Liftoff - Fastest Growing Tech Company of the Year

Company: Liftoff
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Company Description: Liftoff helps its customers succeed with its unique performance-based mobile app marketing and retargeting platform. The company uses post-install user data to run true cost-per-action user acquisition and re-engagement campaigns for mobile app marketers.
Nomination Category: Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Fastest Growing Tech Company of the Year - Up to 2,500 Employees

Nomination Title: Liftoff

In an era of iOS v. Android and IDFA uncertainty among mobile marketers, Liftoff, a performance-based mobile app marketing and retargeting platform that helps companies acquire and retain high-quality app users at scale is reaching new milestones of growth and success.

Powered by advanced machine learning and lookalike targeting, Liftoff uses proprietary post-install user data to run true cost-per-action user acquisition and re-engagement campaigns. These are optimized to drive actions beyond the install, like booking a hotel, making a reservation, or renewing a subscription, to generate the best conversions and ROI for customers’ mobile ad spend.

Liftoff’s cost-per-action model helps customers scale and grow by acquiring users that actively spend in revenue-producing events. The platform also offers A/B creative services and features ad fraud prevention technology, so brands can trust that they’re getting the most bang for their marketing buck.

Headquartered in Redwood City, CA with offices in New York, London, Singapore, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, and Seoul, Liftoff is active in over 93 countries and works with the leading app publishers and brands around the globe.

Liftoff has disrupted the mobile marketing sector through a sound business model and superior technology. In 2020 alone, Liftoff nearly doubled their revenue marking the 7th straight year they experienced at least 60% growth.

Liftoff recently introduced a revolutionary cost-per-revenue (CPR) approach to marketing. With this CPR model, marketers can reach their target audience in a more efficient way, driving a higher ROI. In fact, most of Liftoff’s customers see an average 35% increase in return on ad spend after switching from a cost-per-action (CPA) model to Liftoff's cost-per-revenue model.

In the past year, Liftoff published six in-depth mobile data reports highlighting key behavioral shifts and trends in the way consumers engage with mobile apps—specifically, verticals like gaming, shopping, finance—as well as an overall creative ad index and insights across all app categories. These data reports offer valuable insights and best practices for mobile marketers and have been featured in publications such as TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and Forbes downloaded tens of thousands of times collectively.

In 2021, Liftoff led the creation of an IDFA Alliance, a partnership of mobile marketing technology companies focused on addressing the concerns of mobile marketers and app publishers in the wake of Apple’s recent update to their IDFA policies.

Liftoff’s massive and sustained growth is an outlier among tech startups in the mobile advertising space. Not only has the growth been significant, but it has been sustained over the years showing that it is authentic and likely to continue.

Recently, Blackstone Group Inc. publicly betted on the continued growth of mobile advertising with a $400M investment in Liftoff. Looking to expand geographically, Liftoff is eager to increase its market share with the recent funding. https://www.wsj.com/articles/blackstone-bets-around-400-million-on-digital-marketer-liftoff-11608656402

The platform has also been able to demonstrate its superiority relative to other mobile advertising technologies through its growing customer base. One study shows a customer, PlayStudio tracking impressive results using the CPR model—16x higher return on ad spend (ROAS). Another customer, MyTona, was able to run a mobile re-engagement campaign in tandem with its successful user acquisition campaign with Liftoff. They generated a 183% lift in click-through rate, 569% increase in in-app purchases, an impression-to-in-app purchase rate increase of 900%, and a decrease in CPAs by 90%.

Finally, Apple’s decision to remove IDFA has been a great cause of concern within the industry. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was citing the action as a massive disruptor while questioning Apple’s motive on the company’s earnings call in January 2021. Rather than play the victim, Liftoff organized an alliance of like-minded mobile marketing technology companies to combat this problem head-on, ensuring that their customers and the industry have healthy and sustainable alternatives to the outdated IDFA.