A big headache for SMEs and start-ups is managing their advertising budgets. Digital campaigns in particular can burn through cash, and companies are often in the dark about what’s working – or not – and why.
As someone steeped in start-up culture, Aisling Browne knows how frustrating it is to spend time and scarce resources on advertising with little or nothing to show for it. She was convinced there had to be a better way – and that AI held the key.
In 2023, Browne and software engineer Kingsley Kelly met at the Dogpatch Labs Founders Talent Accelerator. They quickly discovered they were approaching the same problem from different angles and teamed up to develop Glitch, an AI-driven platform that autonomously runs and optimises digital advertising campaigns to give companies the best bang for their buck.
“The idea started from my own frustration at seeing the same pattern across multiple start-ups,” Browne says. “Most teams couldn’t afford a top-tier agency to help them and didn’t have an in-house expert who truly understood performance marketing. So, they were spending money on ads but without a good return on their investment. Kingsley, who has built systems for Web Summit and also spent five years with Google Ads, witnessed the same problem, but from inside the platform.
“When ChatGPT launched its game-changing functionality in October 2023, we realised that AI had finally caught up to the challenge,” Browne adds. “While most builders were chasing ecommerce and B2C, B2B was being left behind. We knew we could change that by creating an AI-driven approach that levels the playing field for lean, fast-growing B2B teams.”
Browne says most existing advertising tools are built for ecommerce or assume a company has deep pockets and a full marketing team in place. Glitch, by contrast, has been designed specifically for B2B.
“Glitch sits in the space between ad tech tools, AI marketing platforms and traditional agencies,” Browne says. “We’re filling the gap for marketing teams who need intelligent automation that’s tuned for lead generation, not online retail.
“Our edge is strategic AI that understands the nuances of longer sales cycles, niche audiences, multiple funnel stages and complex decision-making processes before it even launches your first campaign.
“It continuously shifts budget to whatever’s working – the best copy, the right keywords, the most effective campaigns – and then translates everything into clear performance data that both marketing and sales teams can act on.
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“With Glitch, a company can see who’s engaging, where they’re located and which messages are resonating,” Browne adds. “We turn raw ad data into decisions a company can feel confident about making. It’s like having a strategist who thinks, a team-mate who collaborates, and a machine that scales – all in one. It’s agency-grade performance without the agency price tag.”
Glitch’s prime market will be companies that want to invest in their online growth strategy but don’t have the time to stay on top of the constantly changing advertising landscape.
“Advertising today is more fragmented and technical than ever. Teams are under pressure to do more with less, but platforms are evolving too fast to keep up with them all,” Browne says.
“Glitch acts as an always-on campaign manager. It learns, adapts and continually improves results. At its heart is our automated optimisation engine that handles everything from targeting and bidding to copywriting and real-time performance tuning.”
With Google Ads accounting for the lion’s share of many companies’ advertising budgets, Glitch is kicking off its offering with an initial focus on the tech giant. However, the intention is to go cross-platform – a task that Browne says will become even more challenging as traditional channels such as LinkedIn and TikTok are joined by a slew of others.
“The ad space is going to change dramatically because you have these new LLM (large language model) platforms that are changing how people are searching,” she says. “There will still be room for the large advertising agencies to service big corporate clients, but Glitch makes economic sense for smaller businesses.”
Glitch is based in Dublin and employs five people full-time. Its product is currently in gated beta with customers in the Republic, the UK, the US and Canada. Expansion into non-English-speaking markets is in the company’s strategic plan, but slated for further down the road. The typical advertising budgets of potential customers will run between €5,000 and €100,000 a month. The company’s revenue model is a standard tiered SaaS.
To date, Glitch has raised €750,000 in pre-seed funding from angel investors and Enterprise Ireland. Support for the company has also come from Dublin LEO (Local Enterprise Office) and Dogpatch Labs. Glitch is a designated Enterprise Ireland High Potential Start-Up and is in the process of raising a seed round of €2 million.
Browne comes from a family of entrepreneurs and got her taste for the start-up scene in London before joining Irish fintech Wayflyer as head of European partnerships.
“I witnessed Wayflyer becoming a unicorn and experiencing unbelievable growth – the type that most people only ever read about,” she says. “That period shaped my appetite for high-growth environments and gave me the confidence to take the leap and co-found Glitch, where I’m combining my lack of marketing expertise – we’re building for people like me – with a passion for impactful technology for B2B companies that will scale globally.”
