Global adoption of RichRelevance personalization platform attracts Crosslink Capital, Greylock Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Tugboat Ventures
San Francisco, CA – May 7, 2012 –– RichRelevance®, the leading provider of dynamic personalization for the world’s largest retailers and brands, today announced that it has received $20 million in venture capital financing from Crosslink Capital, Greylock Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Tugboat Ventures. New investor, Crosslink Capital, led the round and Partner, David Silverman, will join RichRelevance’s Board of Directors. The round will be used to accelerate growth with expansion into new markets, introduction of new product innovations and research and development.
The funding comes as RichRelevance continues to aggressively redefine personalization for retail across its global base of leading retail and brand customers. In aggregate, RichRelevance’s clients represent more than 30% of online retail and today the company serves six of the top 10 US retailers in ecommerce, as well as seven of the top 50 leading UK/EU online retailers. In the last year, RichRelevance took over operation and development of CNET’s Intelligence Cross-Sell and acquired Searchandise Commerce to enable new strategies for reaching consumers with relevant brand advertising.
“Consumers’ embrace of online, mobile and social technologies is driving a sea change in commerce,” said David Selinger, founder and CEO of RichRelevance. “Innovation is the only path forward for retailers and brands, and we are seeing tremendous momentum as companies turn to data-driven personalization to engage shoppers, attract new customers and remain competitive in a retail landscape where consumer behavior is changing daily.”
“RichRelevance has cemented a leadership position in personalization shopping by transforming businesses for its global retail clients with increased business value, revenue and profits,” said David Silverman, Partner at Crosslink Capital. “RIchRelevance’s executive team consists of tech visionaries with proven track records of success. The team has both the passion and experience needed to continue to propel the company to disrupt the advertising and retail industries.”
Developed by the architects of Amazon.com’s recommendation technology, RichRelevance allows retailers to deliver dynamic, engaging experiences that put the customers at the center of retail strategy. The company consistently innovates new personalization solutions that allow retailers to monetize every pixel of their sites through product recommendations, targeted promotions and advertising. Most recently, RichRelevance introduced a new product to its personalization suite, RichPromo, in April 2012 to enable dynamic content targeting for commerce.
In addition, RichRelevance offers a groundbreaking Shopping Media suite for brand advertisers. Launched in December 2010, RichRelevance’s advertising offerings are used by world-class brands like Colgate, 3M, P&G, AT&T, Verizon, Toyota and Cisco to engage shoppers on the world’s largest retail sites with custom content while they are researching and purchasing products.
RichRelevance’s Shopping Media campaigns yield significantly higher engagement rates — double that of traditional rich media ads — and deliver a 60-100% sales lift for the advertised brand’s products. Based on these results, RichRelevance was honored with an ad:tech Start-Up Showcase Innovation Award in April 2011, and Advertising Age magazine recently credited RichRelevance as an ‘online shopper-marketing juggernaut’.
“Data is the currency in today’s omni-channel retail environment,” said David Strohm, partner at Greylock Partners. “Companies like Apple, Google and Facebook have set the stage for what it means to use data to attract and maintain loyal customers. RichRelevance is among this select group of platform companies who can harness data on consumer behavior and insights, specifically shopping and intent data, to change the way that retailers and brand advertisers operate.”
“The two things that matter most are the entrepreneur and the team’s ability to execute against a compelling vision,” said Dave Whorton, founder of Tugboat Ventures. “As RichRelevance has grown, David’s single-minded focus on partnering with retailers to deliver better consumer shopping experiences has created significant economic value in the retail industry and now in the advertising industry. Leveraging massive data, scalable infrastructure and one of the best product and engineering teams in the market, RichRelevance continuously improves its value to consumers, retailers and brand advertisers. We’re excited about RichRelevance’s future as it takes its platform to the next level with new experiences, even stronger economics and deeper insights on behalf of consumers, and its retail and advertising partners.”
“As one of the initial investors in RichRelevance, DFJ recognized early on that the company would become the market leader in the retail personalization market, and they have surpassed our expectations by successfully servicing some of the biggest names in online commerce,” said Andreas Stavropoulos, Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. “We are pleased to welcome Crosslink Capital, a top-tier venture investor, as a partner committed to RichRelevance’s continued rapid growth.”
