The Smartly Blog

How to apply creative insights to enhance personalized engagements with audiences.

Amazon Ads best practices for retail advertisers.

The future of digital advertising budget allocation is NOW.

How major tech platforms Google, Meta, Pinterest, Snap and TikTok are advancing advertising for good.

Scott Belsky, Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President of Design & Emerging Products at Adobe, highlights 5 Waves of Creative Change and the opportunity for brands with AI.

Pearls of wisdom to enhance audience engagement from Smartly CEO Laura Desmond highlighted during ADVANCE 2024.

Consumers are speaking up louder than ever and want more than just a product. Here are four key trends, discovered in Smartly's research, that are driving this industry evolution.

Check out a preview of key content highlights from Pinterest about harnessing the power of "Advertising For Good".

Check out a preview of TikTok’s key content highlights in our ADVANCE Q&A

Learn what's next in AI application at the must-attend digital advertising event ADVANCE.

Get a preview of the must-attend NYC event ADVANCE. Our mission is to spark real change and elevate your brand's impact.

Learn how wellness app Noom tapped into Google Demand Gen as a ‘social complement’ to find new converting audiences.

Learn how foodpanda unlocked Meta’s Product Level Video using their existing static catalog.

Our playbook is packed with actionable tips and insights to help you navigate the complexities of multi-channel advertising. Here’s how you can enhance your efforts now to prepare for winning holiday performance.

Learn how to optimize your ads for engagement success on Snapchat.

ADVANCE explores the powerful synergy between human creativity and AI-driven innovation. This event will shape the future of advertising, ushering in a new era defined by brand love, business growth, and a bold commitment to creating positive change. Check out 5 reasons to attend this exciting event!

Top trends in adtech at Cannes Lions 2024

The Results are In! PwC validates Smartly’s effectiveness and efficiency

Get the latest news you can use about what's important to your audiences and what they love (and don't love about ads). Learn how to adapt your performance marketing strategy with these preferential insights.

See how Smartly Creative transforms the relationship between brands and consumers in real-time by fostering collaboration through a unified creative workflow.

Say hello to the industry's first real-time data optimization tool for performance marketers.

We're sharing our key takeaways from cracking the code on Google Demand Gen for performance marketers.

Top 5 creative trends to support customer engagement and creative performance.

Make your travel advertising more hospitable with these key trends and optimization tips.

See how Foot Looker is stepping up their advertising game with the help of Gen AI.

Learn how to future-proof your ad campaign strategy with insight into the full customer journey and a holistic view of how upper funnel interactions drive engagement across platforms.

Explore a peak behind the curtain of the development of Smartly's homepage!

Real-Time Reach and Frequency delivers 79% improved spend allocation, optimizes for performance across channels; Uber and Kinesso early adopters

Generative AI is changing the game to make digital advertising more seamless, accessible, and higher impact for your bottom line. Explore our latest eBook for tips to tap into the innovation for your brand!

It's all about building brand trust to help stop the scroll. Check out these tips for creating ads your audiences will L<3VE.

It's almost Game Day! Is your ad creative strategy winning Super Bowl big? Check out our tips for leveraging short form video to create memorable moments with your audiences.

See how global food solutions group and meal kit delivery service provider, HelloFresh tested Meta’s Advantage Shopping Campaigns (ASC) to lower CPA rates.

Understanding the pace of change during Ramadan is crucial for marketers. Consider these best practices to prepare your holiday advertising strategy.

If you're eager to deliver better performance immediately using an untapped format with assets that you already have, read on.

The IAB's annual leadership meeting event showcased the move to innovate and outshine the competition using AI. Check out event highlights and real world brand examples of how AI can inspire your 2024 strategy.

CES 2024 showcased a seismic shift in the very foundation upon which our industry stands. Check out the Big Bets coming out of the show to infuse your 2024 strategy.

The must-see benchmarks, trends, and opportunities for the digital advertiser.

In 2024's fast-paced market, the Year of the Dragon signifies swift changes. Stay relevant with these strategies for your digital advertising.

Smartly's Gift to You: Our top performing content resources for best practices in digital advertising.

In today’s competitive landscape, travel marketers find themselves juggling an ever-growing list of responsibilities and expected to do so at a rapid pace. Luckily, cutting-edge solutions to expedite processes and boost efficiencies are well within reach. Explore how to not just flourish in this market, but soar for the long haul.

