While at the Shoptalk conference I had a chance to speak with Amit Bivas of Optimove to learn how they help retailers in their marketing.
What is Optimove and how do you help retailers?
Optimove is a customer marketing cloud which helps businesses grow thru their existing customer base, also called retention marketing.
In B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing there are two types of activities: acquisition and retention marketing. Optimove focuses on the retention side by taking personalization to a new level, going from 5 or 6 segments to hundreds of segments and automating activities across motiple tools into a single interface.
The concept of Infinite Customer Journeys is also being redefined where its not sufficient to work from a static or stale customer journey any more. As shoppers change their habits, likes and dislikes on a daily basis the "target group" itself needs to be dynamic. The new consumer is different and the old style of capturing fname, lname data is not enough any more because it's not possible to effectively personalize with this limited data.
Optimove works on a SaaS model, monthly fees based on different factors.
Which group or department at the customer uses Optimove?
The marketing team uses our solution as well as independent CRM teams, basically whomever is responsible to communicate with existing users is the person using Optimove.
Marketing team members open the UI daily to look at all the performance info and the predictions and based on that select the actions you’ll be taking.
The Retention Calendar is the key part of the UI where specific campaigns are scheduled for targeted groups all based on dynamically updated groups, segmentation and individual customer behavior.
A unique aspect of how Optimove works is they are able to track anonymous customers and then continue the tracking after the customer converts.
What do you think about Omni-channel and any cases you can share?
Omni-channel has a lot more data than ecommerce and is still in evolution mode. And targeting is also different because with hardware in the store, such as beacons, you can do push notifications to customers that are nearby. On the other hand online targeting is less complex since the tools are more developed and there is more actionable information we can capture online.
Connecting the online and offline to a single customer help improve performance on both sides, even if it's not used to the same extent everywhere in the organization.
Live omni-channel customer: La Perla is a fashion brand headquartered in Italy but sells to custoemrs in several countries and also has physical stores. Optimove is currently only providing services to their online presence but they pull data from the stores as well. Basically this is a start for a complete omni-channel system where data is captured and used in all channels and not normal for companies that are in the progression of becoming fully omni-enabled.global.
Implementation points:
The typical implementation cycle for on-boarding new clients is typically 2-4 weeks, and Optimove also offers a complimentary customer success manager to help the customer, as well as strategic services, like professional services.
I was wondering if they use only the customer's data or also pull in data from outside 3rd parties to help in their campaign recommendation and Amit mentioned they are focusing mainly on first-party data which is internal data. Optimove believes there is usually sufficient data internally with the customers to make their process effective, at least to begin with.
They connect to the customer database and using algorithms provide targeted recommendations and other means to help the shopper make the "second purchase." Optimive also uses website trackers and SDKs for mobile apps.
Optimove connects to customer's databases, and pulls on daily basis the granular, raw data on all the customers, and build their predictive models on that data.
On the other side they connect to the existing marketing systems like email, sms, mobile notifications, Facebook customer audiences, google display networks and orchestrate them. feed them with information to communicate correctly with each customer.
Can you tell me the future of retail in one quick sentense? My favorite phrase is "personalize or vaporize". Targeting swatches does not work any more and if companies do not invest in personalizing their offering to the new shopper they will have a difficult time competing and staying profitable.
And it appears that retailers also believe in the value Optimove is offering as they have signed up 180 brands including 1-800-FLOWERS, eBags, Adore Me and Aquasana and growing.
The last question I asked Amit was "If you were a retailer what would be the most important thing in your life?" and he has a great answer for me which is what all startups should consider: "depends on the stage of company, when launching invest more in customer acquisition, then at some point balance to customer marketing from existing customers and retention."
To hear more about Optimove and how they help retailers grow their business by more successfully engaging and pleasing their existing customers, make sure to check out our podcast.
And below is a press release from Optimove with additional information. If you want to learn more or get in touch you can go to optimove.com or contact Amit directly at amit_b {at} optimove.com.
For release at Shoptalk 2016, Las Vegas. Optimove Raises its American Presence: Opens New York Office as it Signs Four High-Profile US Retailers
1-800-FLOWERS, eBags, Adore Me and Aquasana select Optimove's Customer Marketing Cloud to automate personalized customer interactions that increase engagement and loyalty New York, NY – May 17, 2016 – Optimove, the leading Customer Marketing Cloud, announced today that it is building on its momentum in the North American retail sector by opening a new office in New York City while adding four major US e-retailers to the growing stable of e-commerce businesses using the Optimove software to manage and automate their customer retention operations. 1-800-FLOWERS, eBags, Adore Me and Aquasana join over 180 brands, including LuckyVitamin, NuMe, Nelly, La Perla, and GetWinesDirect, as Optimove customers.
An Israeli based company, Optimove has recently made strong inroads into the US market. The company's founder and CEO, Pini Yakuel, has relocated to New York to spearhead Optimove's operations in North America and oversee the new office, located at 19 West 21st Street. The company is currently hiring aggressively for sales, marketing and business development roles in its New York office, which it expects to staff 15 employees by the end of this year and double that by 2017. "The American market offers us vast opportunities, but it’s very competitive and you really need to have boots on the ground," said Mr. Yakuel. "In order to become a market leader you need a major presence in the US, and this is exactly what we're doing now."
