When Benjamin Schroeter and Teja Töpfer founded Facelift in 2011, the claim was "100% Facebook". That was the beginning of a tale of rapid growth success that continues to this day. The MarTech player has long since positioned itself as a holistic provider in the field of social media marketing technology with coverage of the world's most popular social channels.
But let's take a step back for a moment.
In 2014, the first series A investment in the company became a reality. An international family office invested 15 million US dollars in Facelift in a bid to drive Facelift Cloud in a future-oriented direction. This was followed just one year later by the acquisition of the French company Socialshaker SAS, a software provider for social-driven marketing technology for small and medium-sized enterprises. Then came the founding of "Upljft" - a joint venture for social advertising together with the Hamburg-based creative agency thjnk - and the acquisition of the Hamburg-based marketing tech company Social Bench.
2016 set the course for the future
When Facelift was acquired by DuMont Group, the clear goal was to establish and expand a dedicated marketing technology division. Since then, DuMont has integrated Facelift under the umbrella of "United Marketing Technologies". With more than 250 employees from nearly 20 nations at its main locations in Hamburg and Paris, as well as other locations in the EMEA region, Facelift has established itself as a European SaaS market leader for social media marketing. The company has seen stable revenue growth over the years in a highly dynamic market. Facelift is a healthy company and has so far performed excellently in such a highly competitive environment.
Since mid-2021, the company has been led by Daniel Oliver Augsten as CEO. With his appointment, DuMont is sending another signal for growth and product innovation. Augsten is optimistic about the future: "We have recently seen and experienced the biggest shift in media usage behavior towards digital, and social in particular has become the number one discovery platform for consumers. The increasing number and complexity of social platforms and the desire of businesses to manage them directly also urgently requires professional social marketing/management software - like Facelift Cloud."
Augsten is supported by a competent and diverse management team. Among others, Fabian Schmidt acts as the company's chief operations officer, focusing on operational excellence initiatives across all departments. Sabine Menke as director of people & organization strives to implement a sustainable approach to corporate culture. The management team and all operational teams at Facelift work in a product-centric manner with the goal of continuing to offer companies state-of-the-art software in the future.
The product at the heart of it all
Facelift offers the most important tools for successful social media marketing in just one application. It is thus possible to plan, release and publish content on all of the most valuable networks. Community management and customer service make use of a single, unified inbox for efficiency. Dashboards, reports and competitor analyses are available for success performance monitoring. Facelift Cloud pays particular attention to teamwork, data security and reliability, and is ISO 27001 certified, representing the highest level of data protection compliance. The SaaS platform is enjoyed by medium-sized and large companies that place a premium on service and quality and meeting the challenge of reducing complexity in social media management.
Facelift's diverse range of product-specific added value has enabled it to repeatedly win new and prestigious customers and renew contracts with its existing user base. Among these, Facelift counts customers from a wide array of industries. The German Armed Forces, The Ergo Group, Bavaria's capital Munich, BASF SE, Grohe AG, ARAG SE and also the French multi-national retail group Carrefour, among others, are only a few examples. Through its future orientation as a "product-led growth" company, Facelift will also tap into further market potential in the area of smaller customers, among others. A first step was the launch of the free trial, in which potential customers can test the product without commitment.
A broad partner ecosystem enables Facelift to work closely with many key networks, agencies and other tool providers to increase impact on social for its own clients. Facelift is also an official Facebook/ Instagram Marketing Partner, Pinterest Partner and WhatsApp Solutions Provider
Facelift's customer service, rated with a 97% satisfaction rate, also shows that the company is always focused on its customers and their success. Optimal customer centricity is present throughout the entire funnel.
In addition, Facelift has made a name for itself in the industry with years of participation in various trade fairs such as DMEXCO in Cologne, the Online Marketing Rockstars (OMR) Festival in Hamburg and the AllFacebook event in Munich. Meanwhile, events organized specifically by Facelift, both offline and virtual, are well-known and enjoy high attendance. The Facelift Summit, to which speakers from well-known networks are invited every year, has become an industry highlight over the years - with up to 900 participants and extensive international attendance.
The facelift team and culture
Another very important success factor for Facelift is its own employees and the special culture that has been successfully implemented within the company.
Compared to other tech companies, turnover at Facelift is low and the average length of service is relatively high for the industry at over three years. Since its inception, Facelift has placed a high value on engaging employees for the long term, letting them be part of the journey, and defining the culture of the company together. In fact, there are employees and managers who have been with and shaped the company from the very beginning - for over ten years - and want to remain so. Facelift is proud of this and would like to expand this approach further.
With Sabine Menke, Director of People & Organization, the "people first" approach is being redefined at Facelift. For example, organizational change projects are tendered for employees to drive them forward in cross-functional teams. In this way, employees are actively and jointly shaping the cultural cornerstones of the next iteration of the company.
Special thanks to all employees who have written 11 years of company history with Facelift. We look forward to many more years together!