Smartly Workspaces is the next generation of our Media Automation platform, replacing the Smartly Legacy campaign creation platform. In this blog, we’ll break down the benefits of Smartly Workspaces and why you should be using it now to build your campaigns.

Check out the notable trends and takeaways from popular 2023 holiday ads.

Learn how a centralized workflow can help enhance your ad creative, better scale your campaigns and streamline collaboration.

Learn how Predictive Budget Allocation helps digital advertisers create more effective ads and increase ROAS optimization.

Today, 70% of digital ads success hinges on its creatives—the quality, diversity, and quantity. Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping is revolutionizing how advertisers target the mid to lower sales funnel.

In the world of digital advertising, reaching success can be as tricky as navigating a complex maze. Marketers, who are responsible for handling multiple campaigns on various platforms, face a significant challenge: how to wisely allocate their budget to get the best results.

Digital advertising has relied on third-party cookies for over a decade for targeting, measurement, and content personalization. However, the evolving landscape, marked by the shift of browsing and streaming activities towards mobile apps and non-desktop devices, is driving the deprecation of third-party cookies.

For many marketers, Q4 marks the biggest splash of the year. However, after Christmas, CPMs drop and remain low until mid-January, creating a unique window of opportunity known as Q5, or the “hidden quarter”.

Brand geniuses, creators, and performance marketers came together for the ultimate industry event in New York City: Advertising Week. The beautiful activations amaze; the helpful insights inspire; and the networking helps keep the industry on its game.

The movers and shakers in ad tech will take over during Advertising Week October 16-19 in New York City. The annual event brings together inspiring speakers who share their ideas to innovate and ignite a community of advertising professionals from around the world! 

The movers and shakers in ad tech will take over during Advertising Week October 16-19 in New York City. The annual event brings together inspiring speakers who share their ideas to innovate and ignite a community of advertising professionals from around the world! 

In today's fast-paced world of advertising, finding the right balance between efficiency and creativity can be a daunting task. This is where Smartly Creative AI Lab comes in, empowering marketers with Generative AI technology to enhance, personalize and scale your creatives at unrivaled speed.

Smartly is excited to have worked with Google to launch Demand Gen campaigns for our global buyers. Customers will benefit from localized creative variations, asset management and data connectivity amongst other features on the Smartly integrated platform.

How are marketers staying on top of the latest industry changes? To find out, we partnered with Forrester Research to survey savvy digital advertisers to uncover how they manage creative production and media execution challenges.

As digital marketers ready up their ad strategies for the Q4 craze, we’re sharing some important tips to make the most of the holiday shopping season. 

Social media platforms are ultimately “Where’s it at.” To thrive in today’s competitive landscape is to offer amazing and meaningful experiences that help savvy social shoppers find what they’re looking for, and be delighted and inspired for more.

Learn more about our partnership with LiveRamp

Marketers can’t achieve meaningful outcomes if targeting isn’t on point and spend gets wasted. Clearly marketers need to take more drastic action, and shift their budgets as radically as consumers have shifted their behavior away from the open web towards social engagement platforms. Learn how marketers can level up on social.

Read more about our key takeaways from this year's Cannes Lions. Hint, AI is one of them.

We are thrilled to share that starting this summer, we are expanding our campaign management solutions to include Google’s Performance Marketing Ads Suite. We’re excited to have Google as one of our media partners.

We are thrilled to announce that Smartly for TikTok is now generally available! With Smartly, you can streamline TikTok workflows and manage your campaigns across ad accounts and platforms, saving you time and resources.

Not dissimilar to a try on or an unboxing, tutorial and demonstration videos are popular because they’re believable and drive consideration. 

Unboxing and Try On videos are meant to showcase tangible products in a real-life, indisputably believable context. Communities on social platforms are already inclined to advocate for products they love, so, like testimonials, unboxing videos help to establish trust and drive consideration of a product.

Welcome to Creator Connect 2.0 – a one-stop solution for brands and advertisers looking to elevate their social media presence.

Combining the power of media automation, creative agility and advertising intelligence across the largest media platforms, The Smartly Digital Advertising Platform was built to solve these complex challenges, with an appreciation that core marketer goals never change.

