It’s all about the big data, baby. Eight months after launching out of a three-year stint in stealth mode, big data marketing application BloomReach announced Thursday that it has raised $25 million in a Series C round led by New Enterprise Associates, with help from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Bain Capital. The new capital brings BloomReach’s total raised to $41 million to date.
As CEO Raj De Datta explained to Bambi Francisco earlier this year, Bloomreach boils down to getting websites and Web content found on search engines. The system algorithmically analyzes every page on a client website and every user interaction on the site. Consequently, BloomReach can inform clients on the content they should have to ensure they're showcasing their products and services to users seeking them.
“The availability of Web-wide data and big data processing power is feeding the growth of this market. With the influx of information flooding the web, businesses are looking for ways to understand and use big data to generate revenue and drive their business,” said CEO Raj De Datta, adding: “Marketing is also becoming increasingly technology-powered and, as a result, many marketing budgets already are larger –and faster growing –than IT budgets.”
Indeed, Gartner analyst Laura McLellan wrote up a report earlier this year predicting that by 2017, the CMO will spend more on IT than the CTO.
“The future belongs to marketers who create content, evaluate relative customer value, drive brand awareness – and let machines maximize reach, capture demand and deliver relevant user experience,” said Raj.
“We’re betting that the fastest-growing BDAs will focus on the frontline of business to increase revenues and market share for companies. Many CMO’s annual budgets are larger than an enterprise IT organization’s budget today, so we’re following the money and betting on BloomReach,” said Scott Sandell of NEA, in a statement.
Over 90 large websites are currently using BloomReach, and among the company’s customers are three of the Internet Retailers’ top ten companies. Clients include major brands such as Neiman Marcus, Yahoo!, Williams Sonoma, and Pottery Barn; specialty stores such as ModCloth, Road Runner Sports, Only Natural Pet, Bluefly; travel sites such as Orbitz; listing sites like Oodle; and apartment rental sites.
The company boasts some impressive stats. On average, BloomReach generates a 92% lift year-on-year in non-branded, natural search traffic and improves paid search profitability by up to 50%.
Raj says that BloomReach is going to explore other areas, such as social, mobile, email, and more.
Image source: australiandirectmarketingassociation.com