About RichRelevance
Over 350 million times per day, RichRelevance is powering the personalized shopping experiences for consumers shopping the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands like Walmart, Sears, Target, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalization at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping. RichRelevance has delivered more than $5 Billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called Shopping Media which allows manufacturers to engage consumers where it matters most—in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, Seattle, Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.com.
Econsultancy recaps on the latest 2012 Q1 UK Mobile Study revealing differences in m-commerce on both sides of the Atlantic.
It seems that the UK’s shoppers have adapted to mobile shopping more than their US counterparts. In the UK, mobile accounts for 9.1% of all e-commerce sales, compared with 4.6% across the pond.
These stats come from RichRelevance’s 2012 Q1 Shopping Insights Mobile Study, and are based on more than 1.1bn shopping sessions on UK and US retail websites (including mass merchants, as well as small and specialty retailers) up to 25 March 2012.
Here are some highlights from the study, and well as an infographic summarising the key findings…
Mobile commerce continues to grow
- In March, mobile accounted for 9.1% of all UK e-commerce sales, up from 8.2% since Christmas.
- In March, the average purchase on mobile was £109.68 compared to £100.05 on desktop.
- As indicated by other stats we have seen, iPads are a big deal. The iPad accounted for 82% of all mobile spend.
- Unlike previous stats average order values (AOV) in March were highest on iPhones.
- March iPhone purchases averaged £135.63 compared to £119 on other mobile devices, £111.41 on the iPad and £107.70 on desktop.
Conversion rates
- Not surprisingly, conversion rates were highest on desktop, at 3.6% in March.
- The iPad was next, with 2.9%, followed by iPhone (1.2%) and other devices (1%).
iPad users shop for longer
- Shoppers on the iPad viewed the most pages, logging an average of 9.89 pageviews per session in March compared to 8.86 pages on desktop, 5.16 pages on other mobile devices and 4.34 pages on iPhones.
- The iPad’s share of shopping sessions (viewing, not necessarily buying) increases on the weekends, reaching 10% compared to 8.2% during the week.
- The peak days for shopping on iPad are Wednesday and Sunday, during which 11% of shopping sessions happened on the device.
- The iPad’s share of sessions is greater during evenings, with peaks at 4pm, 8pm and 10pm.
- This suggests greater use of the device during leisure time, possibly as a second screen.
UK and US habits compared
- Brits were nearly twice as likely to spend on mobile as Americans, where mobile accounted for only 4.6% of revenue.
- For US shoppers, the average order value in March was $158 for iPad compared with $105 for other mobile devices and $104 for iPhone (and other iOS devices).
- The share of shopping sessions on iPads also rose in the US on weekends, though it only reached 7% on weekends compared to 5% during the week.
Brits make their largest and most expensive purchases on iPhones compared to their American counterparts who prefer the iPad
Reading, UK — 18 April 2012 — RichRelevance®, leading provider of dynamic personalisation for the world’s largest retailers and brands, today unveiled new research from its Shopping Insights™ organisation on mobile shopping in the UK. The report, The 2012 Q1 Shopping Insights™ Mobile Study identified trends in mobile shopping behaviour across mobile devices and desktop and compared the behaviour of British shoppers with their American counterparts. As mobile shopping continues to rise, this data provides retailers with valuable insight that can be used to personalise the customer experience whenever and wherever they shop.
“Today’s consumers visit retail websites from multiple platforms throughout the day. Whether they are shopping from their desk at work, browsing on their mobile phone while in the queue at lunch or making a purchase at home in the evening from their iPad, they expect a consistent experience that is optimised for any device they choose,” said Darren Hitchcock, vice president of UK and European territories, RichRelevance. “This data demonstrates that retailers have an opportunity not only to provide that seamless experience to customers, but think about how customers are shopping at different times of the day and week and to personalise their merchandising strategy around that behaviour.”
The 2012 Q1 Shopping Insights Mobile Study is based on more than 1.1 billion shopping sessions on UK and US retail websites between 1 January and 25 March 2012. These retailers include mass merchants, as well as small and specialty retailers. Key findings include:
Mobile spend on the rise
- In March, shopping on mobile represented a 9.1% revenue share of all e-commerce sales, up nearly a percentage point (from 8.2%) since the Christmas shopping period.
