For online marketers, getting advertisements in front of internet users likely to become long-term customers is crucial to the success of a campaign. To that end, Santa Monica-based startup Retina AI Inc. is developing technology that gives companies the ability to predict whether a specific web user might be likely to respond to an ad — and report whether they already have in the past.
“For hundreds of years, we’ve been managing businesses toward total profitability, or total revenue,” said Retina AI Chief Executive Emad Hasan. “That’s because you couldn’t tell if the same customer walked in the door in the same week.”
Hasan said new technologies — from advanced machine learning tools to the loyalty cards handed out at grocery stores — are making it possible for companies to gain insights about profitability at the level of the individual customer.
This information can then be used to reward frequent shoppers, predict the demands of new customers and provide customer service in a more cost-effective way, said Hasan. Retina AI’s customer intelligence platform gathers this data and uses it to create profiles that anticipate the behavior of specific internet users.
“We take data that customers share with the company,” said Hasan, “and we use that data to calculate the dollar amount value of that customer.”
With this calculation, companies can prioritize specific shoppers for special offers or automate digital advertising campaigns to target only web users with a specific expected value.
Earlier this month, Retina AI announced that its platform is being integrated with Google Ads, which is used by many companies to target customers searching for specific keywords. Hasan said Retina AI’s technology will give those companies the ability to see the value of customers responding to specific keywords.
Hasan said Retina AI’s technology has already attracted interest from customers like Nestle and Marina del Rey-based Dollar Shave Club.
In July, the company announced it had raised $8 million in a Series A round, which Hasan said has given Retina AI a “solid growth trajectory” as it markets its services to companies eager for more customer intelligence.
