Mobile entertainment and digital media company Crowd Mobile (ASX:CM8) is continuing to make significant investment into its new digital influencer business Crowd Agency following a record-breaking FY17.
Crowd Agency is a global, data-driven influencer marketing business which connects digital influencers with brands looking for new and more effective ways of reaching customers.
“We see digital influencers as the new TV channel and TV commercial (TVC), particularly for the millennial market,” Crowd Mobile CEO Domenic Carosa told Tech Invest in August.
As millennials increasingly use ad blockers and turn to social media and live streaming, brands are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of digital influencers.
Crowd Mobile is now the only Australian-listed company to offer shareholders a chance to invest in this exciting new space. Currently, Crowd Agency is executing over 200 influencer campaigns every month and to date the agency has worked with over 6,000 influencers.
Crowd Agency has also built a proprietary customer relationship management (CRM) platform that gives marketers the ability to scout, track, analyse and optimise campaigns and receive statistics on influencer reach and growth.
A new platform that will allow third party brands to connect their own data attribution models to source and optimise influencer marketing campaigns – a world’s first in this space – is in development.
Crowd Mobile’s net revenue increased 16% to $43.9 million in FY17, the company’s second full year on the ASX, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) up 49% to $9.4 million. The record year was underpinned by the continuing and growing demand for Crowd Mobile’s Q&A and Subscription divisions.
The Q&A division, a global service that matches those seeking answers with qualified experts, saw revenue increase by 26% to $24.9 million. FY17 marked the third consecutive year of growth of the Q&A division, which continues to be the company’s main earner.
The Subscription division, which delivers mobile content such as games, apps, music and video to millions of customers worldwide, achieved a 10% increase of revenue up to $19 million.
“We are very excited by the momentum we have seen in Crowd Media.
Right now, digital influencers are the hottest thing in marketing and we are looking at opportunities for how we can leverage that popularity into the sale of physical and digital products,” said Carosa, following the FY17 results. “For this, we have a powerful mobile payment distribution network in place, which will allow us to bill customer’s mobile phones directly.”
Crowd Mobile is using the Q&A division to incubate Crowd Media, which includes Crowd Agency. The company sees the digital influencer space as a key opportunity going forward.
