Brad Moran (purple) and Nick Paech (blue), CitrusAd. Brisbane, 18 June 2020. Photo: Attila Csaszar

Australian digital ad platform CitrusAd has signed five major international retail clients, including Groupon in the US and Sainsbury’s in the UK, as revenues more than double to $1 million per month with the COVID-19 online shopping boom.

Brisbane-based Citrus currently supports 40 retailers in 22 countries, serving 28 billion ad requests annually. It has achieved 2,000% growth compared to this time last year.

To this, Citrus will add Sainsbury’s, one of the two largest supermarket chains in the United Kingdom, and Chicago-based Groupon, the American global e-commerce marketplace which connects subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in 15 countries.

CitrusAd will now also be used globally by dedicated online grocery supermarket, Ocado, Spanish leading digital e-tailer, PC Components, UK retailer Argos and  international technology distributor, Tech Data.

In Australia, the CitrusAd digital advertising platform is already used by major retailers including Coles, Woolworths, Officeworks and Dan Murphys.

Launched in 2017 by former Adelaide Crows footballer, Brad Moran, CitrusAd is a retail Software as a Service (SaaS) company that turns retailer websites into revenue-generating digital advertising platforms.

The CitrusAd platform allows brands to buy space for their products on retailer websites, rivalling the advertising capability that made global retailing giant Amazon the third-largest advertising platform in the world in less than two years.

CitrusAd co-founder and CEO, Brad Moran said the COVID-19 lockdowns around the world had turbocharged sales for the company.

“It has catapulted us 10 years into the future,” he said. “In the past eight weeks, we’ve seen online orders for retailers increase by four to five times, which has put a rocket under our revenues.”