Ubiquitous is a match-making service for the influencer age.
The Atlanta-based startup describes itself as a Hinge-like platform connecting businesses and TikTok influencers. That is important because the traditional branded content “match-making” process is cumbersome and manual for brands looking to tap digital content creators for their marketing efforts, according to founder Jess Flack.
Ubiquitous officially formed in April of 2021 as Flack saw the opportunity to change that narrative.
“That was the moment our vision was solidified: beyond just supporting brands/labels by helping them execute influencer campaigns, we’re going to change the industry by making influencer marketing more scalable, trackable, and reliable through product solutions that actually address the challenges that brands face when deploying meaningful budgets into influencer marketing (regardless of the channel),” she told Hypepotamus.
The startup helps brands build an individualized influencer marketing strategy and then track the results of those efforts through its real-time data platform.
Ubiquitous has attracted clients like Adobe, Amazon, Lyft, and Target, while garnering its brands over 605 million total impressions. It also closed a $5 million seed round in late 2021 from San Francisco-based Uncork Capital, according to Crunchbase, as it continues to scale.
Building In Atlanta
While Ubiquitous is influencing the international marketing landscape, the company has strong roots here in the Southeast.
Flack initially moved from Chattanooga to Atlanta in 2019 to help build up the moving startup Bellhop’s presence in the city. Flack told Hypepotamus that the idea got off the ground towards the beginning of the pandemic as she picked up contract work to help other companies with marketing efforts.
Specifically, she was working with a record label when she saw the emerging power of TikTok for brands and artists.
“But it wasn’t until I had collected quotes from hundreds of creators that the real “lightbulb moment” happened. The CPM of the rates showed me that the channel hadn’t been standardized yet, but even the blended average was 4x lower than Instagram influencers and 6x lower than Youtube influencers. Although these results were exciting, the process of working with influencers was still incredibly manual,” she added.
Today, the majority of Ubiquitous employees are based in Atlanta and Chattanooga, with other “hubs” in Los Angeles and Austin, according to Flack.
While the influencer marketing landscape is nascent, the Ubiquitous team is in hyper-growth mode.
“We’ve developed numerous internal tools, predictive analytics, algorithms, data scrapers, and more that allow us to execute campaigns more efficiently. But now we’re gearing up to start launching publicly facing solutions to support both brands and creators. While these launches are slated for 2023, we are heavily focused on product in Q4 of this year by starting design, development, and beta testing now,” she added.
