Europe, together with the rest of the world, is facing an enormous growth of new businesses. The majority of which are startups, that bring new ideas and disruptive technologies. These companies are trying to shape the future trends not only for business giants that are striving for innovation, but also impacting and sometimes even changing people's everyday lives.
In many ways, Europe can be considered as the perfect place to represent the scale of the so-called "digital revolution". The revolution in terms of opportunities and challenges that startups bring to every industry. This article highlights the best advertising and marketing startups in each European country that, according to Valuer.ai, is worth watching in 2018.
Marketing Technology Landscape by Scott Brinker
The editor of Chief Marketing Technologist, Scott Brinker, presents an expanding array of marketing technologies in his annual Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic, also known as Martech 5000.
In the infographic, he is dividing marketing technologies into a few main categories: Advertising and Promotion, Content and Experience, Social and Relationships, Commerce and Sales, Data, and Management. It helps marketers to keep track and navigate marketing technologies that are constantly introduced to the market.
The infographic highlights 6,829 unique marketing technology solutions and new ideas that are present in the market in 2018. Some of them are developed by big companies like Adobe, SAP, Oracle, etc., whereas others are actual startups bringing new ideas to the market.
What is a startup?
There are many definitions of a startup. But each of them describes a startup from a different perspective. Some entrepreneurs state that it is a business structure aimed at solving a problem by offering a product or a service that is not available on the market and is under extreme uncertainty.
According to Forbes, a startup is a young company that generates less than 20 million USD, has not more than 80 employees, is totally independent in making all business decisions and intends to "take over" the world.
Paul Graham, an entrepreneur and computer scientist that founded Y Combinator and Hacker News, defines a startup as a company associated with growth:
"A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth."
In other words, there is no clear and widely acknowledged startup definition. However, it is possible to define a few points that categorize a business as a startup:
• Unconventional business model;
• Product or service is in the introduction stage;
• Less than 100 employees;
• Younger than 10 years;
• Turnover under 50 million USD.
Valuer.ai's list of best startups in Europe in the advertising and marketing industry was created based on the above-mentioned startup defining criteria. The startups were found using the databases of Startupranking, Crunchbase, and Angel.co. All the companies are listed in the table by country and in alphabetical order:
Tirana, Albania
Gjirafa
The first search engine, news aggregator video content and e-commerce platform built on top of Albanian language. Its advanced algorithms provide access to data that cannot be searched online.
Founded: 2013
Vienna, Austria
Smart Engine
Innovative advertising technology that helps to connect business with consumers using mobile, online and POS payment platforms.
Founded: 2010
Minsk, Belarus
SpurIT
Experts providing e-commerce solutions for Shopify and BigCommerce, custom development services and SEO for websites.
Founded: 2011
Brussels, Belgium
CentralApp
Technology helping local businesses to grow through their presence and visibility to millions of users on websites like Google, Facebook, Yelp and Foursquare.
Founded: 2014
Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovinia
Adamo Advertising
A fully self-service global ad network delivering cutting edge and most effective advertising on web, mobile and in app.
Founded: 2013
Sofia, Bulgaria
Metrilo
Intelligent marketing platform built to solve marketing problems for e-commerce stores.
Founded: 2014
Varaždin, Croatia
Point Visible
A digital marketing agency helping online businesses reach their target audience through content marketing and storytelling.
Founded: 2016
Nicosia, Cyprus
Tellody
A cloud based marketing and persuasion tool for SMEs helping them to interact and engage with customers.
Founded: 2015
Brno, Czech Republic
Survio
Market research and client satisfaction tool for creating and distributing online questionnaires and surveys. Provides prepared survey templates, layouts and styles.
Founded: 2012
Copenhagen, Denmark
Influencer Marketing Hub 
Leading marketing resource for agencies and influencers providing reviews, listings and relevant industry information.
Founded: 2016
Talinn, Estonia
Blu Mint Digital
Online marketing agency specialising in services for entrepreneurs and premium SMEs.
Founded: 2011
Helsinki, Finland
Kiosked
Advertising automation platform turning publisher's content into ad placements. Was selected as one of world's best tech company.
Founded: 2010
Paris, France
AgoraPulse
Social media CRM platform helping businesses to grow follower base and optimize performance on Facebook using integrated publishing and moderation tools.
Founded: 2011
Berlin, Germany
Aklamio
Leading European SaaS provider for referral marketing solutions. Used by Vodafone, PayPal, AXA and other large companies.
Founded: 2011
Athens, Greece
Moosend
Email marketing tool that helps to send email campaigns, manage and track lists and results.
