Hi, Ryan, first things first, congratulations on your new role; we at MarTech360 wish you all the very best for the new role.
Ryan, could you tell us what has changed for you from CSO to now President, Commercial & Partnerships at Smartly.io?
It’s an honor to be on MarTech30; thank you for allowing me to share my story! When I joined Smartly.io in 2021 as its first Chief Strategy Officer, I was primarily focused on leading mergers and acquisitions strategy, as the company accelerated its growth. In my new role, I will oversee sales, customer success, strategic partnerships, and M&As, keeping Smartly.io at the forefront of the industry as it continues to propel customers forward at the bleeding edge of the social media ecosystem.
Advertising is a challenging game and it keeps on evolving. How is Smartly.io placed to win in the competitive market?
Smartly.io is a leader in the social media advertising landscape, and we are quickly taking that expertise to digital advertising as a whole. What I love about Smartly.io is that we are constantly building unique opportunities for our customers with the world’s largest platforms, from Meta to Google to TikTok and more. Our customers are at the forefront of everything we do, as we push our organization to be truly global, expand our footprint to brand-centric advertisers, and leverage our performance DNA to navigate the most complex challenges facing our industry’s landscape.
What is your vision for Smartly.io in years to come?
We see the swift growth of Smartly.io continuing in the years ahead, and growth coming not only from platform partners we’ve been closest to over the years (Meta), but also through right alignment with new platforms that are growing strong, like TikTok for example. Smartly.io’s future is very much one where we will allow marketers to access the most important social media platforms, adapt their creative assets for the channel, allocate spending amongst them and understand their relative performance.
“We see a world where Smartly.io continues to help large global brands as they start to see the distinction between their upper and lower funnel advertising efforts begin to blur.”
We see a world where Smartly.io continues to help large global brands as they start to see the distinction between their upper and lower funnel advertising efforts begin to blur. Clients who once thought of the world purely as brand vs. performance advertising are now working from the position that they need to drive the ROI of all ad spend, and that puts Smartly.io in a very unique position to support those needs in the years to come.
Also Read: MarTech360 Interview With Matthew Fanelli, SVP Digital, MNI Targeted Media
What sets Smartly.io apart from the competition?
To continue our organic growth, we have taken further steps toward leading the rapidly changing advertising market through acquisitions of companies at the forefront of digital marketing, multi-platform launch, new product features, our annual Sofa Summit, as well as becoming a flexible hybrid workplace. In addition, our global team has only grown since the beginning of the pandemic with the addition of 300 team members.
Specifically, in May 2021, we acquired Viralspace.ai, an ad tech company based in Silicon Valley. Viralspace.ai is at the forefront of using artificial intelligence to research and optimize social media ads with a past and current customer base that includes UberEats, DoorDash, and Gobi. Joining forces with the fast-growing, AI-driven startup allowed us to provide an unmatched level of individualized custom creative insights. By tagging custom creative elements, we can build a brand-specific model to understand the factors that drive conversions and predict ad performance before, during, and after the ad is launched.
Building on this success, we also acquired UK-based Ad-Lib.io at the beginning of 2022 in a deal worth $100 million. A pioneering company providing a next-generation Creative Management Platform for marketers at the world’s largest companies, Ad-Lib.io builds user-friendly advertising tools for the Google ecosystem and is a Google Certified Creative partner. In 2021, Ad-lib.io’s customer engagements more than doubled, working with major brands like Estée Lauder, TUI, PizzaHut, Shell, and Johnson & Johnson.
Over the past year, we’ve received phenomenal feedback on the increased speed and power of our Creative Editor experience and Ad Ranking capabilities to scale creative production and provide performance feedback. The upgraded Creative Editor experiences unify workflows and design across several creative formats.
We’ve also recently introduced three unique enhancements for retailers including a platform-agnostic feature that provides an overall visual representation of campaigns’ budget pacing progress and Dynamic Local Inventory Ads that leverage a local inventory feed to provide insight into a product’s store-level price and availability.
