Background

Smartly is an AI-powered advertising technology company that unifies creative and media to help brands produce and scale data-driven campaigns across channels. The platform supports more than 800+ brands globally and manages over $7+ billion in ad spend, with partnerships across major media platforms including Amazon, Google, Meta, TikTok and others.

As Smartly continues to grow, it aims to use insights to inform strategic decisions and strengthen brand awareness in a competitive market

To support this goal, Smartly needed a clear understanding of how the brand is perceived among customers and prospects across key markets, and how it compares to competitors.

The Challenge

Smartly needed a reliable way to assess awareness and perceptions among ad and marketing decision-makers and measure changes over time.

This included identifying strengths and weaknesses, understanding competitive positioning and clarifying what differentiates the brand. The study also needed to reach qualified decision-makers across both brand and agency organizations, while maintaining consistency across markets.

The Solution

Smartly partnered with Alter Agents to conduct research among customers and prospects to understand the brand’s strengths, weaknesses and opportunities.

The team needed an approach that could capture both customer and prospect perspectives while allowing for consistent tracking over time. Alter Agents designed a structured, repeatable methodology to meet that need.

The team started with an online quantitative survey, fielded globally among marketing and advertising decision-makers.

To bring structure to the analysis, Alter Agents developed a customized Brand Health Score that combines key brand metrics into a single framework.

Additional audience metrics were used to segment audiences and clarify where to focus.

Outcomes

Smartly now has a consistent framework for evaluating brand health and tracking performance over time.

The research provides a clear, consistent view of brand perception across audiences and markets, along with a structured way to compare against competitors.

Insights are delivered in a format that supports decision-making, helping teams prioritize efforts, refine positioning and focus on the areas with the greatest opportunity for growth.