Brisbane-based advertising services agency, Audience Group, jumps from AFR Fast Starters top 50 to Fast 100 top 50 in one year

BRISBANE – 29 NOV 2021 – Evidence-based advertising is Audience Group’s modus operandi, and the evidence is in. The Brisbane-based full-service, independent advertising services agency has been recognised by the Australian Financial Review as one of the top 50 fastest growing companies in Australia (#47), off the back of its top-50 placement in last year’s AFR Fast Starters list of fastest growing start-ups. 

Audience Group has seen consistent annual growth since its 2015 launch. In the past 3 years (2019-2021), the revenue period considered by the Fast 100, Audience Group’s turnover has grown 182%. 

Recently celebrating a move to brand new offices in Brisbane’s CBD, Audience Group is an agency in the sweet spot between digital shops and large, full-service multinationals with the credentials of both. Their skills with data, analytics, modelling and – in particular – the leveraging of first-party data set them apart. 

Co-founders James McDonald and Tom Evans credit that, along with an increasingly relevant offering and demonstrable results, for their continued growth. 

“Gartner called out an Australian CRM spend of $2.3 billion in 2018. In 2020 Salesforce, alone, racked up a reported ANZ revenue of $520M and then surpassed that with a 46% surge in ANZ sales in 2021. There is no shortage of Australian companies that have invested in ad tech platforms, CRMs, marketing platforms in the past three to five years,” said Evans. 
 

“And there’s no shortage of companies that want to operationalise more of that data. Audience Group knows how to use that first-party data to inform effective advertising and media programs – digital and above the line – that drive top-line business growth. It’s what we do.”

The ongoing death of the cookie is an element fuelling the relevancy of Audience Group’s product, but the agency has been driving clients to leverage first party data for years. 

“We started Audience Group so we could drive change in the way advertising programs and media strategies are run,” said McDonald, “and we’re growing because we are an evidence-based advertising agency with demonstrable proof that what we are doing for our clients is working.

“We’re using that first party data to help clients invest with confidence in advertising programs, to demonstrate success to their C-suite, and to spend effectively in spite of the pandemic.”

In addition to increasing their spend with Audience Group, clients have been busy telling other companies about the agency’s service and results, and that word of mouth has helped Audience Group identify and land new clients during lockdowns and border closures. 

“You hear, ad nauseum, that ‘every company is a tech company’ and ‘every company is a digital business’ and ‘every company needs to be data-driven’ because it’s true,” said Evans. “Audience Group is an advertising services agency that’s a data company – that’s a tech company – based in the emerging tech hub that is Brisbane.” 

“We have strong digital creds and do search and social and sophisticated programmatic buying well, and we have seen growth in that side of our business,” explained Evans. “And we have the expertise and tools required to apply our approach to radio or tv or whatever above the line mix is best. That means effective, evidence-based cross platform programs tied to our clients’ business objectives and bottom lines.”

Audience Group’s client list spans the country and a variety of industry sectors, and includes Goodstart Early Learning, Slater & Gordon, Star Liquor, Retire Australia, the Queensland Ballet, Defence Housing Australia, AusNet Services and Credit24 to name a few. 

 

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