Native ads, investing and team building, with Adsparkx CEO Vipul Taneja

Vipul Taneja is CEO of Adsparkx, a Delhi-based company with about 90 staff, and an investor in more than 50 companies. Recorded at Affiliate World Dubai, the conversation covers his event spending, why native advertising is hard for affiliates, how his leadership team set a shared vision, and AI in media buying.

In this episode

• Taneja says he has attended every Affiliate World since 2017 and estimates he and his partner spend close to half a million dollars a year on travel, events and team trips (2:01, 5:01, 5:31).

• He recalls a speaker describing $900,000 of ad spend in one day on a single platform, which he says reset his sense of what is possible (6:00, 6:31).

• Adsparkx began investing in 2018 and now holds stakes in more than 50 companies, mostly in India and the US; he says returns take five to nine years, so the approach needs a long horizon (10:00, 12:31).

• On native ads, he says placements vary by publisher, inventory is limited and bids must stay low, so campaigns are built rather than found and beginners need capital to lose first (20:02, 20:30, 21:01).

• He began native in 2016 with a Revcontent widget in India, saw one-cent clicks, then ran ads in about 20 languages and spent $5,000 a day on UC Browser placements (22:32, 23:01, 23:32, 24:01).

• Nearly all his team sits in one Delhi office; about 25 leaders co-created a three-year vision, and he expects AI to boost output per person and media buying to be largely automated (25:31, 26:30, 29:00, 30:31).

Interview from The LFG Show, published on YouTube.