In 2011, digital advertising budgets were booming all around the world, and at the same time, the functioning of online advertising markets were progressively converging towards functioning of financial market. Prices were changing in real time based on offer and demand, and bidding strategies were replacing fixed price strategies. Traditional agencies had trouble addressing this completely new paradigm in the industry. This is when the four-year old Effilab had come into being.
Efflilab is headquartered in France but is among the startups that look at the Middle East and Africa region as a promising market. The company has established presence in the UAE in line with this thought process.
“The added-value of online advertising is progressively shifting from creative skills to analytical. Or, at least, analytical has a much more prominent role. The two original founders of Effilab, who were working at Google four years ago, decided to gather a team of ex-analysts from the finance and the consulting industry to design data-driven strategies and create advertising accounts led by data-based decisions. We quickly came up with much better results than the rest of the market. And we realized that four years after, the functioning of online advertising markets has become even more challenging and requires very dedicated skills and tools to perform. This is the gap we address,” explains Timothée Désormeaux, Associate Director, Middle East and Africa, Efflilab.
The rationale behind the offer showed merit soon. At present Effilab employs of 40 people. The company manages more than USD 50 million every year for more than 200 companies around the world. It has also just opened a new branch in Australia.
Efflilab follows a commission-based business model, where it charges the commission for the budgets it manages, similar to that of a trading desk.
Efflilab’s marketing strategy so far has largely comprised word of mouth, leveraging its experience from the European market, in specific verticals such as ecommerce or classified ads. “We are starting to take part in speaking conferences, and similar face to face initiatives. But our very first focus is delivering the best performance for our clients, as our action is crucial for them. When performance is here, new customers will definitely come,” remarks Mr Désormeaux.
