Airtasker turns to traditional media in bid to become household name

Online marketplace Airtasker is increasing its investment in marketing across traditional media platforms as it chases greater brand awareness across the country.

Airtasker founder and chief executive officer Tim Fung.

Airtasker is looking to “dial up” its investment in marketing in 2025 with a plan to increase its expenditure in traditional channels such as TV, audio and out-of-home in a bid to drive growth.

Airtasker founder and chief executive Tim Fung, told The Growth Agenda, the business was achieving “double-digit percentage” growth, despite the macro economic challenges thanks to a combination of cost-cutting, improved platform features and user growth.

Mr Fung said the business had reduced its headcount by 20 per cent, and, as a result, had bolstered its revenue per headcount by 25 per cent. The move helped deliver “a 200 per cent turnaround on the profitability of the Australian business”.

In a bid to leverage the bottom line growth and a rise in people working on the platform, which is up 89 per cent year-on-year, the online marketplace plans to increase its investment in marketing over the next two years to boost its brand awareness.

Airtasker currently maintains prompted brand awareness of 65 per cent, however, Mr Fung admitted it needed to increase its brand marketing investment to drive further growth.

In the past financial year, the business spent less than $2m on marketing which is “a fraction” of previous years.

“I do think that we under invested in our brand in FY24, and in FY25 and FY26 we’re looking at ways that we can dial up that investment, scale our brand awareness and continue to invest in becoming a household name.

“What we need to invest into is brand salience, so that every time you think of something that needs work, whether it’s a dirty bathroom, a garage full of things that you need to get rid of, or something to help start your business, the first thing you think about is Airtasker. We need to invest in our brand.”

Mr Fung said the business would be increasing its investment in traditional media channels, such as TV, outdoor and audio.

“One of the things we are a little bit contrarian on is we actually love the traditional media industry. We think audio, outdoor and television marketing is super interesting.”

Mr Fung said part of the appeal was the ability to gain greater return on its investment through these channels.

“Online marketing was this dream that was sold to us that would allow you to track everything and know exactly where your dollars were going,” he said.

“But, now that online marketing is the bigger chunk of most people’s budgets. It has become just as difficult to work out attribution and know whether I am generating any value for each dollar that I spend.

“It used to be that you might invest $1m on TV, now, and $5000 online, and if your online sales improved it was working.

But now the opposite is true. If you’re spending a lot of money through Google or Meta it’s really hard to determine whether the incremental extra dollar that you spend is actually doing anything. And I think that, you know, obviously the platforms have a pretty vested interest in telling you that it is working.

“That’s always a bit of a challenge too,” Mr Fung said.

“I think there is going to be a renaissance towards traditional media, on TV, audio and outdoors particularly.”