Ten Questions With: Nick Sertis & Matt Cahill, Founders of Signifi Media

Last week we asked 10 questions of Dutch housing data company Walter Living's CEO, and we continue our series of profile interviews with interesting PropTech company founders this week by speaking to the founders of Signifi MediaNick Sertis and Matt Cahill. Specifically we asked Nick and Matt Ten questions about their company's loopaautomate product which takes a lot of man-hours out of the digital marketing of property listings. 

What is the problem that Loopa Automate solves?

Loopa Automate is a platform that automates the creation of Advertisements and Digital Marketing Campaigns for an individual property listing posted on a real estate portal. We create thousands of individual campaigns for each listing across Facebook, Instagram, Google Search, Google Display, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, Video and the wider programmatic networks. A portal may have 100,000 property listings per month - our system can create individual marketing campaigns for each and every listing - something you can’t do by human hand.

What is Loopa Automate’s USP?

Our Automation Platform is quite unique in that it not only automates the entire Digital Marketing Process but it works across Job Listings, Cars, Motorbikes, Boats, Property as well as SMB advertising. We are not only an Ad Technology company but we also have a large Agency team where our fabulous Ad Operations team run performance campaigns for some of Australia’s largest online brands. Some portals have tried to do this themselves but the end result does not drive leads - we have optimised our system to be performance based which is to deliver enquiries to the Agent.

What is Loopa Automate’s biggest challenge?

The changes in Chrome browsers 3rd party cookie restrictions will re-architect the way RTB (real-time bidding) works. We are lucky to deal in mainly 1st party data (1st party cookies) so have future-proofed our systems in this way. We are quick and agile enough to make any change to our platform that is required based on industry best practices. Google Chrome is yet to finalise its technical approach so we’re waiting until then.

How many employees does Loopa Automate have?

We have just under 20 staff in our office in Western Australia and some remote workers as well. Our platform is powering the digital marketing for some of the largest portals around the globe in Europe, South and Central America, Asia, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand

Can you give us an example of a classifieds player you have worked with and seen success with?

We have worked with leading Swedish property portal Hemnet where we were able to increase traffic to their listings by 50% while the campaign was active. You can read more about our work with Hemnet here.

How has Covid-19 changed the landscape for Loopa Automate?

We actually grew substantially during the COVID crises with a phenomenal 200% increase in revenue QTR on QTR against an Agency benchmark (in APAC) of just 18%. These numbers are from a large Social platform.

How long has Loopa Automate been involved with Property Portal Watch and why did you decide to get involved?

We have been involved with PPW for over 2 years now and enjoy each and every conference where we talk to some of the top portals in international markets. It is a great way to network and has certainly helped us launch in over 10 countries around the world.

What is Loopa Automate currently working on?

We are continuing to build out our platform adding some great new media channels and also optimising the platform. We are currently onboarding over 20 new clients in various countries. It is a very busy time for us and our growth continues. It seems that the market is now understanding how important Marketing Automation is. Coming soon we have our self-serve platform Agent Extend which allows real-estate agents to login and run their own brand awareness campaigns to promote themselves and their services within their local marketing area.

What is your most common request from clients?

“Can we have exclusivity”. Almost every time we partner up, the portal requests exclusivity in their country. Our model is SAAS based so we try and avoid this question.

How do you see the market evolving and what will you be doing to be ahead of the curve?

We see the growth in Digital Advertising continuing and the technical landscape changing rapidly. This is something we are used to and because we are small and Agile we can support any change the industry throws at us!