Optimove enables marketers to manage and automate multi-channel customer marketing plans based on proprietary, predictive micro-segmentation technology. The Optimove platform helps marketers maximize customer engagement, loyalty and lifetime value by automatically personalizing, executing and evaluating a complete framework of customer data-driven campaigns. Optimove delivers highly-personalized, multi-channel campaigns via the Web, email, SMS, push notifications, Facebook Custom Audiences and other channels. By allowing marketers to imagine, design and execute both pre-scheduled and real-time (customer activity-triggered) campaigns, Optimove makes it easy to deliver the ideal messages to every customer, increasing customer spend and engagement while reducing churn.
eBags is a leading online provider of bags, luggage and accessories from more than 500 brands. “We are always looking for new and better ways to give our customers the individual attention that will keep them loving our brand,” said Chris Seahorn, VP of Marketing at eBags. “Optimove gives us a powerful back-end customer data warehouse with customer modeling based on predictive analytics and large-scale messaging automation. Optimove is a leader in delivering an effective and comprehensive product.”
Aquasana is leading the charge to make high performance water filtration available in every home. “Once we made the strategic decision to invest in contextualized customer marketing, we began looking for a highly-scalable, cutting-edge solution to automate and optimize the process of personalization,” said Derek Mellencamp, CMO at Aquasana. “Optimove’s combination of powerful technologies put it on our short list, and their satisfied existing client base clinched it for us.”
Adore Me is a disruptive lingerie eCommerce startup designing beautiful, fast, fashionable new intimates. “Our marketers, as well as our analysts, appreciate the easy-to-access power that the Optimove software puts in their hands,” said Chloé Chanudet, VP Marketing at Adore Me. “Showing our customers that we understand them, and can anticipate their wants and needs, is the best way to engender brand loyalty and long-term customer relationships.”
Optimove has been proven to help its users achieve increases of 17% in customer spend and 25% in customer lifetime value, while reducing churn rates by 11% and increasing customer re-activation rates by 20%. More than 180 brands in retail, social gaming, real-money gaming, fintech and other verticals use Optimove’s Customer Marketing Cloud to manage and automate their customer marketing operations. In 2015, Optimove users delivered 2.6 billion personalized customer interactions using the software.
About Optimove
Optimove’s Customer Marketing Cloud is used by over 180 customer-centric brands to drive their entire customer marketing operation. Optimove combines the art of marketing with the science of data to enable marketers to deliver highly-effective personalized customer marketing campaigns through email, mobile, the Web, Facebook and other channels. Optimove’s unique customer modeling, predictive micro-segmentation and campaign automation technologies help marketers maximize customer spend, engagement, retention and lifetime value. From 2014 to 2015, Optimove’s staff grew by 60% and revenues more than doubled. The company has offices in Tel Aviv, New York and London. Learn more at www.optimove.com.
About 1-800-FLOWERS
1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. is a leading provider of gourmet food and floral gifts for all occasions. For nearly 40 years, 1-800-FLOWERS has been delivering fresh flowers and the finest selection of plants, gift baskets, gourmet foods, confections, candles, balloons and plush stuffed animals. 1-800-FLOWERS.COM was recently named as one of the world’s leading mobile commerce sites in Internet Retailer’s 2016 Top Mobile 500. Shares in 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. are traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, ticker symbol: FLWS.
About eBags
eBags.com is an online retailer of handbags, luggage, backpacks, laptop bags, and accessories based in Greenwood Village, Colorado. The main website, eBags.com, carries bags and accessories from more than 500 brands including Samsonite, JanSport, Kate Spade, Fossil, and Nike. eBags also operates both Handbags.com and the eBags Corporate Sales site and offers its own private label products under the name The eBags Brand.
About Adore Me
Adore Me is a disruptive lingerie eCommerce startup designing beautiful, fast, fashionable new intimates. With $11.5M raised, 90 employees across the US and Europe, over 6M millennial women in their network and a massive online footprint with over 1M Facebook followers—the industry is taking notice. In 2015, Adore Me ranked #14 on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing companies in America, topping the charts as the #2 fastest-growing company in retail and #2 fastest-growing company in NYC.
About Aquasana
Based in Austin, Texas, Aquasana is leading the charge to make high performance water filtration available in every home. Your body is made up of 70% water. Aquasana wants that 70% to be the best water possible. From whole-home filtration to drinking water systems and shower filters, Aquasana has your back and every other part of you covered. Aquasana’s leading products remove over 60 harmful contaminants from water including chlorine, chloramines, herbicides, pesticides, industrial solvents, lead, and mercury. Aquasana water filters are engineered to preserve the healthy minerals in water, which include calcium, magnesium and potassium resulting in healthy, great-tasting water. For more information visit www.aquasana.com.
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