Founded: 2012
Budapest, Hungary
Synetiq
A startup that helps advertisers and their agencies create high performing video ads with emotional insights from their target audience.
Founded: 2014
Reykjavik, Iceland
Upcado
Company focused on e-commerce. They build and launch a chatbot on Facebook Messenger that helps businesses to promote their products.
Founded: 2017
Dublin, Ireland
SparkPage
A growth automation platform allows marketers building messaging workflows with push notifications, emails and SMS.
Founded: 2012
Catania, Italy
SEO Tester Online
Online web marketing and SEO analysis tool that helps to improve search engine optimization, study competitors and reach new customers.
Founded: 2016
Riga, Latvia
Mailigen
One of Europe's leading providers of web-based email marketing (with integrated SMS marketing) software.
Founded: 2010
Vilnius, Lithuania
Whatagraph
Marketing performance reporting platform that automatically converts Google Analytics and social media data into presentation ready infographics reports.
Founded: 2015
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tapfiliate
Affiliate marketing software for e-commerce and SaaS.
Founded: 2014
Oslo, Norway
Inzpire.me
The platform matching brands with social media influencers to create inspiring stories that could be shared with a passionate audience.
Founded: 2017
Krakow, Poland
SALESmanago
Cloud-based online marketing automation platform for e-commerce, B2C and B2B used by over 10 000 companies worldwide.
Founded: 2011
Lisbon, Portugal
360imprimir
B2B marketplace for marketing products (flyers, packaging, etc.) and all-in-one services (design, replication, templates, etc.) for SMEs.
Founded: 2014
Bucharest, Romania
Pleisty
A startup helping to transform unique ideas into automated, intelligent marketing communication over multiple channels: email, webshop, ad networks, offline.
Founded: 2011
Moscow, Russia
Flocktory
Social referral marketing platform for the entire customer life cycle, trusted by global e-commerce, retail, banking and other businesses.
Founded: 2012
Belgrade, Serbia
Mirror Solutions
Multi-disciplinary digital marketing agency specializing in SEO consulting and online marketing services.
Founded: 2011
Bratislava, Slovakia
Mangools
Package of SEO tools - keyword research, SERP analysis, rank tracking, backlink analysis, etc.
Founded: 2014
LjubIjana, Slovenia
UrbanApp
A unique social platform for optimizing app engagement and generating personalized geo-specific mobile content. It informs the user about relevant urban web sites and applications in real time.
Founded: 2015
Zaragoza, Spain
ONiAd
A self-service platform that allows to put ads on best websites in the country.
Founded: 2017
Stockholm, Sweden
Match2one
A startup specializing in making programmatic advertising intuitive and automated. It offers a platform that enables users to create smart online advertising campaigns.
Founded: 2015
Zurich, Switzerland
42matters
Full suite of products and services to build a mobile business using high quality mobile data and insights.
Founded: 2011
Ankara, Turkey
Netvent
The first company in Turkey offering entire inbound marketing process.
Founded: 2013
Kiev, Ukraine
Discontimo
A mobile advertising platform for SMEs helping to promote products and services to location-based target audience.
Founded: 2016
London, United Kingdom
Zappi
Automated consumer insights platform helping global brands make better decisions, shape product development, and enhance advertising and branding efforts.
Founded: 2012
Leading European countries in the advertising industry
Not all the countries in Europe show the same business performance in a particular industry. In some countries, for example, the fin-tech industry is more advanced than the gaming industry. In other countries, industries like big data or SaaS can be dominating.
Each country has its leading industries and the ones that are less developed. The chart below displays a ranking of the top European countries by their performance in the advertising industry in the year 2017:
Top European Countries in the Advertising Industry in 2017
(More about the source and methodology here)
Check the interactive map
Below is the interactive map showing, where all the mentioned startups are located. Click on the pin that marks the location to see more details about the startup.
[Related article: The Top 50 Best Startup Cities in the World]
Check the video highlighting best startups
In conclusion
Europe is definitely one of the best places for startups. It has the necessary financing and, what is very important these days, available infrastructure and human capital. The growing number of new startups, including the ones in the advertising and marketing industry, is just an example showing how attractive and well prepared European countries are for new businesses.
Beyond Europe there are plenty of marketing and advertising courses, for example, courses are offered at the best institute for digital marketing in Rohini.
Valuer.ai is a company that match-makes the best startups with resource strong corporations. The company is using more than 7 years of experience, together with the best knowledge from accelerators, startup competitions, and pitch events in order to help corporations track the right startups.