- Mobile shopping continues to outpace desktop purchasing. In March, the average purchase on mobile was £109.68 compared to £100.05 on desktop computers.
- The majority of mobile revenue comes from iPads which account for 82% of all mobile spend.
- However, March average order values (AOV) were highest on iPhones, jumping up significantly from the prior month. March iPhone purchases averaged £135.63 compared to £119 on other mobile devices, £111.41 on the iPad and £107.70 on desktop.
- The most expensive purchases were made on the iPhone, at an average of £84.77 per item compared to £74.38 on other mobile devices, £69.63 on iPad and £38.46 on desktop.
Desktop users more likely to convert, buy more items
- Although they had the lowest AOV, consumers who shopped on desktop computers were most likely to convert. Conversion rates on desktop were 3.6% in March compared to 2.9% on iPad, 1.2% on iPhone and 1% on other mobile devices.
- The average purchase on desktop contained 2.8 items on average, more than any other platform. iPad purchases were a close second, with 2.5 items per order. All other mobile devices, including iPad, contained an average of 1.6 items per order.
iPad users log longer shopping sessions, shop on evenings and weekends
- Shoppers on the iPad viewed the most pages, logging an average of 9.89 page views per session in March compared to 8.86 pages on desktop, 5.16 pages on other mobile devices and 4.34 pages on iPhones.
- iPad share of shopping sessions (viewing, not necessarily buying) increases on the weekends, reaching 10% on weekends vs. 8.2% during the week. However, the peak days for shopping on iPad are Wednesday and Sunday, during which 11% of shopping sessions happened on the device.
- iPad share of sessions climbs in the evening hours, from around 5pm until 9pm with peaks at 4pm, 8pm and 10pm.
Comparing UK and US habits
- Brits were nearly twice as likely to spend on mobile as Americans, where mobile accounted for only 4.6% of revenue.
- American shoppers made their largest purchases on their iPads: the average order value was $158 for iPad vs. $105 for other mobile devices vs. $104 for iPhone and other iOS devices in March 2012.
- Whilst the percentage of shopping sessions on iPads also rose in the US on weekends, iPad share of shopping sessions reached only 7% on weekends compared to 5% during the week.
About RichRelevance
Over 350 million times per day, RichRelevance is powering the personalised shopping experiences for consumers shopping the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands like Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Walmart, Sears and Target. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalisation at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping. RichRelevance has delivered more than $5 Billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called Shopping Media which allows manufacturers to engage consumers where it matters most—in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in London, New York, Seattle and Boston. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.co.uk.
As mobile shopping continues to grow, study finds that iPad users dominate sales by mobile devices, buy more expensive items than typical online shopper
San Francisco, CA – April 11, 2012 –– RichRelevance, the leading provider of dynamic personalization for the world’s largest retailers and brands, today unveiled new research on mobile shopping, including detailed comparisons between iPad shoppers and other mobile users. The report, The 2012 Q1 Shopping Insights™ Mobile Study, finds a steady rise in mobile share of revenue from 1.9 % in April 2011 to 4.6% in March 2012, with the iPad driving nearly all shopping, browsing and purchasing in this emerging channel. The study also digs into mobile shopping by device to provide a new view of the iPad shopper including: when they shop, how much they spend, and what they buy.
“Twenty years later, Apple’s ground-breaking ‘Think Different’ ad campaign can be recast as ‘Shop Different’ for the iPad,” said RichRelevance CEO David Selinger. “To succeed in this quickly evolving landscape, retailers need to understand how shopping behavior changes as consumers hop between devices and be prepared to tailor the shopping experience in every channel, ensuring continuity and seamlessness regardless of choice of access.”
iPad Dominates Mobile Shopping
According to the 2012 Q1 Mobile Study iPad users spent significantly more time and money on retail sites than other mobile users. Data from March 2012 shows that:
- iPad users constitute the bulk of all mobile shoppers—accounting for about two-thirds (68%) of shoppers.
- The iPad accounts for 90% of all mobile revenue (and 4% of total retail revenue).
- Conversion rates were also strongest with the iPad (1.5% for iPad vs. 0.57% for other mobile devices).
