David Spitz became the CEO of ChannelAdvisor Corporation (NYSE:ECOM) in 2015. First, this article will compare CEO compensation with compensation at similar sized companies. Next, we’ll consider growth that the business demonstrates. And finally – as a second measure of performance – we will look at the returns shareholders have received over the last few years. This method should give us information to assess how appropriately the company pays the CEO.

View our latest analysis for ChannelAdvisor

How Does David Spitz’s Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?

According to our data, ChannelAdvisor Corporation has a market capitalization of US$280m, and pays its CEO total annual compensation worth US$1.9m. (This number is for the twelve months until 2017). We think total compensation is more important but we note that the CEO salary is lower, at US$409k. As part of our analysis we looked at companies in the same jurisdiction, with market capitalizations of US$100m to US$400m. The median total CEO compensation was US$958k.

As you can see, David Spitz is paid more than the median CEO pay at companies of a similar size, in the same market. However, this does not necessarily mean ChannelAdvisor Corporation is paying too much. We can better assess whether the pay is overly generous by looking into the underlying business performance.

You can see a visual representation of the CEO compensation at ChannelAdvisor, below.

Is ChannelAdvisor Corporation Growing?

ChannelAdvisor Corporation has increased its earnings per share (EPS) by an average of 33% a year, over the last three years In the last year, its revenue is up 8.6%.

This demonstrates that the company has been improving recently. A good result. It’s good to see a bit of revenue growth, as this suggests the business is able to grow sustainably.

It could be important to check this free visual depiction of what analysts expect for the future.

Has ChannelAdvisor Corporation Been A Good Investment?

Since shareholders would have lost about 27% over three years, some ChannelAdvisor Corporation shareholders would surely be feeling negative emotions. This suggests it would be unwise for the company to pay the CEO too generously.

In Summary…

We compared total CEO remuneration at ChannelAdvisor Corporation with the amount paid at companies with a similar market capitalization. As discussed above, we discovered that the company pays more than the median of that group.

However, the earnings per share growth over three years is certainly impressive. However, the returns to investors are far less impressive, over the same period. One might thus conclude that it would be better if the company waited until growth is reflected in the share price, before increasing CEO compensation. Whatever your view on compensation, you might want to check if insiders are buying or selling ChannelAdvisor shares (free trial).

Or you might prefer gaze upon this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow .

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.