Meet Marc de Zordo, CEO at Branded Content Marketplace: Getfluence

Getfluence aims to revolutionise the branded content ecosystem through an international marketplace of premium and influencer media. Founded in 2018, Getfluence brings together 1000 advertisers – including Samsung, Uber, and dentsu – and more than 10,000 pan-European titles including The Economist, Marie Claire, Forbes, Le Monde, Grazia, and Cosmopolitan.

The platform is based on powerful technology that connects advertisers and media, facilitating all operations from planning to content dissemination. Getfluence cuts down on the traditional processes of arranging and agreeing on editorial campaigns, terms, conditions, with each and every publication in favour of a standardised set of rules for all. As content is managed directly on the Getfluence platform and brands also receive the added benefit of campaign measurement and analytics.

In November 2020, Getfluence raised €5 million from Reflexion Capital, Irdi Soridec Gestion, Celeste Management and several business angels, including WeSprint and Angelsquare Capital. The company is now present in France, Spain, Italy and the UK.
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
The idea for Getfluence had been years in the making. Before our official launch in 2018, when running my publishing company with over 200 websites and blogs, I received requests from advertisers for information about placing sponsored articles on our sites on a daily basis.

As you can imagine, communicating via email on such a big scale can be very time-consuming, clunky and inefficient. The process of each communication with every advertiser would be very similar as well: receiving a proposal, negotiating, receiving the sponsored content, approving it, and then managing billing.

This experience and observations led me to create Getfluence. First, I built a private platform, to simplify the organisation of advertiser-sponsored article campaigns on media websites. The impact of automation on time saved was incredible: it was reduced from 7 days of campaign follow-up to about 4 hours.

The private version of the platform attracted over 200 advertisers in just a few months, all with similar needs: access to more premium, influential media titles, access to a complete database of European media and the need for a platform that simplifies campaigns and reporting.

The gap in the marketplace was clear so following this test I decided to launch Getfluence, with the aim of becoming the leading European marketplace dedicated to sponsored articles.
 

How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?

 
Considering that we only launched in 2018, we are experiencing phenomenal growth. We have expanded across France, Spain, Italy and the UK. We’ve signed tens of thousands of new publishers and hundreds of clients.

Our team is also growing rapidly and, thanks to our recent €5 million Series A, we’re set for even more rapid growth.
 

What can we hope to see from Getfluence in the future?

 
We will definitely continue on this growth trajectory. I can’t give away too much, but expect Getfluence to expand to more markets and attract further investors on our journey to simplify the branded content process for both brands and publishers.

The paid media and branded content marketplace is evolving at an astonishing pace. New channels such as podcasts are providing new opportunities. The growth of ad blockers means that branded content has never been more popular for marketers.

We have to adapt to these challenges and opportunities which is why we’re committed to continually improving and expanding our platform. Ultimately, we want to be in a position where we can provide our service to any brand on any platform at any time. This includes, looking far ahead, places like the metaverse.