What Smith Geiger does

Smith Geiger (legal entity SmithGeigerGroup) is a private international market research and strategy firm founded in 2001 and headquartered in Westlake Village, California, with 11-50 employees. The company delivers custom quantitative and qualitative research, strategic consulting, and ad sales enablement to enterprise clients concentrated in US broadcast, cable, digital, mobile, OTT, and social media. Its proprietary technology stack includes the trademarked Virtual Tag Along® digital ethnography methodology, Flash Reports dynamic reporting tools, and a real-time digital monitoring capability built through partnerships with ShareRocket and Vertical Knowledge. The firm has conducted over 4,000 proprietary studies over 25 years and reports consulting relationships with over 100 US TV stations and major media companies including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, Google, Facebook, and AT&T.

The firm's revenue model is primarily professional services, combining project-based research engagements (surveys, focus groups, dial tests, segmentations, brand tracking), structured training programs such as the Elevate ad sales enablement program (which partners cite as generating $20M in client revenues with 100% retention), ongoing monthly retainer consulting, and workshop-based revenue and digital optimization services. Go-to-market is exclusively direct enterprise consulting with no indirect or self-service channels, supported by a leadership team drawn from senior operating roles at major US media companies and PhD-level research credentials from Stanford.

Smith Geiger positions itself on depth of historical data, speed of delivery on complex segmentation studies, and the translation of research into actionable recommendations rather than raw data deliverables. Its three core service pillars are Analytics & Insights, Revenue & Growth (including Elevate and AccelerateSG), and Strategy & Activation, supplemented by Advertising Strategy and Digital Optimization service modules. Notable ecosystem partners include Stanford University (via the John S. Knight Fellowship) and its ShareRocket and Vertical Knowledge technology integrations.

Name

Smith Geiger

Legal name

SmithGeigerGroup

Website

https://smithgeiger.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2001

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Smith Geiger is a US-based market research and strategy firm serving media companies, broadcasters, and major brands with custom research, ad sales training, and consulting, built on 4,000+ proprietary studies and proprietary digital ethnography and real-time monitoring tools.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Media Market Research and Consulting

NAICS

Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling (54191), Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling (541910)

akta.pro primary industry

Product & Innovation Research (Concept, Pricing, Packaging, Conjoint) (MPAAALAI)

Keywords

• Media market research
• Consumer insights consulting
• Digital ethnography research
• Ad sales training
• Audience measurement services

Headquarters

HQ city

Westlake Village

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Research & Insights Services: Custom quantitative and qualitative research projects including online/mobile surveys, focus groups, dial tests, segmentation studies, and brand tracking. Revenue generated through project-based engagements with comprehensive deliverables including actionable recommendations.
2. Elevate Program: Ad sales training and enablement program including 3-day training sessions, 1-on-1 workshops, best practices toolkits, and pitch week support. Partners realized $20M in new revenues through this program last year.
3. Ongoing Consulting Engagements: Monthly consulting engagements supporting on-air and digital initiatives, platform choreography, and strategic guidance across screens and social media. Revenue generated through retainer-style consulting relationships with media companies and TV stations.
4. Relationship Revenue Workshops: Seven action-oriented workshops covering content revenue optimization, public service revenue, native/branded content, social media revenue, video/OTT revenue, and agency services.
5. Digital Services: Digital optimization services including half-day and full-day workshops, content development, social media strategy, influencer amplification, and mobile micro-moment strategies.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Smith Geiger is an international market research and strategy firm delivering custom quantitative and qualitative research, strategic consulting, and ad sales training to media companies, broadcasters, and major brands. It leverages proprietary methodologies such as Virtual Tag Along® digital ethnography and Flash Reports to provide consumer behavior insights, audience measurement, and actionable recommendations across broadcast, digital, mobile, and social platforms.

