Startup Grey Jean launches AI-powered personalization platform
New York City-based firm says it can achieve “up to 72 percent accuracy” in predicting a customer’s next likely purchase.
Marketers looking to personalize offers for customers have another option, with this week’s launch of Grey Jean Technologies’ new platform.
The New York City-based company touts the artificial intelligence that powers its offering and claims that it has an “up to 72 percent accuracy in a category” for successfully predicting a customer’s next likely purchase.
Founded in 2014, the company is also announcing $2 million in seed funding from angel investors and its own management. Two customer companies have signed up so far: hand-crafted premium spirit company Hiro Sake and swimming pool dealer Namco Pool.
The personalization platform collects retailer-related data from a variety of offline and online sources, including point-of-sale purchases, loyalty programs, customer relationship management systems, social media, website user behavior and the demographics and income level in a physical retailer’s neighborhood.
It is designed primarily to provide deal offers, such as discount coupons or other promotions on a specific product, delivered through a website, geotargeted mobile push notifications in or near a physical store, ads on social networks, email or other channels. Grey Jean also offers a software development kit (SDK) to enable a retailer’s iOS or Android app, or it can provide the retailer with its own white-labeled app.
For example, a user might be targeted on Facebook with an ad promising a discount. When it’s clicked, the user is brought to a landing page on the retailer’s website and asked to provide an email address or install an app to get the discount. The retailer can specify where redemption of the promotion might take place — in a brick-and-mortar store, on a website or at another location.
Here are some screen shots. “Fingerprint” is Grey Jean’s name for a target:
The choice of offer and the time and method of delivery are powered by Genie, the appropriate name for Grey Jean’s recommendation engine. If the customer is identified definitively, such as by credit card info or registration, the targeting can be directed at an individual. Otherwise, it’s oriented toward a behavioral segment.
CEO Craig Alberino told me that, while offline and online profile data might be linked by, say, a common email address, the platform is not specifically set up to match offline and online selves, as, for example, Acxiom is. The data from the brick-and-mortar stores, he said, is primarily employed to assist geotargeting and for helping to assemble general behavioral profiles.
Many platforms these days promote their machine learning and/or artificial intelligence-driven personalization or predictive marketing capabilities, and their skill in delivering the next best offer. Boomtrain, for instance, uses machine learning for its predictive personalization platform over multiple channels. Alberino pointed to RichRelevance, which, he said, is another intelligent personalization platform that “is trying to move into this [geotargeting] space.”
Grey Jean contends that its proprietary algorithms generate more conversions, redemptions, visit frequency, foot traffic, time in store, basket size and brand affinity than other solutions. Alberino also noted that his company is not shy about claiming a specific accuracy rate.
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