Barcelonan Albert Nietofounder of seed tagit is for them 40 It is one of the references for the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem. In just 10 years, his company spun out of a communal apartment near Madrid. Chueca Almost become a multinational company 800 employee, presence 17 Countries and their leading roles in their fields united states of america.
The model that has transformed the way brands communicate with users is contextual advertising, or cookie or personal data, depending on the content and relevance of the web page. This is a more privacy-friendly approach as it does not store information about readers’ preferences and anticipates the future of an increasingly regulated field.
Nieto, a member of a middle-class family, studied. economy and business in Pompeu Fabra University Born in Barcelona, holds a master’s degree industrial organization in University of Amsterdam I learned about innovation at stanford university. His future seemed written there. googleI worked as a data analyst. 2014 I decided to quit my job at a tech giant to build something with my partner. Jorge Poyatos The company is currently the world’s largest contextual advertising company.
They started Seedtag 400,000 euros 5 employees, sharing an apartment with 3 others startup. This bet coincided with the rise in mobile traffic, and they sensed that digital photography was space being wasted for advertising. “In mobile browsing, images took up most of the screen, but no one was using them for advertising purposes,” he recalls.
I am selling what is in the photo
His first invention was to place interactive advertisements within photos. When digital media publishes an image of a soccer player, a link appears to the shoes he was wearing. “Eight years later, Instagram came up with a similar idea,” says Nieto, speaking with ACTUALIDAD ECONÓMICA at the newly opened campus. business institute in soho new yorkhe, along with other entrepreneurs, participated in the edition of . south summit for startup.
That idea didn’t work. “ link Although we generated a lot of traffic, the sales conversion rate was very low and no products were purchased. Brands that compared us to other conversion channels saw their investment in us not pay off, ran campaigns, and never did it again. ” he recalls. For a year they survived on minimal sales. 100,000 euros In the box, the idea was born to make them one of Spain’s great unicorn candidates.
“We went to sell the product to distributors.” Omnicom. When we were leaving, the team stopped us as we were about to leave. renault And he said to us, “Hey, are you guys the kids that put the ads in the pictures?” Yes, yes. “Well, I don’t want to try it.” At first, I didn’t think this made much sense. Because who wants to buy a car online? But they weren’t interested e-commercebut may be associated with specific photo groups. They were planning to launch the Renault Kadjar and wanted some adventure photos. So we banner It integrates very well into photography and contextualizes it with our technology. The results were the following percentages: number of clicks It’s cruel,” Nieto explains.
That discovery changed course. They realized that their technology could help them build brands by connecting content and value, rather than selling products directly. ”volvo I wanted family and security. coca colaChristmas; heinekenChampions. “We went from a failed product to a product that sells organically.”
AI training
And then they began to grow. We abolished charges in just 3 years 5,000 euros to 8 millionexpand as follows France, Italy, Mexico, England, Netherlands and Brazil. Adara Ventures Invested 2 million. oakley capital, 40 million people in 2021, and advent internationaland a further $250 million in 2022, establishing Seedtag as one of Europe’s most promising technology companies. They collaborate with more than 20,000 We partner with publishing groups and major global automotive, technology or food brands. “It’s everything you see on TV,” he proudly sums up.
For the past decade, they have been training their own artificial intelligence. Lizcan be analyzed 10,000 items per minute and understand the content with human-scale precision. Liz We perform deep semantic analysis to identify the most relevant environments for each brand and adapt messages to the right context. When a user views a travel page, they are served friendly, personalized, and contextual hotel ads without storing any information about the visitor.
“If your goal is to prevent users from feeling like they’re being followed online, contextual ads are the answer,” Nieto says. Their philosophy is clear. “Effective advertising doesn’t have to be invasive.”
Nieto describes contextual advertising as “ cookieThese small files are stored in your browser once you accept and serve to collect information about your browsing habits, allowing us to show you tailored advertisements based on your profile and history.
ethical use
He believes public concerns about privacy are on the rise, even going so far as to say “a big wave is coming.” Privacy-first advertisingWe prioritize the ethical use of data. “The internet has gone too far with data. The proof is in the proliferation of ad blockers and more people installing them. People feel like their privacy is being violated. The industry has gotten out of hand. That’s why we’re seeing more and more laws trying to protect the public, including: GDPR Europe and CCPA In America. “Respect in advertising is on everyone’s lips,” he reflects.
Nieto and his partner Poyatos went one step further with what they call “neurocontextual advertising.” This is a technology that also measures the emotions that ads create in users. In collaboration with scientists from columbia universitywhich analyzes how the human brain responds to different stimuli. “Contextual analysis shows that articles about the characteristics of something… BMW And about another thing formula 1 Both are for automobiles. However, in our neurocontextual analysis, we found that the first generated significantly higher vehicle purchase intentions than the second,” he defends.
Seedtag’s AI has already categorized millions of articles based on context and emotion, helping brands place their messages in the most effective environments. Advertisers’ favorite theme is articles lifestylefashion, sports, technology, and health are excluded, while news about politics and events is excluded because “advertisers consider these topics to be controversial.”
in august 2022Nieto landed at the airport. JFK The New York native still remembers the mixture of dizziness and excitement he felt at the time. “Even though we didn’t have the customers, employees or brand recognition in this country, we were confident SeedTag would be successful here.”
price of success
After opening an office in New York, chicago, miami and Los Angelesthe expansion went “much better” than they expected. North America currently accounts for half of the company’s revenue, and it expects to exceed that revenue globally this year. 400 million dollars.
However, success comes at a price. “There were years when I traveled for 130 days and woke up and didn’t know what city I was in,” he confesses. Nieto plans to return to Spain at the end of the year. Although he will no longer be Seedtag’s CEO and will remain on the board, he is already thinking about new projects.
“For me, it’s very difficult to differentiate between what is work and what is not. SeedTag is always on my mind every waking moment. But I love my job and am conscious of how blessed I am to be able to work. When I was 28, I could be away from home for three weeks a month, but now my priorities are different,” he says.
He argues that one of the keys to the company’s success is the diversity of its internal profile. He looks at things like an economist, but Poyatos brings an engineer’s perspective. “There’s a lot of talk about cultural and gender diversity, but what’s most valuable and what interests me the most is the diversity of profiles. That we’re facing the same problem from different mental structures. Looking at how physicists, mathematicians and philosophers face the challenge from different angles greatly improves the quality of the final solution.”
Nieto frequently mentions his partner Poyatos. “Jorge is a genius. He excels at things that I lack and vice versa. We are completely different, but we are very analytical and that allows us to speak the same language,” he says. Both created one of Spain’s most successful entrepreneurial stories of the past decade.
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