Persado raises $15M for marketing persuasion technology

The company gets support from Bain Capital Ventures

Marketing and advertising is all about saying the right things to the right people. Why hasn’t someone created an algorithm for that? Oh, wait, someone just did. Digital marketing company Persado has created “marketing persuasion technology” that takes the guesswork out of finding the right words to drive home a deal, and the company announced Wednesday that it has raised $15 million in a Series A round of funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from TLcom out of London.

The company’s product is pretty interesting, since it “targets” consumers without any personal data or information about their buying behavior or interests. Instead of using cookies, Persado uses semantic algorithms derived from its “Genopedia” knowledge base to craft marketing messages. The technology infers the likely performance of millions of possible messages for an ad campaign.

The platform then tests one or two dozen message variants using its own statistical methods to figure out which message works best for a given company’s customers.

Persado’s clients include Skype, Badoo, Wix.com, and TIM Brazil, among others.

The company says a typical customer sees between 30% and 150% improvement in actual results, including engagement, purchase, and retention.

“We are replacing guesswork with science in one more essential area of marketing which has remained relatively untouched to date, and we expect that adopters of our technology will gain enormous value for themselves and their companies,” said SVP of marketing Ethan Stock.

The company plans to use the new capital from this round to double R&D spending and scale out its marketing and sales presence globally, “with a strong emphasis on the United States, which we view as our primary market due to the significant adoption of digital marketing here,” said Stock.

“The creation of the most effective marketing messages is a universal problem and a highly manual process for digital marketers today,” said Bain Capital Ventures partner Deepak Sindwani, in a statement. “Persado solves this problem through its unique data science, software, and information service, systematically generating the best messages across all online marketing channels, for any product and any customer, at any time. We are excited to partner with Persado to pursue this enormous market opportunity and build the next great company in online marketing.” 

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