other smartphones such as BlackBerry devices, Central Desktop for Mobile gives users the flexibility to easily access and interact with daily work activities on the go.

Through Central Desktop for Mobile, users are able to access files, check recent activity, post status updates and manage tasks directly from their mobile devices. Mobile workers can also search for any content that is stored in their Central Desktop workspaces and engage in conversations by posting to discussion threads and commenting on documents. Central Desktop for Mobile provides users with a simple way to remain in touch with collaborators and access work in Central Desktop from anywhere.

“Today’s workforce is becoming increasingly mobile as more and more businesses embrace the use of smartphones and tablets in the workplace. The value of cloud computing is not just scale, but access to your content anywhere, from any device. Central Desktop for Mobile further delivers on this promise,” said Arnulf Hsu, chief technology officer and co-founder of Central Desktop. “We’re excited to further extend Central Desktop’s social collaboration platform on mobile devices and will continue to build on our mobile capabilities as mobile workplace needs deepen.”

Central Desktop for Mobile is available at no charge in the iTunes App Store and the Android Marketplace using the search term “Central Desktop.” You can also access Central Desktop for Mobile directly through your browser by visiting http://www.centraldesktop.com on mobile devices.

About Central Desktop
Central Desktop delivers a cloud-based social collaboration platform that revolutionizes how people connect and share information to drive profitable business results. Businesses of all sizes use Central Desktop’s complete online collaboration solution to manage projects and documents in the cloud with colleagues, customers and partners. Key Central Desktop customers include the Humane Society of the United States, CBS, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Netflix, Gymboree, Workday and Harvard University. Founded in 2005, Central Desktop is a privately-held company with headquarters in Pasadena, California. For more information about the company, visit http://www.centraldesktop.com.