Coull's $2m Investment Will Help Scale The Video Performance Network in the UK & US

While it currently doesn't mean too much for the UK and Europe (at least for a few months!), Coull have signed a deal with Google Affiliate Network, making them the only partner allowed to link YouTube videos with Affiliate links. With the rise of Google's Affiliate Network in the US, this has created a huge scalable opportunity for the Video Performance Network.

Angel Investment by Peter Hargreaves

Peter Hargreaves, co-founder of one of the UK's leading independent financial service providers Hargreaves Lansdown based in Bristol, was introduced to Irfon Watkins, CEO of Coull, by one of Coull's directors. With both companies operating out of Bristol, Watkins told us that one of the main drivers as to why Peter had decided to invest in Coull goes back to Peter's belief in disrupting an industry to create new opportunities.

Watkins can see the unlikely similarity between the two industries that Coull and Hargreaves Lansdown operate within, sharing a percentage of the transaction, creating a similar business model which Watkins believes will help them scale their operations having Peter Hargreaves as an advisor to the board, and a direct advisor to Watkins himself.

Scaling Coull's Operations

The investment will help Watkins to build out the publisher sales team, encouraging more publishers to look to video as a new avenue for their sales funnels and to then promote their 2,000+ advertiser base.

By bringing in more experience to the team at Coull, Watkins is hoping to add to the US team, which is rapidly growing thanks to new client partnerships with Sears, K-Mart, Puma, Best Buy and Dell. Plus the exclusive partnership with Google's Affiliate Network and YouTube has created some attractive ECPM's (effective cost per thousand impressions), encouraging new publishers to utlilise the video network.

Why Use Video?

Impressions are scaling across the Coull network. Watkins can now boast that they have enough volume to create some compelling stats, and example being in the last 60 days, Coull's CTR (click-through rate) is up to 18.8% and growing.

Add to that, according to Forester research, 98% of online retailers leverage video on their websites to aid the sell of products.

Watkins believes that with their 3 advertisers per week currently coming on board to the Coull network, it's time for publishers's to make the decision on whether they think video should be part of their sales funnel, and trial it on their web properties.

find out more about Coull's Video Performance Network