Retail analytics firm RetailNext Inc. has acquired cloud-based software firm Pikato for an undisclosed amount.
Funding for the transaction was boosted by a $125 million raise in a Series E round of funding in April. The goal of the Series E was to help the company expand, whether overseas or for acquisitions to help it add predictive analytics to its platform.
Alexei Agratchev, cofounder and chief executive officer of RetailNext, said the acquisition is to “enable one-to-one personalized engagement between a retailer and its customer through mobile channels.”
San Jose, Calif.-based RetailNext has a comprehensive analytics platform for brick-and-mortar stores. Chicago-based Pikato deploys time-sensitive, targeted marketing offers in standalone stores and shopping malls to engage the shopper.
In combining the expertise of the two firms, RetailNext has a new solution product called Targeted Marketing & Engagement. The aim of the product is to transform the way chief marketing officers and retail marketers drive engagement, loyalty and sales via a mobile interaction, whether at point-of-sale, SMS, email, in-store or Wi-Fi.
Users who walk into a store using the product can opt-in onto the platform on their mobile device through guest Wi-Fi by signing in through e-mail. Once that’s done, the users are redirected to a welcome page that over time learns the individual’s preferences, as well as browsing and purchasing behavior, according to Agratchev. Users who sign in at different retailers who are part of the same linked loyalty program will have their data correlated. RetailNext’s data analytics work to fine-tune the recommendations a retailer can make to the user on product, or push through a coupon for use at the point of sale.
According to Agratchev, “The personalization is done in real-time. When customers are given relevant information, they will click through and retailers will see better engagement.” He added that the more data the platform has on a user, the more relevant the information that’s pushed through can be.
Jesus Sanchez, cofounder and former ceo of Pikato, is now part of the RetailNext team, heading up targeted marketing and engagement for the data analytics firm.
“Seamlessly integrated with the comprehensive RetailNext analytics platform, the solution is now even more differentiated by triggering relevant, targeted communications from in-store and out-of-store data about shoppers, their shopping journeys and shopping behaviors,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez said some of the retailers that are connecting with shoppers through personalized engagement via Pikato are Sears, Kmart and Kohl’s. “When Sears moved to the platform, they saw an 1,100 percent engagement rate increase,” Sanchez said.
RetailNext said that more than 200 retailers and brands worldwide are using its solution products to gain insight to improve the customer experience and increase same-store sales. When the company was started, its aim was to bring e-commerce style shopper analytics to the brick-and-mortar channel.
