By Ken Kelley
TORONTO – In late October 2020, as a record number of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. and abroad spooked investors worldwide, Vancouver-based media tech company BBTV Holdings went public.
During a virtual appearance at Scotiabank’s 24th annual TMT Conference on Tuesday, company CEO Shahrzad Rafati (above) joked there was no worst time the company could have went public, aside from perhaps the outset of the pandemic. Yet for all the initial fears and trepidation surrounding the timing of the company going public, Rafati admits things have been working out well for the up-and-coming firm.
Founded by Rafati in 2005, BBTV bills itself as a one-stop shop to help social media influencers build, manage and monetize their audiences. In addition to a flurry of recent influencer signings to its roster, which also includes heavyweight names like the NBA and Sony Pictures, BBTV is the second-largest (behind YouTube) video property worldwide in terms of unique viewers, achieving tens of billions monthly impressions.
“We’re really turning up the dial on monetization and scale with more than 470 billion views in 2020 and the engagement metrics we have, which is about 55 billion minutes, they are a showcase of the massive baseline in terms of opportunity for monetization ahead.” – Shahrzad Rafati, BBTV
“One of the pillars we’re focused on is to continue to invest in our revenue streams,” Rafati stated. “There’s massive opportunity for growth there when you’re looking at market share.” Targeting what she said is the $82-billion digital video ad market, “we’re just getting started because if you look at BBTV and how we built the business, we started by building our tech stack in our content library, and monetization was really last. We’re really turning up the dial on monetization and scale with more than 470 billion views in 2020 and the engagement metrics we have, which is about 55 billion minutes, they are a showcase of the massive baseline in terms of opportunity for monetization ahead.”
Rafati said that in Q4, direct advertising on BBTV’s Plus Solutions grew by an impressive 57%. The company’s click-through rate, a critical key performance indicator for advertisers, handily doubled Google’s as well as the industry benchmark.
“We’re doubling the size of the direct sales team by the end of (the first half) because of the promising results,” she said. “[From] 2019 to 2020 was 31% growth and that more than doubled in Q4. In terms of the strategy, our focus is mainly in North America. BBTV works with 5,000 influencers and when you look at the U.S., that country represents about 14% of our total views. If you were to actually sell half of the U.S. inventory based on existing influencers, existing reach and existing tech stack, you’re adding another billion in revenue and $300 million in gross profit.”
Rafati says BBTV saw a significant resurgence in ad dollars in Q4 and that the momentum had carried over well into Q1. She said gross profit in Q4 was $11.3 million, which is an increase of 13% over the same period last year and marked a sequential growth of 28%.
