Finland’s Smartly.io unveiled its first acquisition buying Viralspace.ai, a “fast-growing startup focused on AI-driven creative optimization for digital advertising” for an undisclosed sum.
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 delivered up to 70%+ improvements in cost per acquisition for its Fortune 500 clients.
“Ultimately, we’re now helping marketers not just know what works, but why.”
Kristo Ovaska, Smartly.io CEO
“The need for this level of insight, along with the ability to optimize based on it, has never been greater than it is today. The recent release of Apple’s iOS 14 underscores this. 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,” Ovaska said.
