Cambridge-based Genie Ventures has once again proved its strength on the national stage, taking home multiple trophies at the UK Performance Marketing Awards 2025. The wins recognise the agency’s data-led creativity, collaborative culture, and measurable impact – all rooted right here in East Anglia.
Genie Ventures is the home of award-winning ecommerce marketing & technology, including Broadband Genie, Genie Goals and Genie Shopping.
We caught up with Genie Ventures Co-Founder Ciaron Dunne to find out what these wins mean, what drives their success, and why the team are proud to represent the region in the UK’s biggest marketing arenas.
Q: Congratulations on your multiple wins at the UK Performance Marketing Awards! How did it feel to take home more than one trophy this year?
A: Genuinely it felt incredible. Cloud nine stuff.
We’ve been in the performance marketing industry for more than 20 years – which is really its entire history – and we’ve attended pretty much every Awards in that time, winning the occasional award or commendation for a particular campaign. However we’ve moved up from being a “spare-bedroom” startup to becoming a major player in UK performance marketing, driving £1m+ every day in online sales and working with the UK’s biggest ecomm brands – from B&Q to BT.
We entered and won the two biggest awards possible – Publisher of Year for our price comparison websites and Team of the Year for our entire organisation. It’s felt a bit like winning Best Picture and Best Actors at the Oscars.
Q: What made you decide to enter the UK Performance Marketing Awards in the first place?
A: The Performance Marketing Awards ceremony is one of the dominant events in our industry. It also has a history that gives it a certain cachet.
All of our competitors, customers and key partners attend, so it gives us great visibility on the night. Like it or not, relationships still make a difference in business, so it’s more important than ever before to take these opportunities for face-to-face time. If you’re not there, your competitors will be.
Q: What do these wins mean to you and the team – both personally and professionally?
A: They mean everything and nothing!
It’s amazing recognition for everyone’s hard work. It also makes us realise what a force we are, as I think sometimes – in a distributed, virtual world – it’s easy to forget what we are doing is real and is impacting the economy. It gives everyone at Genie something to feel proud about at industry events and, of course, it’s a great story to tell to our customers and prospective team members.
At the same time, it doesn’t change anything, whether we win or lose. We’ve still achieved what we’ve achieved, and we still have to keep delivering.
Still, it’s very nice indeed to pause and celebrate!
Above: Some of the Genie Ventures team at the 2025 UK Performance Marketing Awards celebration.
Q: Were there any specific campaigns or moments from the past year that you feel really defined Genie’s success?
A: I’ll limit myself to a couple!
We really focused on effective team building as a “distributed team”. We re-launched new formats for our trainee scheme and our Genie Academy, both of which had been paused during lockdown. These allow us to bring in local talent and deliver peer-to-peer training (OKRs, PPC, storytelling, Insights, etc.), and give us a very distinct edge in the new world of work. Our employee engagement and eNPS scores both hit record levels, even compared to pre-COVID.
On the campaign side, we focussed on delivering what others can’t because of our unique makeup of owned brands. Case studies we submitted included a collaboration between Broadband Genie & Genie Shopping to drive incredible results for Three (the mobile network), and Genie Shopping & Genie Goals dovetailing to drive growth for Mamas & Papas (the high-street retailer). We are uniquely positioned in ecommerce, and we’re getting much better at leveraging that.
Q: The UK Performance Marketing Awards are highly competitive – what do you think makes Genie Ventures’ approach stand out?
A: We naturally stand out because we’re unique. Our business comprises price comparison websites, an ad platform and an ecommerce marketing agency, which combined means we can create customer and employee experiences that are unique to us. The challenge is just to simplify and tell our story. I also think that, for these top awards, longevity plays a role. We are able to show consistent innovation and success over a long period of time; we haven’t just arrived with an optimistic marketing budget – we’re the real deal and we can show the evidence.
Q: How does being based in Cambridge influence your work or culture?
A: Cambridge has shaped us in so many ways! We’ve been able to draw on the city’s significant reputation for technology excellence and innovation to reinforce our brand as an ecommerce technology business. On the flip side, Cambridge is not an amazing place to recruit for ecommerce experience – however, this has forced us to develop trainee schemes and distributed working practices that are now incredibly important to us.
Also we quite like the pubs 🙂
Q: You’ve achieved national recognition while staying rooted in East Anglia – how important is that regional identity to you?
A: I think it’s fabulous to be a “non London” business which genuinely operates at the cutting edge of ecommerce. We’re extremely proud to be a Cambridge business and we’re able to offer job opportunities across the region, so we feel like we’re contributing. We’re corporate supporters of Abbey People – a Cambridge community charity – and we sponsor the Cambridge United Women’s team, so we really do try and deliver impact locally.
Q: What advice would you give to other agencies or in-house teams in the region thinking of entering awards like these – or the East Anglian Marketing Awards?
A: In my experience, Awards can be great ways to build evidence that supports your story. What that means is that you need to be selective what awards you enter; really focus on those which support what you’re trying to tell the world. For example when we were building our distributed team strategy we entered (and won!) awards for flexible working and employment practices. This allowed us to back up our words with external validation.
I also think you need a healthy attitude to Awards; it can’t be all about winning because – realistically – you’re going to lose a lot more than you can win. I’ve been an awards judge many times myself, and you quickly realise that all awards entries are great, otherwise people wouldn’t submit them! You need to see a value in putting together the story, and maybe in the night itself.
Q: Finally, what’s next for Genie Ventures?
A: More of the same for Genie! Like everyone we are experimenting with AI to drive efficiency and to open up new worlds, while trying to not get too distracted. We are also battling in a tough retail market, while realising that we have the tools that will help UK retailers drive growth. And all the time we’re making sure that we’re providing a meaningful work experience for ourselves and our wider team.
Ciaron’s Advice for entering awards
“It can’t be all about winning because – realistically – you’re going to lose a lot more than you can win. You need to see a value in putting together the story, and maybe in the night itself.”
Why We’re Sharing This
At the East Anglian Marketing Awards, we love celebrating regional agencies making their mark nationally. Genie Ventures’ success is a brilliant example of the innovation and impact coming out of East Anglia’s marketing scene.
Nominations for the 2026 EAMAs open in March – and we can’t wait to see more stories like this.