- Average pages per session were highest for the iPad compared with all other mobile devices, at nearly 6 pages per session (5.7 for iPads vs. 3.6 for iPhone vs. 4.1 for other mobile devices).
iPad Users Spend More, Buy More Expensive Items (even more than desktop users)
iPad users spend dramatically more – on fewer items – than other mobile shoppers. When compared to online shoppers, iPad users spend approximately the same amount on an average order, but buy much more expensive products.
- The iPad had the highest average order value (AOV) of any mobile device: $158 for iPad vs. $105 for other mobile devices vs. $104 for iPhone and other iOS devices in March 2012.
- Interestingly, AOV for iPad shopping is creeping ahead of the AOV from desktop computers. ($158 for iPad vs. $153 from desktops).
- While they spend more per average order, iPad shoppers had on average fewer number of items per order of any mobile device (2.98 for iPad vs. 4.22 for other iOS devices vs. 4.41 for all other mobile devices in March 2012)
- Overall, iPad shoppers averaged $52.66 per item vs. $21.86 per item for desktop users and $23.80 for other mobile users.
iPad Rules The Weekend
- iPad share of shopping sessions (viewing, not necessarily buying) increases on the weekends, reaching 7% on weekends vs. 5% during the week.
- iPad share of sessions climbs in the evening hours, from around 5 pm until 9 pm, reaching 9.45% at 9 p.m., rising from a low point (.4%) at 3 a.m.
- In comparison, traffic from all other mobile devices is stable on weekdays and weekends, accounting for about 1.3% of all sessions
- On average, about 6% of all orders originate on mobile devices (iPad included) on weekends vs. 4% on weekdays.
The 2012 Q1 Mobile Study is based on more than 4.4 billion shopping sessions on US retail websites between April 1, 2011 and March 25, 2012.These retailers include mass merchants, as well as small and specialty retailers, including 10 of the 25 largest retailers on the web.
View the Mobile Shopping Infographic
AboutRichRelevance
Over 350 million times per day, RichRelevance is powering the personalized shopping experiences for consumers shopping the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands like Walmart, Sears, Target, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalization at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping. RichRelevance has delivered more than $5 Billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called Shopping Media which allows manufacturers to engage consumers where it matters most—in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, Seattle, Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.com.
Innovative offering helps retailers provide a more engaging shopping experience by delivering the most relevant campaigns (promotions, local deals, loyalty bonus offers) to target customer segments
San Francisco, CA – April 4, 2012 –– RichRelevance®, the leading provider of dynamic personalization for the world’s largest retailers and brands, today launched RichPromo to provide state-of-the-art dynamic content targeting for retailers. The newest addition to the company’s integrated personalization suite, RichPromo, combines real-time consumer behavior analysis with a retailer’s existing customer segments to deliver the most relevant, appealing campaign content to online shoppers. Now, retailers can optimize their valuable web real- estate for overall engagement, revenue and conversions, while delivering a highly personalized and engaging shopping experience that respects consumers’ real-time behavior and past history with the brand.
“We have architected our personalization platform to enable retailers to efficiently maximize every pixel in concert with delivering a high touch customer experience in the online environment,” said David Selinger, CEO of RichRelevance. “With a single integration, retailers can now harness the power of our proven personalization suite and this campaign management targeting tool to dynamically reach consumers in a way that respects their brand and their shoppers’ experience.”
“There is a tremendous tension right now between consumers’ expectations of a consistent, personalized multichannel experience and the technical reality of large retailers who are managing literally hundreds of marketing and co-marketing campaigns, thousands of segments, and millions of site visitors,” said Darren Vengroff, Chief Scientist at RichRelevance. “RichPromo cuts through the complexity to allow retailers to effectively match every shopper to the right segment and serve the most relevant campaign content – with total control, in milliseconds, and to tremendous effect.”
Office Depot ranks #5 on Internet Retailer’s list of the largest online merchants, with annual online sales exceeding $4 billion a year. Said Rachel Davis, Senior Manager of Digital Marketing Promotions: “We’re excited about implementing the RichPromo functionality on our website, and we look forward to seeing positive results in terms of revenue and conversion.”
