Spexi is a venture backed drone technology company headquartered in Vancouver, BC, focused on transforming how aerial imagery is captured and accessed. Since 2017, Spexi has built the world’s largest standardized ultra high resolution drone imaging network, enabling organizations, governments, insurers, AI developers, and infrastructure teams to access precise aerial data without owning drones or hiring pilots.
Using sub 250g drones operated through Spexi’s automated platform, the network delivers imagery up to 30 times higher resolution than satellites with significantly faster delivery and about 97 percent lower carbon emissions. Coverage spans more than 140 cities across Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and the U.K., with over 1.2 million urban acres mapped and 3.7 million ultra high resolution images captured through a scalable Fly to Earn model that incentivizes drone pilots globally. Spexi recently raised USD 11.5 million in Series A funding led by Blockchange Ventures to support its global expansion.
The campaign aimed to grow the Spexi Network across Canada and the United States by targeting a niche segment of drone pilots through paid media. Key challenges included generating high quality leads by identifying and converting qualified drone pilots who met Spexi’s onboarding criteria, maintaining a profitable customer acquisition cost through ongoing channel optimization, and increasing brand awareness of Spexi’s “Fly to Earn” model within the drone community.
Campaign goals focused on expanding geographical coverage by using Meta and Google Ads to reach drone operators in targeted North American regions, developing audience segments including drone hobbyists, licensed professionals, aerial imaging enthusiasts, and tech forward individuals, and supporting business objectives by increasing aerial imagery collection to meet the needs of enterprise and government partners.
A full funnel strategy was developed to build, launch, and scale Spexi’s drone pilot acquisition program. Working closely with the Spexi team, campaign KPIs, tracking infrastructure, and audience research were established to identify relevant drone pilot profiles and geographic targets. A conversion optimized landing page highlighting Spexi’s “Fly to Earn” value proposition was designed and integrated with ActiveCampaign and HubSpot to automate follow ups and onboarding sequences. Creative assets and messaging were tested across Meta and Google Demand Gen, with ongoing A B testing of copy, creatives, audiences, and bidding strategies to optimize performance and scale top performing campaigns. As a result, paid campaigns launched across 42 cities in Canada and the United States, achieving a 67% increase in conversion rate, reducing customer acquisition costs by over 245%, and generating more than 21,000 app clicks and pilot sign ups to support the expansion of Spexi’s drone imaging network.
Spexi is on a mission to transform how the world captures and consumes aerial imagery, delivering ultra-high-resolution drone data at scale, faster, and more sustainably than ever before. To support this vision, the Rely Digital team partnered with Spexi to strategically grow its drone pilot network across North America.
Through a full-funnel approach, we helped Spexi scale its platform geographically by targeting and onboarding qualified pilots in key regions, laying the groundwork for global expansion. By implementing standardized tracking across pilot sign-ups, app downloads, CAC, completed flights, and imagery submissions, we ensured data-driven optimizations could guide campaign success at every stage.
The efforts also helped position Spexi as a key player in the aerial data ecosystem, building brand recognition and attracting partnerships with businesses, government agencies, and smart city initiatives that benefit from timely, precise, and scalable drone imagery. From platform setup to pilot acquisition and creative testing, every initiative was built with one goal in mind: helping Spexi redefine what’s possible with aerial data.
Marc Bitanga
VP Marketing
The team at Rely Digital is thoughtful, strategic, organized and delivers what they promise. Rely digital is my go-to performance marketing agency. The team at Rely Digital is thoughtful, strategic, organized and delivers what they promise. I wouldn’t hesitate recommending them for anyone looking for a solid performance marketing agency.
