When taking this job, I felt I was lied to in regards to the targeting capabilities, optimization capabilities, etc. When I started, I quickly realized I was sold on a company that didn’t have any targeting capabilities (that actually work) or even optimization capabilities that were more granular than optimizing on a publisher level. Because of this, I felt we were selling something that didn’t really exist to Advertisers. No one actually knows how their “algorithym” works or how it falls on the “waterfall” to try to access inventory. How do you expect contributors to sell owned and operated inventory and get ZERO owned and operated inventory for campaigns? In addition, they supposedly have 650+ MAU’s but don’t know what to do with it or unsure of how to use the data they have in a marketplace that screams “We love data!”. Anyone in the industry knows that Advertisers love it if you can activate their campaigns with data that actually works! Cheetah would be bringing in $$$ if they could figure this out.
Business Partnership Managers (aka Account Managers, aka Ad Operations, aka Magicians) are undervalued at this company. Especially for a role where Account Managers are doing a lot of work that is out of their expertise and also job description. They expect Account managers to do everything and aren’t even paid an insane amount of money like Sales are. Sales are way more valued than account managers because they bring in “business”. However, I hope they one day realize that Account Managers run the show here. Just because an IO is signed by Sales, an Account Manager still has to make sure we deliver on the IO, which is how revenue is generated for the company.
There was a change in management that led to a lot of people being let go, leaving or fired because of “performance” or “other reasons”. Understanding that this is a business decision, I felt that it was not handled in a professional manner neither by Upper Management or Human Resources. No one is to be trusted in Upper Management or in Human Resources. If you tell something to Human Resources in confidence (because everything you report in HR should be confidential), it will get back to the person you are trying to confide in HR about. Also, when reaching out to HR about certain things, they never give you a straight answer or give you the run around. I feel that HR practices are not in line with industry standards and are really shady. Also, it seems as though Upper Management views its employees as “disposable”. However I guess they don’t know that this isn’t Beijing and that you can’t find another “good” employee with the snap of your fingers in the U.S.
In addition, their benefits aren't as comparable as other Ad Tech companies. They do not pay for your healthcare, you only get about 15 days vacation, and they don't match 401K.
To wrap this up, they know NOTHING about the Advertising industry in the U.S. I feel that they are so wrapped up on how whatever they’re doing in Beijing is working, so it should work the same in the U.S. Unfortunately, I think Cheetah Mobile will continue to fail if they do not acclimate to how the industry works in the U.S.
