On November 13th 2017, Airbnb announced the acquisition of SaaS advertising startup AdBasis. The Chicago startup automates the advertising process, allowing customers to try out multiple variations of an ad to see which is most effective.
The terms of the deal have not been fully disclosed, however, the startup will remain available to existing customers which includes Angie’s List, Safeway and Tableau, until February 2018, according to an announcement on the startup’s website. After this, the platform is believed to be fully utilized by Airbnb’s marketing department, reports Built In Chicago.
Jason Puckett
“We’d like to thank you for all of your support and patronage over the years. Our product wouldn’t have been possible without such amazing customers. The AdBasis team could not be more appreciative. We have loved working with your amazing teams on such world class brands, the experience has been second to none. The amount of support and congratulations coming from our customers has been overwhelming” the company claimed in the recent statement on their website.
The startup was founded in 2014 by co-founders Jason Puckett, CEO,
Joe DiVita
and Joe DiVita, CTO, in Chicago. The young startup has done incredibly well within such short space of time, and earlier this year the company was listed in 50 Chicago startups to watch in 2017. The interest and acquirement by Airbnb is undeniably an impressive accomplishment, along with the high profile clients it served before the takeover.
How it works
First, a customer decides on their target audience along with which elements of the ad they would like to vary. Then, advertisers can leave the platform to automatically generate and deploy ad campaigns customized for a number of platforms such as social, mobile, search, and remarketing (targeting potential customers who have already been on their sites).
Variations consist of anything from small edits or design elements to images changing depending on location or user demographics. Moreover, these variations provide insightful feedback by demonstrating the campaign performance for each variation, bringing to light the most effective advertising strategies for a business.
Techli reached out to Airbnb about the acquisition and a spokesperson responded, “Thanks for reaching out. We’re not commenting on-the-record around our acquisition of AdBasis.”