QueryClick nets £2m injection to fix digital attribution

QueryClick, an Edinburgh-based consultancy which specialises in the all-too-often ignored practice of digital spend attribution, has received a £2m funding boost, led by business investment group Archangels, in partnership with the Scottish Investment Bank.
Founded in 2008 by former Big Mouth Media executive Chris Liversidge (pictured, right), the company has 54 staff and manages more than £1bn of client marketing spend in 28 countries; its clients include Aggreko, BT, EE and Vitality.
With eMarketer predicting that global digital adspend will reach $427bn (£354bn) by 2022, Liversidge plans to use the investment to boost the agency’s headcount as it steps up its focus on helping client marketers to transform the effectiveness and measurability of their digital campaigns.
He said: “When digital took off, everything was supposed to be measurable and optimisable – but, in fact, attribution has for years been digital marketing’s broken promise.
“We recognised that the emergence of machine learning offered a new opportunity for our industry to get attribution right for advertisers, who deserve better, and this investment gives us renewed impetus to take our solution out to them.”
Archangels investment director Niki McKenzie (pictured, left) added: “Knowing which advertising works, and which doesn’t, has always been the holy grail.
“QueryClick’s software is already proving its immense value to its early adopters, making us confident that, with the right support, QueryClick will prove to be another success story for Scotland in this fast-developing sector.”
Last September Scotland boosted its quest to become the data and tech capital of Europe with two of Edinburgh’s universities launching a scheme to train up to 100,000 Scots in data skills and help 1,000 businesses over the next decade.
The Data-Driven Innovation initiative – worth £661m – is part of the £1.3bn Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal, and is being backed with cash from both the UK and Scottish governments.
Meanwhile, Edinburgh was named as one of the top five UK cities for data innovation, in the UK Tech Innovation Index published by the Open Data Institute and the Digital Catapult.
The research was undertaken as a first step to gain a clearer picture of the UK innovation landscape, to help inform business and public sector decision-making around investment and growth.