Taringa! lands in Miami.

Taringa!, an Internet company of Latin American origin created by the Argentines Hernan and Matias Botbol and Alberto Nakayama, with headquarters in Buenos Aires, has just named Damian Molina as its new Sales Manager and CRO (Chief Revenue Officer), who will be leading the commercial expansion of Taringa! in Mexico, Miami, Colombia and Spain. Molina worked for the FnBox group for 7 years, ending his service there as VP for Sales & Business Development.

As Molina sees it, “Our business model is 100% advertising, and the commercial strategy was focused on the Argentine market. However, it only accounts for 27% of the platform, and we felt it was time to undertake commercial expansion into other strategic markets such as Mexico, Miami, Colombia and Spain. We’ve got great potential in those countries. We know that we’re an attractive platform for any brand seeking to reach consumers, both through branding campaigns as well as performance marketing.”

“The online advertising market on social platforms in Latin America and for Hispanics in the U.S. is still in a very early stage,” Molina adds. “Some analysts project that this activity could more than double in the next 5 years. If we calculate that the average Internet penetration in Latin America is 48%, that gives a total of 265 million Internet users. 27% are already on Taringa! and if we add to this navigation from cell phones on Taringa! it has more than doubled from June and July 2013, so there’s no question that this social platform has generous growth projections and business opportunities. Today we are a very interesting alternative allowing advertisers to develop ad campaigns with high-impact formats oriented towards branding, performance marketing, improving position in searchers, and facilitating the involvement of brands in the conversation of their current and potential customers. We are looking to grow more than 100% in advertising terms by 2014, and 25% in the second half of 2013.”