Charlotte advertising agency WeCall Media landed at No. 27 on the Inc. 5000 ranking of the Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America, marking its first appearance on the list. The company ranks first on the list in North Carolina as well as the Charlotte region.
CEO Dave Maman says he did not expect to earn the high ranking.
"It wasn't even my initiative to apply for this nomination," he told CBJ. "My chief financial officer at the time was like, 'I'm going to apply,' so I said, 'Go ahead and apply if you want.' I was stunned to discover that we were 27. I had no clue what to expect, but I was obviously shocked. I'm extremely proud of what we've accomplished."
WeCall Media, founded in 2019, is a performance ad agency that helps advertisers grow their revenue via pay-per-call marketing. The company generates customer leads for various businesses, primarily in the health-care space. Some agencies it works with include UnitedHealthcare, Humana and Aetna. WeCall Media makes phone calls for those businesses and offers their potential customers — a majority of whom are in underserved communities — affordable health insurance plans.
As a performance-based ad company, WeCall Media's clients pay only when there are measurable results. Its mission is to create highly qualified leads for its clients, which ultimately helps the agency's business grow. Maman credits that model to the company's ranking on the Inc. 5000 list.
"When we're able to establish that value chain where our client is winning, they're making profit because we're hitting that cost-per-acquisition target," he said. "That's the way it works in performance marketing. There's no contract."
To be considered for the Inc. 5000 list, companies must be based in the United States, privately held, for profit, independently operated and founded, and generating revenue by March 31, 2019. The minimum revenue required for 2019 is $100,000; the minimum for 2022 is $2 million. Companies were ranked according to percentage of revenue growth from 2019 to 2022, according to Inc. magazine.
Between 2019 and 2022, WeCall Media saw 10,933% revenue growth.
"We are continuing to grow at an absolutely (rapid) pace through 2023," Maman said. "In fact, we’re experiencing by far the greatest acceleration of growth in our company at this very moment."
He said in 2019, the ad agency hit $1 million in sales. It grew that number to $5 million in sales in 2020, then to $25 million in 2021. Last year, it posted $38 million in sales. Maman said he expects WeCall Media to generate more than $100 million in revenue by the end of this year.
"Do the right thing, focus on our customers' success and then find a way to be to be successful while driving value for others," he said. "That's really what we do."
