Publisher Collective Spotlight Series – Louis Smith

We talk a lot about the wider Publisher Collective network, and the 150 websites that we support with advertising, SEO, and so much more beyond. But one thing we haven’t talked much about is the people who help keep our Publisher Collective running each day, from onboarding new sites to building out tools that help our partners achieve even better results.

Today we’re talking to Louis Smith, one of the Network Operations Executives for the Publisher Collective.

What do you do at Publisher Collective?

Louis: I’m part of the network operations team, and my title is Network Operations Executive. So that’s me and Sam Grant, we both do similar roles. My day-to-day is basically helping gaming-focused websites and onboarding them on the network, setting them up with ad units, allowing them to earn revenue through advertising. Once we’ve done that, it’s about maintaining a relationship with partners, looking at ways we can improve revenue, how we can improve their site in general – SEO, things like that.

What has your experience been with our company culture?

It’s been really positive. Outside of other jobs I’ve had, this is the first one where I’ve felt there’s been a really positive culture around it. A lot of staff have a lot of things in common – mainly games-related I suppose – but it’s not just a single game. In my previous roles, they didn’t really have anything to do with games, so it wasn’t something I talked about, even though it’s what I spend the majority of my time doing outside of work. So yeah, it’s been a really welcoming culture.

What’s your team like?

There’s three of us in our team, so we’ve got our manager Lee and then me and Sam. I think we’ve all bonded really well outside of work. We meet up quite regularly, which is cool considering we’re mainly remote now. It’s just a positive kind of vibe around the team, we’ve got quite a few things in common, so it’s really easy to mingle outside of work.

How long have you been in this industry?

This role is my entire time in the industry, so over two years now, which is cool.

What made you want to work in gaming?

Because of the time I spend outside of work, playing games, I thought if I can land a job where it’s based around games, and everyone there’s kind of similar, that will be something I’ll really enjoy.

It’s funny – when I first saw the job advertised, it was when I was applying for a few different jobs, and at the time I was doing a bit of out-of-work, off my own back learning to code, just some basic courses, which I think really helped me when applying for this role. I thought, I’ll apply, but I wasn’t really expecting to get it, it almost sounds a bit too good to be true!

What’s the most unique part of working here?

For my current role, there’s no real limit for how involved I want to be with a certain site. So say we pick up a small site with less pageviews, I can be really involved with them, helping them build out their website with SEO, optimising their site speeds, stuff like that. There’s a variety of sites that I can work with.

How have you grown professionally while on our team?

When I first joined, I didn’t actually know anything about SEO. I didn’t really have any knowledge at all to do with ads, and how websites made money from running ads. With helping with sites, realising how much work goes into sites, and helping clients build them, my knowledge of web design has grown. I’ve also managed to prioritise my time more, not just from working from home, but because I can work more at my own pace.

Are you looking for expert support to help you with monetizing your site or with support on an advertising campaign? Get in touch today and see how we can help you!