RichPromo: Features & Benefits
Powered by the enRich Personalization Engine, which serves 350 million tailored experiences each day for the world’s largest retailers, RichPromo combines the industry’s most advanced personalization technology with a user-friendly campaign management platform to dynamically deliver promotional content based on existing segments, previous shopping patterns, and real-time customer interest – at a scale of millions of site visitors. Targeted campaigns can now be created, optimized and modified without site releases or IT involvement, giving marketers and merchandisers unprecedented control over on-site promotions, as well as significant strategic insight into how to improve multichannel marketing efforts. Key capabilities include:
• Dynamic Content Targeting: RichPromo offers retailers the ability to run marketing and category specific campaigns that ensure the most relevant promotions are being shown to each shopper. By targeting promotions to shoppers according to their behavior and context within the site, RichPromo dramatically improves engagement and conversion. A highly flexible solution, RichPromo can be customized to target user segments predefined by the retailer, or by leveraging segments within the RichRelevance dashboard.
• Creative Optimization: Not only can a user target campaigns to the right customer in real-time, but the campaign can also be set to dynamically optimize for the best performing creative.
• Sophisticated Workflow and Interface: RichPromo allows retailers to automate online promotion workflow, enabling marketers to target the right audience, merchandisers to coordinate products, creative teams to upload assets and business leads to oversee the whole process all through one interface.
• Campaigns Defined by Marketing Channel: RichPromo allows retailers the ability to quickly and easily develop a campaign-specific landing page that is tailored to match the creative imagery and messaging of the campaign, complete with products that are eligible for the promotion.
• Insights and Analytics: RichPromo offers detailed reports for the entire site or individual campaigns, including placement views, click-through-rate, revenue, average order value and more. Data can be easily exported for easy reporting.
RichPromo features real-time behavioral analysis and self-tuning optimization based on the best performing algorithms, a technology known as ensemble learning. RichPromo provides control over marketing campaigns in a way that is scalable for any volume of traffic and able to support peak loads (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.).
Additional Resources
• More information on RichPromo is available here
• Connect with RichRelevance on Facebook and Twitter for updates and news
AboutRichRelevance
Over 350 million times per day, RichRelevance is powering the personalized shopping experiences for consumers shopping the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands like Walmart, Sears, Target, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalization at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping. RichRelevance has delivered more than $5 Billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called Shopping Media which allows manufacturers to engage consumers where it matters most—in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, Seattle, Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.com.
RichRelevance doubles office space with new headquarters in the heart of San Francisco’s SOMA tech community
San Francisco, CA – Mar. 30, 2012 –– RichRelevance®, the leading provider of dynamic e-commerce personalization for the world’s largest retailers and brands, today announced it will open its new global headquarters in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood in July 2012. The new 28,000-square foot headquarters, located at 633 Folsom Street, combines central proximity along with a state-of-the-art work environment in the center of San Francisco’s vibrant technology community.
“Our company touches one-third of all e-commerce traffic happening today, and we are continuing to expand our footprint across retail and more recently the digital branding channel,” said David Selinger, Founder and CEO of RichRelevance. “As we grow, driven by our clients’ success and our employees’ passion for solving the most interesting challenges in technology today, we are excited to take on a great new space in SOMA that offers the best work environment, as well as room for continued growth.”
The San Francisco headquarters will serve as the primary location for RichRelevance’s two business units: RichRelevance Advertising and RichRelevance Retail and their accompanying technology, development, sales, marketing, product and operations teams. The company selected Gary Koshaba and Jessica Wyant of RMW as the space’s architects to create an open environment that fosters cross-functional collaboration and teamwork.
The new headquarters significantly expands RichRelevance’s existing office space as the company continues to rapidly grow its US and European operations. In the last year the company signed a strategic partnership with CNET to take over its Intelligent Cross SellTM recommendations offering and most recently acquired Searchandise as part of its strategic expansion of Shopping Media. A two-time winner of San Francisco Business Times’ “Best Places to Work” award, the company also maintains offices in Seattle, New York City, Boston and London to best serve its client base which includes world-class retailers like Walmart, Sears, Target, and Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, and innovative brands like Toyota, Colgate, P&G, SC Johnson, and Verizon.
AboutRichRelevance
Over 350 million times per day, RichRelevance is powering the personalized shopping experiences for consumers shopping the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands like Walmart, Sears, Target, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalization at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping. RichRelevance has delivered more than $5 Billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called Shopping Media which allows manufacturers to engage consumers where it matters most—in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, Seattle, Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.com.