Scaling Ceartas From Creator Protection Tool to Enterprise Anti-Piracy Platform
Ceartas is a Dublin-based SaaS startup using AI to automate DMCA takedowns and deepfake detection for content creators and enterprises. The challenge is acquiring two very different buyer segments, individual creators on OnlyFans and Fanfix alongside enterprise media companies, through the same growth engine. We run multi-channel paid acquisition, high-velocity creative production, influencer activation, and lifecycle CRM including KYC onboarding flows and live KPI dashboards.
An NDRC Alumnus Turning Content Theft Into an Automated SaaS Problem
Ceartas was founded in 2020 by Dan Purcell, an engineer with eight years at Apple and Google in California, after his own content was leaked online. He partnered with CTO Jonny Smyth, who brought engineering leadership from Wix and cybersecurity firms, to build an AI platform that scans the web in real time, issues DMCA takedown notices with a 99% success rate, and de-indexes pirated content from Google with 98% efficacy. The platform detects deepfakes using machine learning models trained on GAN and diffusion-generated media, a capability that competitors like Red Points, OpSec Security, and WebShrinker lack entirely.
Operating from Dogpatch Labs in Dublin with a Berlin presence, Ceartas raised $4.5 million in seed funding co-led by Earlybird Venture Capital and Upside VC, the fund of YouTube group The Sidemen, with angels including former Sony Music President Thomas Hesse. Serving over 600 global customers across OnlyFans, Fanfix, major US agencies, and YouTubers, the company had already reached profitability before its seed round. Ceartas engaged us to run full-funnel paid acquisition, performance creative production, influencer activation, and lifecycle CRM to accelerate its US expansion and enterprise pivot.
Two Buyer Segments Requiring Parallel Campaign Architectures on Meta and LinkedIn
We structure Ceartas's paid social into two parallel architectures. Meta campaigns target individual creators using interest clusters around OnlyFans monetisation, YouTube growth, and content protection. LinkedIn campaigns target enterprise IP counsel and brand protection leads at companies processing high-volume digital assets. Each platform runs separate budget pools with independent cost-per-demo-request targets.
Creator campaigns optimise toward self-serve signups via Meta's Conversions API. Enterprise campaigns optimise toward sales-qualified demos via LinkedIn's offline conversion imports. Budget shifts weekly between segments based on pipeline value, not lead volume alone.
A Hook Taxonomy Built Around Leaked Content Statistics and Takedown Speed
Our creative lab produces 15 to 20 new variants per week for Ceartas across motion, static, and UGC formats. The hook taxonomy maps to four themes: piracy revenue loss citing the $100 billion annual creator cost, takedown speed benchmarked against Ceartas's 99% success rate, deepfake detection as a capability competitors like Red Points and OpSec lack, and compliance urgency around the EU Digital Services Act.
Creator-facing UGC features real OnlyFans and YouTube creators demonstrating the platform dashboard. Enterprise motion assets lead with counterfeit merchandise scans. Each variant runs in 72-hour A/B tests before scaling or recycling winning hooks into new format combinations.
KYC Onboarding Flows That Activate Protected Accounts Within 48 Hours
We rebuilt Ceartas's lifecycle CRM from a data audit through to full journey mapping, focusing on the KYC and onboarding sequence that converts signups into active protected accounts. The flow runs on automated email and in-app triggers. New signups receive a verification sequence collecting identity data and content URLs. Once verified, an onboarding drip walks users through AI scan setup, dashboard configuration, and first takedown review.
We track activation rate as the primary lifecycle KPI, defined as a user with at least one completed takedown within 48 hours of signup. Winback sequences target users who stall at verification using social proof from Ceartas's 600-plus customer base.
Splitting Creator and Enterprise Funnels Across Awareness Stages on LinkedIn and Meta
The core technical challenge is that Ceartas sells to two radically different buyers through the same product. Individual creators on OnlyFans and YouTube are problem-aware. They know piracy costs them roughly 20% of revenue, and they are searching for solutions. Enterprise buyers at media companies and gaming studios losing an estimated $30 billion annually to counterfeiting are often problem-unaware, relying on manual legal processes they believe are sufficient. These two audiences require completely separate funnel architectures.
We run creator acquisition on Meta using interest-based targeting around content monetisation, OnlyFans creator communities, and YouTube growth topics. Ads lead with the piracy problem, citing statistics like the 40% of top piracy site traffic driven by OnlyFans leaks, then bridge to Ceartas's 99% takedown rate. Enterprise campaigns run on LinkedIn targeting IP counsel, heads of brand protection, and digital operations leaders at companies with 500 or more employees. These ads lead with the current way, manual DMCA filing and legal retainers, and contrast it against Ceartas's automated representment achieving 98% de-indexing. Offline conversion data from Ceartas's CRM feeds back into both platforms daily to steer bid algorithms toward demo-qualified leads rather than form fills.
Six Thousand Demo Requests as Deepfake Regulation Reshapes the Entire Category
The engagement has delivered a 27% reduction in cost per lead, over 6,000 qualified demo requests, and 18% faster campaign approvals through a compliance pre-review process we built specifically for Ceartas's sensitive content categories. We adapted the awareness-stage messaging framework to a product that most enterprise buyers do not yet know they need, which required creating demand rather than capturing it, an approach that most SaaS growth playbooks skip entirely.
The anti-piracy SaaS market is projected to reach $8 billion by 2028, driven by deepfake incidents that surged 550% in 2023 and regulatory mandates like the EU Digital Services Act requiring proactive content moderation. The proposed US DEEP FAKES Accountability Act will force platforms to adopt automated detection, expanding Ceartas's addressable market beyond voluntary adopters. We are already building campaign frameworks around compliance-driven messaging for enterprise segments evaluating DSA obligations. Meanwhile, creator economy growth to $250 billion and the emergence of Web3 provenance tools like NFT-based content authentication present new acquisition angles we are testing in early-stage ad variants.
