Karl Siebrecht

Former aQuantive executive Karl Siebrecht was very close to taking another job when a friend and one-time competitor, former DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt, introduced him to Seattle-based AdReady. After taking a look at the technology, which allows small advertisers to quickly set up and manage online display ad campaigns, Siebrecht was instantly hooked.

The 40-year-old exec -- who cut his teeth in the ad business over the past 10 years at aQuantive's Atlas unit and Microsoft -- immediately wanted to be a part of what he viewed as a revolutionary product in the online ad space. So, he asked whether there was room to get involved. AdReady Chief Executive Aaron Finn quickly obliged, tapping Siebrecht as president and chief operating officer.

Siebrecht's been on the job for less than a month, but we caught up with him to chat about competition from Google, the effectiveness of display ads and his previous career as a diver in the U.S. Navy.

Why did you join AdReady? "In a nutshell, my view is that AdReady has a great technology, a great team and it is serving a market that I think has vast potential. I have been in this online ad industry now for over 10 years.... I have watched this industry grow and mature from a point where no one really thought it was an industry to now -- it is however many tens of billions of dollars. It has evolved pretty quickly, but I still think there are parts of it that I would consider are greatly underserved, and in particular it is the display part of the business."

On getting a demo of the AdReady service from CEO Aaron Finn: "I was just floored by what they had built because that was what we had always talked about as the next generation of where we wanted to take (aQuantive's) Atlas."

What makes display advertising tough to implement? "The thing about display is that it is dominated by the very, very large advertisers. And the reason is that you have to have a large budget to afford the people and the variety of tools and technologies to manage display ad campaigns.... If you are big, it is not a problem. You hire an agency and they build your creative. But if you are small, what do you do? Do you hire a designer? Do you outsource that work? Again, if you are small, it is harder to figure out how to do that... AdReady has built a very elegant solution in a very efficient way get display campaigns running and then manage them very, very effectively."

How will AdReady compete against Google, Microsoft and the other big players in display? "If you are an advertiser, you want to get your message out as broadly as possible. If there were only one publisher on the planet, then you could do all of your advertising with that publisher and you'd be set. But in display advertising -- more so than search -- the market is very fragmented. There are big players out there. In search Google dominates, Yahoo has a fairly substantial position and Microsoft comes next.... But, really you can get access to all of the search traffic through three different places. In display, there are handful of big portals -- Yahoo, Microsoft -- and then a bunch of big networks -- Google is one but there are hundreds of ad networks and thousands of individual publishers. So, what AdReady does is it allows an advertiser to run their ads and buy their media across a very, very broad set of those publishers and networks. So, to a Google or Microsoft or Yahoo we look like a channel partner that helps advertisers more efficiently run on their media."

So, is Google's own self-service display ad product a threat? "We don't view it as a threat. I think in some ways there are parts of the functionality that are similar. But an advertiser can't buy the same sources of media through that interface as they can through our interface. In other words, you can't buy Yahoo inventory through that, you can't buy inventory from many of the other big players."

Are display advertisements effective? "If display ads didn't work, that $8 billion in the U.S. or whatever it is, wouldn't be spent.... Do display ads work? Absolutely. Do they work for everybody in every situation, definitely not. Is the process of understanding when they work and where they work difficult, cumbersome and complex? Absolutely. But, again, I come back to the AdReady offering and in a very efficient way they can tell marketers how to figure that out."

What are your core responsibilities at AdReady? "I would describe it as a broad role that is basically: 'Hey, help us set the strategy and then go execute against it."

Why did you want to join a startup? "To be honest, it was this startup. It was this product. It was this team. And it was this market opportunity. Some people would look at the AdReady demo and some would be more impressed than others, but given my background I felt like I could really understand the potential that they had here."

You spent two years at Microsoft after the aQuantive acquisition. Why did you leave? "I am a huge fan of Microsoft. I think they have incredibly talented people working in this business, and just tremendous potential both on the search side and the display advertising side. And I think (Microsoft president of the Online Services Division) Qi Lu is a great addition to lead that team. I just have tons of respect for Qi. For me, the decision was somewhat missing the more entrepreneurial experience. When I started at (aQuantive/Avenue A) it was small and I had the opportunity to really help grow it, and the ability to feel like I could have more of a specific and direct impact."

Online ad revenues fell by 5.3 percent during the first half of 2009. Will that rebound and if so when? "I definitely think it is going to rebound, but I can't tell you exactly when, of course. We are certainly seeing great growth overall, but even within specific accounts we are seeing increased spend."

A closer look at Karl Siebrecht:

Age: 40

Hometown: Houston, Texas

Education: MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College and BA in Economics from Duke University.

Favorite book you've read recently: "Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remarking of Economics."

Hobbies: Skiing, Cycling and outdoor sports.

Car you drive: Nissan Pathfinder

How did you make your first buck: Mowing lawns in Houston.

Tell us something that people don't know about you: "I was a diver in the Navy."

What was your deepest dive? "I did what's called mixed gas diving ... which is designed to go to deeper depth than typical diving on air. So, we would do training dives to 300 feet."

What experiences from diving translate into the technology world? "Boy, just everything from basic discipline, setting goals, being part of a team, building teams and leading teams to work against that goal. Not being afraid to change course if you feel like the plan you are on is not working the way you thought. I could go on forever."