Smartly.io CEO Drives Company Momentum Towards The Next Generation of AdTech with The Smartly Digital Advertising Platform

The company’s recent investments and AI enhancements give brands and marketers the industry’s first solution to bridge the divide between creative, intelligence and media buying in a rapidly fragmenting social landscape

Smartly.io, one of the world’s largest SaaS digital advertising platforms, announces significant company advancements, stemming from months of strategic moves—including two acquisitions, a new platform release and strategic hires to senior leadership—under the guidance and vision of industry veteran Laura Desmond. The company, which holds certified partnerships with media leaders Meta, TikTok and Google, among others, brings dynamic integrations to the digital and social space, successfully “redefining social and creativity,” according to Nikhil Lai, Senior Analyst at Forrester.

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“On top of that, they have a fantastic creative team, which is very mobile-first, which is what we, as digital marketers, in a mobile space and mobile-first world look for.”

Desmond, the former Global CEO of Starcom Mediavest Group and senior executive of Publicis Groupe, has a seasoned track record for creating symbiotic relationships between advertising and technology—influencing opportunities that reshape entire industry categories. As was the case in 2021, where Desmond, a member of DoubleVerify’s Board of Directors and operating partner at Providence Equity, played an integral role in leading its IPO—one of the most successful in the media and technology sector that year.

“When Providence acquired Smartly in 2019 and I became Chair of The Board, the company’s potential was clear from the start. Smartly is uniquely solving real problems that brands and marketers need to have solved: agile creative and media management at the same time; rapid intelligence around performance—what’s working and what’s not; the ability to execute personalization at scale. The steady updates we’ve been making are unlocking a depth and breadth to the technology that’s affording brands the ability to move across channels as fluidly as the consumers they aim to engage do,” commented Desmond. “Coupled with the additions of Brett Wein as Chief Sales Officer, and Oli Marlow-Thomas as Chief Innovation Officer, I am confident that our vision for Smartly.io will effectively redefine the future of digital advertising for brands and marketers alike.”

Smartly.io’s continuous releases to Workspaces has created a unique full-funnel, multi-channel approach to social advertising, integrating creative, media buying and intelligence at scale, in one platform. Specifically, the company’s creative-focused adtech enables marketers to:

• Reach Smartly: Automate campaign workflows across all major platforms, reaching audiences quickly, easily and cost effectively.
• Engage Smartly: Create beautiful, cohesive, and effective creative across the funnel that drives action.
• Learn Smartly: Extract consolidated actionable insights to respond to audience behaviors in real-time to maximize return on investment (ROI).

“The depth of knowledge [Smartly.io] brings across verticals is really impressive,” said Merry Morud, Lead, Global Creative Optimization for Consumer Products at Uber. “On top of that, they have a fantastic creative team, which is very mobile-first, which is what we, as digital marketers, in a mobile space and mobile-first world look for.” Uber, a longtime client of Smartly.io, has used the company’s platform to execute iterative creative approaches at scale as part of their global media buying practice.

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Smartly.io, now managing upwards of $5B in media spend, is unlocking the ability for true multi-platform brand building that exceeds both customer expectations and drives engagement across platforms, at scale. As a result, platform partners like Meta have leveraged Smartly’s Advantage+ Shopping solution to deliver upwards of 150 creative variations across all creative placements, expanding consistent brand reach and personalization in a privacy-safe way.

“Reinvention tends not to come from large scale companies, so we are using our nimble size and strong influence to create real movement in the industry,” said Oli Marlow-Thomas, Chief Innovation Officer, Smartly.io.

ABOUT YOU, one of Europe’s fastest growing fashion platforms, leverages Smartly’s TikTok Shopping Ads across markets. Since implementation, it’s seen a near 30% uplift in ROAS for catalog sales, compared to the business-as-usual catalog sales campaigns, and greater than 100% uplift for “add to cart” actions compared to TikTok’s data.

“The Smartly Digital Advertising Platform is the result of years of collaborations, acquisitions and continuous innovation that’s allowing us the ability to really push the limits of what’s been possible, up until now that is. We’re working on some exciting new builds with partners that will hit the market in the coming months, that will take dynamic creative and media optimization to new heights,” continued Marlow-Thomas.

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