Together, these advances help our users navigate the privacy-first landscape and create optimal ads for growth through a focus on top performing creative and efficient management of ad dollars.
Why should brands consider multi-platform social advertising, what are your thoughts on this?
Investing in a multi-platform strategy now is more relevant than ever. Being present across multiple platforms and meeting your audiences where they are with relevant content native to each platform’s experience enables advertisers to tap into the advantages of each platform, meet your customer at every step of their customer journey, and build a strong brand. Leveraging a multi-platform strategy allows you to reach incremental audiences. For example, influencers and video content on Meta allows you to bring your brand story to a new audience. On Pinterest we are now seeing an increase in male users across the auto, travel, and gaming industries.
There is a time and a place for each platform and brands need to reach consumers where they are. Getting started with a new platform follows the common rule of first-mover advantage. Usually, there are naturally fewer people to reach in new, younger platforms, yet there is also less advertiser competition. As a result, the audience inventory tends to be cheaper from an advertiser’s perspective. You want to take your brand where the people are, and it’s even more effective if you are there first.
As more customer touchpoints (i.e. social platforms) become available, the more fragmented the customer journey becomes. In turn, the more difficult predicting that customer journey becomes. This fragmented journey is especially true for social platforms, as today’s consumers use different ones for various reasons. Ultimately, a consumer now determines their own journey.
Social media platforms are changing with the audience participation and it has become one trustworthy source, what recommendation do you have for your clients while creating strategy for Social Media?
When Smartly.io was first founded in 2013, the founders never imagined that an estimated one in 10 Facebook ads in Europe would be made by our platform. Now we’re partnering with major social media channels and working with global brands. Through that evolution one thing has remained a constant for us – understanding scale. A lot of our customers come to us looking for a way to scale campaigns across not only varying audiences, but regional locations that require a localized feel and ads in various languages.
My recommendation for social media advertising strategies is three-fold:
- Cross-Channel Storytelling: Meet your audiences where they are with relevant content that is native to each platform’s experience
- Streamlined Workflows: Do more with less by automating & optimizing workflows across technologies and teams
- Testing & Learning: Test and learn what works, what doesn’t, and why to react to audience behavior on the fly and inform future planning
In addition, work with a partner that understands how to scale your varying campaigns to fit the needs of all your target audiences.
According to you, what is the importance of Personalization in Social Media Advertising and Marketing?
Personalization is not a new concept when it comes to advertising, on social media and elsewhere, but getting it right has become increasingly important – especially as the number of social channels and number of platforms being used by younger generations have increased. Variety, authenticity, and creativity are key draws for Gen Z audiences, as an example.
While Millennials were typically enticed to the more curated “influencer” content we’ve seen a lot on Instagram, Gen Z seems to opt for the more personable video content on TikTok. These are nuances that have become mission critical in how brands personalize the ad experience across social platforms.
What is your take on the impact New & Emerging Media is having on different industries?
There is no denying that New & Emerging Media are reshaping the way all industries need to think about their customers, how they engage with them and ultimately how they communicate the value of their products. This is true both for the largest consumer brands, like L’Oreal & General Motors, and B2B players, like Shopify and AWS.
New & Emerging Media was the basis for building some of this generation’s real break out successes, among others Spotify, FanDuel & Uber, and that game plan is now being adopted by brands that have historically engaged with their customers through more traditional channels. The progress we’ve seen by marketers like WalMart is a real break from what they were doing several years ago.
Could you name the Top 5 apps/platforms that you use for your day-to-day work?
- Slack
- Txt
- Google Docs, Sheets & Slides
What is the one piece of advice you would give to those who aspire to make it big in the marketing or sales industry?
Focus on where the growth will come in the future. Make sure you are aligned with areas that are busting apart the norms of the industry vs. the ones that are already fully baked. I would also make sure the person is thinking from the perspective of business performance and how their contribution is driving more ROI.
That is easier said than done, especially at the entry levels of an organization, but understanding how marketing and sales ultimately flow into profit and loss and the value of a company is very valuable knowledge that people often skip understanding until later in their career journey.
Thanks, Ryan!