Carlton Hickman - CTO, CPX Interactive

As a progressive online ad network and global marketing company, CPX Interactive is redefining the online advertising landscape. By layering the development and execution of cutting edge online strategies on top of its own global distribution model, CPX ensures advertisers success on any metric while efficiently monetizing 100% of its publishers' inventory from premium to remnant. Advertiser and Publisher offerings include Reach, Content and Premium Networks.

CPX Interactive delivers more than 30 billion impressions to more than 200 million unique users in more than 60 countries every month and has recently been named #71 on Inc. Magazine's list of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies in America.

Carlton Hickman and Mike Seiman met in 1999 as students at Hofstra University. Beginning as classmates, they would quickly become friends as they joined in a business endeavor that would help craft the current landscape of online display advertising. Though both Hickman and Seiman had a background in computer science, Hickman's passion was for graphic design. When he and Seiman started out nine years ago, the advertising industry was not in their plans, but today as the CTO of online ad network, CPX Interactive, Hickman is able to incorporate both of these elements (computer science and design) into his work, work that puts him at the cutting edge of online advertising development.

The company that would later become CPX Interactive began as BUDS Inc. ("Brothas Unda Da Skin"), named for Seiman and Hickman's close personal relationship, despite different ethnic backgrounds. In its conception, BUDS Inc. was a clothing company that would sell its wares online. Hickman and Seiman, however, soon discovered that this was not the path they wanted to follow. Instead, they began to focus on the monetization of online inventory, with ads they would target to their specific audiences. Using one of their own websites as a test case, they began to work through strategies to increase the efficiency with which they could drive more and more ad traffic through their own web pages, Hickman added a database that allowed them to add more content faster and more frequently. Here, he was able to integrate his design sense with his computer science knowledge:

A lot of my technology revolves around some sort of user interface or display because I'm so much into both of them at the same time. I want my technology to incorporate user experience as well.

At the same time, Hickman and Seiman would analyze existing ad servers and how they placed their ads, in order to try and determine the best way to maximize money. The technical design that Hickman developed in these early stages became the ad server that started CPX Interactive on the way to becoming one of the largest ad networks in the world.

In this age, where there are as many as 300 ad networks littering the landscape, it is easy to overlook the degree to which CPX co-founders Hickman and Seiman were well ahead of their time as they built their own ad server and network in 1999 and 2000.

Now, three ad servers, and almost 100 employees later, Hickman believes the secret to the success of CPX Interactive is being able to relate to its clients.

We are so successful at monetizing ads because we started as publishers; we did it as the websites. We know exactly what they think because we were them at one point.

Hickman is also proud to use the exposure generated by the online distribution powerhouse he co-founded to promote charitable causes of all kinds. Not only has CPX Interactive donated many hundreds of millions of online impressions to causes like SaveDarfur.org , LiveEarth.org, Children International, and The American Diabetes Association, the ad network recently produced and distributed a pro-voting online PSA starring Russell Simmons, LL Cool J, George Lucas and many more. Hickman also spoke to the NAACP's youth division at its national convention to emphasize the importance of exercising the right to vote. In addition, Hickman served as the captain of the third place finishing TeamCPX, as they participated in the Fireball Run, a transcontinental motor race to raise awareness for missing children. This was the first time CPX had participated in the race, and it was largely thanks to Hickman's technological expertise that they were so successful.

For the New Year, Hickman hopes that traditional media sees the value of technology. He wants advertisers to realize just how much the digital space offers.

In a digital world, I can tell you who checked out your site, who bought what, where they were, what time they did it. I can even take that decision and put it in context and tell you what they did before and potentially what they did after. I can give you so much information to help you market your product better, and I'm really hoping that big brands realize the value of digital advertising.

CPX Interactive is looking forward to continued success in 2009.