Smartly Acquires Viralspace.ai, Bringing AI-Powered Creative Insights to Social Media Advertising Platform

Continuing its strong growth trajectory, Smartly.io’s acquisition advances its creative optimization capabilities with AI. Smartly.io today announced it has acquired Viralspace.ai, a fast-growing startup in artificial intelligence-driven creative optimization for digital advertising

Combining their advanced AI and machine learning creative capabilities with Smartly.io’s digital advertising automation platform, brands can now make more data-driven decisions about their ad creatives with an unmatched level of bespoke insights.

Marketers typically know what works, but not often why. Viralspace.ai, which was built by Stanford University graduates Hiro Tien, Apoorva Dornadula, and Michelle Lu, uses AI to replace guesswork with data-driven decisions. By tagging custom creative elements for each brand ranging from object to actions to text styles they built a custom, brand-specific model to understand the factors that drive conversions and predict performance of ads before they are posted. Using this model, Viralspace.ai suggests optimizations for creative before, during, and after an ad is launched—and has proven 70%+ improvements in cost per acquisition (CPA) for its Fortune 500 clients.

“Apple’s release of iOS 14 underscores the need for optimizing creative performance,” said Kristo Ovaska, CEO and co-founder, Smartly.io. “When the algorithms brands have long relied on are failing them, creative becomes an increasingly valuable lever to pull. It’s the silver bullet needed to drive performance, but powerful performance improvement requires superior technology. With our acquisition of Viralspace.ai, we’re gaining a tailored solution that can help drive greater creative intelligence to a degree of sophistication unseen elsewhere in the market.”

“It’s time for marketers to tap into the full potential of creative advertising,” said Hiro Tien, CEO and co-founder, Viralspace.ai. “For the first time, brands have an opportunity to understand precisely what will resonate with consumers within the most powerful part of their ad: the creative. Creative data is, for most brands, an untapped gold mine. With powerful, proprietary AI to tag and tailor creative elements for each brand, advertisers can understand what resonates in real time. Combining our solution with Smartly.io’s leading platform gives our customers a major advantage to compete, delivering more effective and engaging ads.”

“Viralspace.ai is the industry leader in AI-driven creative optimization. Their highly customized model has delivered unparalleled recommendations and results—which is just what a digital-first organization like TechStyle requires—enabling us to outpace competition and continue to improve our ad performance with powerful creatives,” said Aubrie Richey, VP of customer acquisition & media at TechStyle Fashion Group.

This acquisition continues Smartly.io’s strong growth trajectory, following a banner 2020 that saw year-over-year revenue growth, new partnerships with Pinterest and Snapchat, and further enhancements to its Creative Services. Learn more about Smartly.io’s capabilities and how Viralspace.ai expands its digital advertising offerings—building a best-in-class platform for creative and performance marketers.

About Smartly.io

Powering beautifully effective ads, Smartly.io automates every step of social advertising to unlock greater performance and creativity. We combine creative production and ad buying automation with outstanding customer service to help some 700 brands scale their results—not headcount—on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat. We are a fast-growing community of more than 500 Smartlies with 16 offices around the world, managing nearly €3B in annual ad spend and growing rapidly and profitably. Visit Smartly.io to learn more.

About Viralspace.ai

Viralspace.ai uses AI to help marketers make data-driven decisions about their ad creative. They build custom machine learning models for each of their clients and generate recommendations that have driven 70%+ improvements in Cost per Purchase. Their novel approach and patent-pending technology have won them accolades such as Forbes 30 Under 30 2021 and helped them secure 7-figure funding from Silicon Valley venture capitalists such as Village Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Quest Venture Partners and Switch Ventures. Visit Viralspace.ai to learn more.

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