Skydeo may be new to the market, but in just over two years this startup found work behind the scenes for companies like Cadillac, Toyota, HBO and Youtube. The name of their game is mobile marketing.
Mobile marketing is an entirely unique kind of beast because of a very specific variable: location. There are plenty of places where you can advertise your services and products — the trick is knowing where your marketing will be the most effective. For that, you need data and insight you can turn into real results
Big names like Facebook and Google have done a good job of making paid promotions easy and accessible for everyone. However, despite their wide targeting reach and return in investment, Mike Ford, Skydeo’s CEO, says “there is a lack of actionable mobile data for insights and targeting.”
Or, in plain terms: It’s still very challenging to know exactly where and how to advertise your brand, service or product.
And that’s where Skydeo comes in.
The birth of Skydeo
Having already founded two companies and lead marketing development for tech firms, Mike Ford noticed a market necessity. “We saw some trends in the mobile advertising market and saw an opportunity,” he states. From that spark, Skydeo was officialy founded by Mike Ford in Boston, 2015, with FEBA CAPITAL as an Angel investor.
“The most advanced mobile advertisers are mobile app and game companies who manage ad spend and ROAS diligently. At the same time, big brands and agencies are still buying desktop ads, TV and radio without the same level of sophistication. Almost all of brand mobile advertising is going to Google and Facebook because of the targeting capabilities and high return on investment. There is a lack of actionable mobile data for insights and targeting. Skydeo fills that gap.” - Mike Ford, Skydeo’s CEO
Skydeo is a company that specialises on mobile audience data and insight. They can help marketing agencies create actionable mobile audiences based on behavioural insight for their clients. Customers then know exactly what’s the best way to advertise and can be directed to an audience that will respond positively. It’s the basis of good marketing: advertising where it works.
Skydeo changes the game for mobile marketing because this kind of advanced data can often be overlooked, not precise enough, or hard to come by, and they know this because they have been on the other side as well. Mike states:
“We have been in their shoes and know what it's like being on the buy side. We have bought Super Bowl ads and produced TV Commercials. We've won Adweek awards. We've managed multi-million dollar paid search campaigns. We've built the largest ad networks and the first data management platforms. We helped launch Siri for Apple.”
By understand how important data insight is for good mobile marketing campaigns, Skydeo didn’t have to convince anyone what they offer was crucial — they are basically offering what everyone who works with mobile marketing needs for successful campaigns.
And big names quickly noticed that.
Impressive first steps
Despite being young on the market, Skydeo’s services were largely welcomed and they quickly grew a solid client base. The interesting part is that these clients were not who they immediately expected — they were much bigger.
“We thought every game and app advertiser would be a customer. That didn't happen. What did happen was leading ad agencies and their clients like Cadillac, Toyota, HBO and YouTube knew the value of interest based targeting and found Skydeo.”
Mobile data targeting and insights is something new, and according to Skydeo’s people, brands and agencies — of any size — always need help and recommendations.
What’s next?
Mike is humbled by the overwhelmingly positive response Skydeo has been receiving: “We've been very fortunate as a small team to be able to work with the leading marketers on the planet.”
But the plans for the future are clear: expansion.
Mobile marketing is not only growing, but changing constantly — the near future holds a major change with giants like Apple betting on Augmented Reality, which will in turn open debate and experimentation. Obviously, Skydeo wants to continue offering reliable data and insight marketing agencies can trust to advertise intelligently. “The space is still very new and emerging. We are evaluating acquiring smaller companies with great people or technology to team up with us.”
Treading new ground is always tricky when it comes to marketing — the less you know about your audience, the more you have to risk. Skydeo offers exactly the information you need to direct mobile marketing where it works.
However, despite the great position on a growing market with big names to back them up, Mike closes the interview with a humble, yet confident statement when asked to comment on the success of Skydeo:
“Success? We just got started!”
