6 minute read
Your Lighting Brand: Building 200 Websites and Standardizing the Lighting Industry’s Data
from June 2025
By Randy Reid
Your Lighting Brand has reached a milestone few could have imagined when the business began nearly 12 years ago: 200 lighting industry websites built.
Rob Hilbert, co-founder of Your Lighting Brand (YLB) and The Lighting Exchange (LEX), shared how this achievement reflects not just growth in numbers, but an evolution in how lighting agencies and manufacturers manage their digital presence and data.
"We’re sitting right around 199 to 203," Rob said, noting that some websites are in production and nearing completion. "It’s funny. Internally, I knew that we’d built many websites, and that maybe I should check the count to see where we stand. And when I did, I was happy to see we were approaching the nice round number of 200."
The journey began with a single website for a lighting agency—likely a Cooper rep, as Rob recalls—thanks to early relationships with manufacturers who saw the potential of YLB’s services. One memorable early client was J.G. Murphy. "He never had a website," Rob laughed. "When we built him one, the Acuity agents joked that if we could build one for him, we could build one for anyone."
What started as a one-off service quickly led to a realization that agency websites had unique challenges, particularly with maintaining accurate line cards. "The page that changed the most was the line card," Rob explained. That realization led to the creation of The Lighting Exchange, a software platform that now serves as the backbone for most of their clients' product marketing and data management.
"Today, roughly 93% (400+ installations) of commercial and industrial lighting agencies use our software either embedded into a website that YLB built or as a plug-in to their existing website," Rob stated. “And with key software advancements over the past 2 years, we now have over 30 manufacturers integrating The Lighting Exchange into their websites.”
This integration allows real-time synchronization of spec sheets, installation files, and product data across manufacturers and their entire rep network. When a manufacturer updates their product information, it automatically updates across all their agents' websites, ensuring consistency and saving countless hours of redundant work.
The efficiencies extend far beyond website maintenance. Rob explained that analysis of user behavior revealed that 82% of site visitors go directly to an agent’s line card, with another 10% visiting the contact page. That leaves very little engagement with other content, which is why Your Lighting Brand advises agencies to keep their sites "lean and mean."
"An agency doesn’t need a massive website," Rob emphasized. "They need a great line card. That’s what people come for."
While the agency websites remain a major part of their work, Your Lighting Brand has evolved into a full-service marketing, design, and software firm for manufacturers as well. Their team of 26 employees in Columbus, Ohio, offers everything from graphic design and web development to video production, social media management, SEO, and custom software solutions. "If a lighting manufacturer needs it to go to market, we can help them do it," Rob said.
The relationship between Rob and his partner, Jonathan Ayala, has been instrumental to the company’s balanced growth. Both are 50/50 owners of Your Lighting Brand, which owns The Lighting Exchange platform. Jonathan, a former lighting agent, oversees The Lighting Exchange while Rob focuses on design services. "It’s a very balanced business," Rob noted. "From a revenue standpoint, it’s pretty much 50/50."
As the platform matured, the conversation has naturally shifted toward standardization—a word Rob uses carefully when speaking to manufacturers. "Manufacturers bristle at the word ‘standardize,’ but the specifiers and reps are demanding it," Rob acknowledged. Lighting designers, in particular, have voiced frustration over inconsistencies in spec sheets across manufacturers.
"They want the same categories on an Acuity spec sheet to be on a Cooper, Hubble, or Amerlux spec sheet," Rob said. "Our belief is that there’s only so many ways to present the critical information a specifier needs. You can call it a template or a belief system, but we think it’s simply the right way to do it."
Rob believes that The Lighting Exchange’s position as a widely adopted platform gives them both a responsibility and an opportunity to lead this push for better, more consistent data management. "We serve as infrastructure for the industry. If we don’t solve it, no one else will," he said.
That vision extends to new product features, including a spec sheet builder currently in beta testing with several manufacturers. This tool allows users to configure a product directly on a manufacturer’s website and generate a customized spec sheet in real-time—a step toward the consistency and efficiency that specifiers have long requested.
Beyond domestic growth, Rob sees potential for expansion within North America through partnerships with organizations like NEMRA. "The MRA reps would be perfect for our software," Rob suggested, noting that while international expansion is theoretically possible, focusing on other sectors within the U.S. market remains more immediately plausible.
Rob’s team has already collaborated with industry groups, having previously developed onboarding and training programs for AAILA, now part of NEMRA. As he eyes future growth, Rob has also had preliminary conversations with NEMRA leadership, including Jeff Bristol, to explore further opportunities.
Despite the company’s remarkable growth, Rob remains focused on listening to the market, particularly to specifiers. An industry friend suggested that Rob participate in IALD or DLF-NY meetings, where standardization is often a hot topic among lighting designers. Rob agreed, saying, "If we can get specifiers on a call to show them what we’re building and get their input, that would be invaluable."
Such conversations, Rob believes, could generate momentum for broader industry adoption. "If specifiers endorse a spec template, manufacturers will be more likely to follow. That carries weight."
Rob reflected on the organic way the company has grown, "We never planned for The Lighting Exchange to become what it is today. It just evolved as we saw the industry’s needs."
For now, both Your Lighting Brand and The Lighting Exchange continue to expand their influence across the lighting sector, providing much-needed solutions to simplify data management, improve specifier experiences, and help reps and manufacturers better serve their customers. Rob's simple but powerful philosophy remains: "If we don’t get ourselves aligned, we’re not going to go anywhere."
The milestone of 200 websites may be just one number, but for Your Lighting Brand, it represents something larger: an industry increasingly open to the efficiencies, standardization, and collaboration that digital tools can finally deliver.