The digital advertising trends for 2023 are here!

See our best practices for a successful Lunar New Year!

If you’re a performance marketer looking to drive online sales, then Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) are a must-have in your Meta strategy.

Advertisers should view Q5 as an opportunity to have a successful start to 2023. Brands have a unique chance to reach consumers - new and old - during the time after the holidays, but before Q1 gets into full swing.

Smartly brought together industry heavy-hitters Uber and TikTok for Advertising Week in New York to discuss emerging trends they’re seeing and dig into what's working and what's not in the world of advertising on TikTok.

As the 2022 end-of-year shopping season approaches, digital advertisers everywhere have one question on the brain: how can I best reach and engage consumers – new and old?

We at Smartly commit every day to promoting trust, equality, diversity, accountability, and learning through our work and company practices, as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility work.

The path to digital advertising success is to achieve desired performance goals while producing beautiful creative resonating with each unique audience regardless of the screen, channel, or location.

Snapchat’s Dynamic Travel Ads is the platform’s latest category expansion that caters to airlines, hotels, tours, and online travel agencies Smartly is thrilled to announce its support of the made-for-travel offering.

Smartly is accelerating the integration to take a giant leap forward in serving our customers with even better capabilities and technology!

We sat down with the Smartly Support and Customer teams to discuss key aspects of making sure your Black Friday campaigns are ready for the busiest shopping season.

Video continues to grow into the leading format on social media. Advertisers need to lean into snackable content that’s authentic to stay relevant.

Read Smartly's recommendation on utilizing Creator Content this year for maximum advertising impact that’s sure to dazzle your audience.

TikTok just announced their launch of Shopping Ads, and Smartly is excited to launch side-by-side TikTok as the first-to-market campaign and ads partner.

Brands and advertisers should plan their social media strategy well and early, to engage with their audience and drive sales during the Mega Sales Days.

TikTok creator Corporate Natalie explains how brands can best leverage the capabilities of TikTok to supplement their marketing efforts.

We surveyed Gen Z consumers and here's what we found out!

Brands can tap into TikTok trends to connect with their audience and leverage their products and brand ethos.

While it may not be on your agenda today, most likely, you have given the Metaverse some thought in the past few months. Learn why now is the time to invest in a Metaverse strategy!

Brands have an opportunity during the back-to-school season to engage with new audiences by maximizing their social media presence.

While it may seem early to start thinking about end-of-year holidays, retailers across the globe are starting to plan for the 4th quarter holiday season and building out their social media strategy now.

In the US, consumers pay for 4 different streaming video subscriptions on average and spend 100 minutes per day watching online videos. The demand for video content is here to stay and should be part of every marketer's advertising strategy.

What started as a small team of eight with a handful of customers has recently grown into a global company with 800+ Smartlies in multiple locations around the world. Read more about our journey.

Smartly automates every step of TikTok advertising to unlock greater performance and creativity. Here's a visualized look at your ad journey, start to finish.

Here are our key takeaways and learnings from the TikTok summit!

We’re thrilled to announce that Smartly has partnered with TikTok as a Marketing Partner for Campaign Management and Creative!

We have been committed to being a carbon neutral company since 2020. Read about how we monitor, reduce and compensate our environmental impacts.

Engineers don't have to choose between being a tech expert or a manager. Discover how our Lead Engineer Mikko Kivelä has managed to be both.

In March 2022, we wanted to raise awareness of the importance of providing girls with equal opportunities to reduce the discrimination and prejudice girls and women continue to experience.

When launched in paid campaigns, user-generated content drives the highest engagement, performance, and retention for new customers.

The ways consumers engage online—particularly how they shop via social media—continue to keep retailers on their toes. In order to drive business outcomes, it is essential for advertisers from retailers and big-box brands to understand how to crack the code on social media and determine what is important to consumers in the moment.

Getting started on a new platform like TikTok can be a little intimidating - especially when it comes to creative. While it might be tempting to simply run the same creative you’ve run on other platforms, the most successful advertisers on TikTok are the ones making bespoke content and thinking TikTok-first.

We sat down with Smartly Managed Services Strategy Leads to discuss best practices for starting your brand on TikTok. Our conversation provides ideas and examples on how to begin your own brand journey on social media’s fastest-growing platform.