Smartly.io sets sights on more than just social media, acquires London’s Ad-Lib.io for over $100 million

Helsinki-based advertising platform Smartly.io is looking to push beyond just social, and in a deal worth, "more than $100 million," has snapped up Google-focused creative optimisation service Ad-Lib.io. Already a strong player in the social advertising ecosystem, by adding Ad-Lib’s tools and services, Smartly is making strong headway into its quest to step out from "just" a social media advertising service.

Smartly's customer base includes names like Uber, Under Armour, and ebay, and provides services that help these brands accurately gauge which creative elements and campaigns are resonating best with various audiences, thus allowing for precise refinement.

But how to convert this method to the Googlesphere? Or, as the case may be, who's doing something very similar to our offer, but in a different sandbox? In Ad-Lib, Smartly smartly saw a Google Certified Creative partner with a suite of creative tools specifically tailored to optimise YouTube, DV360 and Google Ads campaigns and with a client base that includes 10 of the top 30 global advertisers.

At this point, I guess all that’s left are the details, wouldn’t you say?

“The past two years have proven that creative technology has become the most important lever for driving digital advertising performance,” said Smartly CEO and co-founder Kristo Ovaska. “Ad-Lib.io is a clear leader in the creative space by innovating on the mission-critical dimensions of workflow, automation, brand governance, personalisation, and insight. Their knowledge of the Google stack is unmatched in the industry and combining that with Smartly’s deep understanding of Facebook and the social stack across creative, media, and data allows us to now serve customers across all major digital channels.”

With growing consumer demand, and matching corporate spend, for solutions that bring creative and media closer together across all channels, we could very well see more mergers and acquisitions of this type in the near future, as specialist firms eye the possibilities and potential of combined forces. Or, rather put, a rising tide lifts all boats.

On the acquisition, client to both organisations, Deliveroo’s head of display, video, and paid social Dean Weaving commented, “Both Ad-Lib and Smartly have enabled the developing partnerships between our creative and media teams. This has massively simplified the way our teams work. And with this merger, it only gets better, as we look to unify our advertising relevance across channels.”