George Hansen, Q&A

George Hansen joined Digital River in 2006 as a Business Manager for oneNetworkDirect, where he has currently excelled to the role of Director of Sales and Business Development. His role has been to grow oneNetworkDirect through product innovation, affiliate recruitment, and expanding merchant relationships.

 

George is a seasoned technology sales executive with over 15 years of experience, selling across the some of the most recognized brands in the world, including Microsoft, IBM, Intel, AMD, and Seagate among others. Mr. Hansen has successfully led several technology sales teams, and earned such esteemed awards including Intel marketing company of the year.

When it comes to Internet companies, Digital River has a long history – dating back to 1994. Tell me a little bit about the Digital River story.

One of the best things about working at Digital River is our story. Our founder and CEO, Joel Ronning, is a true internet pioneer and has built Digital River into a global leader in e-commerce.

Anticipating the power of the Internet, Joel Ronning launched Digital River in 1994 with a vision to use the Internet instead of direct mail to deliver software. He knew Internet-based software delivery would be more efficient, more cost effective and more environmentally friendly. His intuition was right.

Today, Digital River processes over 175,000 transactions a day across eight global data centers — with 30 languages, 39 currencies, and more than 30 payment methods supported. Digital River is the clear choice for companies wanting to take their online business global. The company’s business has grown significantly — successfully expanding into complementary markets, including high tech manufacturing and consumer electronics — and it is great to work for a company in our position.

Beyond that, Digital River has had the vision to layer additional technologies and services on top of our world class e-commerce platforms, creating even more value for our clients and affiliates. From directTrack, one of the most powerful and feature-rich web-based affiliate tracking solutions- to oneNetworkDirect, Digital River’s family of affiliate networks – on through to Digital River’s market-Force strategic marketing team, we are able to manage our clients’ online marketing and e-commerce activities in an end-to-end solution that adds tremendous value. And ultimately, this layered vertical integration helps us drive more revenue for our clients, and in turn Digital River. It is a shared success model that has proven to be very powerful in creating long term partnerships with our clients and affiliates.

Digital River has several affiliate networks – how do they all fit together?

We refer to all of the Digital River affiliate platforms as our ‘Family of Networks’. Our Family consists of regNow, element5, share*it!, esellerate, directLeads and oneNetworkDirect. Together we have over 130,000 products in our affiliate channel, including a vast selection of the biggest technology brands in the world. If you are an affiliate interested in expanding your technology sales — it is clear who to turn to- Digital River.

oneNetworkDirect has a unique focus. Tell me about it.

oneNetworkDirect does have a very unique focus – to be the world’s largest digital marketplace. To that end, we are focusing on Software, Consumer Electronics, and Games as the main industries to help us achieve that goal. And we are well on our way to having the largest catalog of digital products available to affiliates anywhere in the world.

What is on the horizon for Digital River and oneNetworkDirect?

2009 has been a very exciting year because of all the advanced technology products Digital River is working on. Digital River currently has over 20+ new products in the pipeline, many geared towards enhancing our family of affiliate networks. We are continuing to leverage the direct- Track platform in our effort to enhance the client and affiliate experience, and to build out our world class toolset. We are actively adding quality Tier 1 merchants and that trend will continue for the foreseeable future. Things are looking very good for Digital River affiliates!

If there is one thing you would like affiliates to take away regarding oND – what is it?

It would have to be our commitment to assisting affiliates in the success of their business. The Digital River story is so unique – and our focus so specific- that affiliates will not find a more dedicated network working towards their success. If you haven’t already – give us a try. We think you will be glad you did.