Product overview

Smith Geiger is a market research and consulting firm offering a unified portfolio of research services rather than a modular software product. The core offerings include Analytics & Insights, Revenue & Growth, and Strategy & Activation services, supplemented by proprietary tools like Flash Reports (one-click data access reporting) and Virtual Tag Along® (digital ethnography methodology). Add-on services include Elevate (ad sales training generating $20M+ in client revenues) and AccelerateSG (revenue acceleration). The company also delivers specialized Qualitative and Quantitative research services, Digital Optimization, and On-Air Consulting as integrated consulting engagements. All offerings are grounded in over 4,000 proprietary studies and focus on delivering actionable recommendations rather than raw data.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Analytics & Insights
• Revenue & Growth
• Advertising Strategy
• Strategy & Activation
• Elevate
• AccelerateSG
• Qualitative Research Services
• Quantitative Research Services

Quantifiable outcome

• Partners realized $20M in new revenues through the Elevate program last year
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers19 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Stanford UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSmithGeiger collaborates with Stanford University through the John S. Knight Fellowship program, enabling the firm to study emerging media technologies with emphasis on mobile, social, and location-based news concepts. This partnership supports innovation in research technology and methodology development.
• ShareRocketcoreTechnology or IntegrationPartnership to deliver real-time social equity scores for media brands, enabling clients to measure and monitor social equity metrics across platforms with real-time reporting dashboards.
• Vertical KnowledgecoreTechnology or IntegrationPartnership to provide a digital monitoring system capturing sentiment, content, interactions, transactional behavior and trends with real-time reporting and dashboards for comprehensive consumer insights.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Ipsos: Global market research firm with deep media, advertising, brand, and public-sector research practices. Competes for the same media-company research and consulting RFPs as Smith Geiger, with materially greater geographic and methodological breadth.
• Kantar: Global market research and consulting firm serving consumer brands, retailers, and media companies across quantitative and qualitative methods. Comparable to Smith Geiger in research methodology and brand/media client base, but at a much broader portfolio scale.
• Nielsen: Global audience measurement, consumer insights, and analytics leader covering TV, digital, and audio. Operates as a broad incumbent whose measurement products overlap with Smith Geiger's media-research offerings but at significantly greater scale and standardization.
• GfK (now part of NIQ): Consumer and media research firm with strong consumer-panel and audience-measurement capabilities across entertainment, tech, and telecom. Overlaps with Smith Geiger on media-consumption research and brand tracking for large enterprise clients.

Emerging players

• Morning Consult: Technology-enabled research and media intelligence firm with a strong brand-tracking and consumer-insights product. Competes for media and brand measurement budgets with a more software-led, scalable approach than Smith Geiger's bespoke model.
• Horowitz Research: Specialist media, tech, and telecom research firm with strong focus on multicultural and generational consumer segments. Comparable to Smith Geiger in serving media and entertainment clients with custom segmentation and qualitative research.
• Hub Entertainment Research: Boutique research firm specializing in media-consumption behavior across TV, streaming, and digital video. Direct competitor for streaming/CTV insights work that increasingly overlaps with Smith Geiger's multi-platform research agenda.
• Scarborough (a NielsenIQ company): Provider of local-market consumer and media-engagement research widely used by broadcasters, agencies, and advertisers. Closely comparable to Smith Geiger's local-station research base but operates a syndicated, standardized model rather than bespoke consulting.

Direct peers

• Edison Research: Specialist research firm focused on media and consumer behavior, known for The Infinite Dial, Share of Ear, and election polling. Direct competitor for share-of-time, audio, and cross-platform media research engagements with broadcasters and digital platforms.
• Frank N. Magid Associates: Long-standing media research and strategy firm serving broadcasters, cable networks, and digital publishers. Highly comparable to Smith Geiger in customer base and offer mix; in fact, Smith Geiger's co-founders both previously worked at Magid (Dave Smith as President of Entertainment; Dr. Seth Geiger as a researcher).

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/smithgeiger
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCbfuxoibkPG1n-2CUlhozyw
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/45488
• Facebookfacebook.com/SmithGeiger

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles12 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Smith Geiger