電子商務技術新貴Reflektion的個性化營銷之道

Can we get personal for a moment? Pretty much every marketing professional would kill for that opportunity, and there are plenty of software companies rushing to oblige. So what makes two-year-old Reflektion stand out?

我們能聊一會兒私人話題嗎？幾乎每位市場營銷人員都渴望着這種機會。大量軟件公司正在爭先恐後地滿足這種需求。那麼，成立僅兩年的Reflektion公司究竟依靠什麼脫穎而出？

It isn’t just the company’s backers, which include Intel Capital INTC 1.72% and Nike NKE 0.16% , or its prominent angels, Salesforce founder Marc Benioff and former Oracle COO Ray Lane. It is Reflektion’s ability to create “personal” e-commerce experiences not just for a brand’s repeat customers or registered visitors but also for the equivalent of walk-in shoppers, people who have never been to the site before.

不僅僅是因爲它擁有一些聲名顯赫的支持者，包括英特爾投資(Intel Capital)和耐克公司(Nike)等，也不是因爲它的天使投資人是大名鼎鼎的Salesforce公司創始人馬克o貝尼奧夫和甲骨文公司(Oracle)前首席運營官雷o萊恩。Reflektion崛起的主要原因在於，它創造了“人性化”的電子商務體驗，不僅能夠吸引某一品牌的回頭客或註冊用戶，還能夠吸引那些“隨意逛逛”的，此前從未訪問過某個站點的新顧客。

“The technology hasn’t been there to do this for millions of visitors,” said Reflektion CEO Sean Moran, who has a deep background in e-commerce technology that includes working on programs with Amazon AMZN 0.26% and eBay EBAY 0.15% . “There has been lots of stuff done to reach the three percent to four percent who buy.”

“此前的技術均無法爲數以百萬計的訪客打造這種體驗，”Reflektion公司CEO肖恩o莫蘭說。他曾經參與過亞馬遜(Amazon)和eBay的技術開發項目，擁有深厚的電子商務技術背景。“大量的個性化營銷技術只能覆蓋3%到4%的買家。”

Reflektion’s algorithms—developed by a team led by founder Amar Chokhawala, a former Google Adsense engineer—gather information as an individual browses a site, taking note where he or she has paused or clicked. It uses that knowledge plus data about what sort of device doing the browsing (smartphone versus desktop versus tablet) to reshape what the visitor sees—prioritizing the products that he or she encounters much like Amazon does with “recommendations” for registered accountholders. The technology even affects the search results seen by individual visitors, Moran said.

Reflektion的算法是由前谷歌廣告(Google Adsense)工程師，該公司創始人阿馬爾領銜的一支團隊開發的。當某個用戶瀏覽一家站點時，這種算法會自動收集信息，詳細記錄他/她曾經駐留或點擊過哪個頁面。它使用這些信息，以及瀏覽時使用哪類設備（智能手機，臺式機，還是平板電腦）等數據，來重塑訪問者看到的內容，排定向用戶展示產品的優先順序——與亞馬遜面向註冊用戶的“推薦”機制非常類似。莫蘭說，這項技術甚至能夠影響每個訪問者看到的搜索結果。

The service, which will cost a company anywhere from $100,000 to several million dollars, is being used by about 20 companies including Disney, Gander Mountain, and Nike. It does really matter what e-commerce technology is being used, Reflektion has worked on integrations involving e-commerce technology from Demandware, IBM WebSphere, Magento, and Oracle ATG.

這項服務售價在10萬美元到幾百萬美元之間，正在被大約20家公司使用，其中包括迪斯尼(Disney)、甘德山(Gander Mountain)和耐克。電子商務技術的關鍵之處在於，它正在被用來做什麼。Reflektion公司一直致力於集成源自Demandware、IBM WebSphere、Magento和Oracle ATG的電子商務技術。

“The most common thing we’re competing against is nothing,” Moran said. Actually, Certona (a technology used by the Steve Madden brand) and RichRelevance (used by Costco, Target, and Marks & Spencer) also are focused on “omnichannel personalization.” The leaders for those two companies were behind technologies that are part of marketing services at Adobe ADBE 2.64% and Amazon, respectively.

“我們與其他公司的競爭沒有交集，”莫蘭說。實際上，Certona【鞋類品牌史蒂夫o馬登(Steve Madden)使用的一項技術】和RichRelevance[好市多(Costco)、塔吉特(Target)和瑪莎百貨(Marks & Spencer)使用的技術]也專注於“全方位個性化”。這兩家公司的領導者分別參與過Adobe和亞馬遜營銷服務技術的研發工作。

So far, Reflektion has raised a total of $11.3 million in venture capital. Several weeks ago, Reflektion’s board added another experienced e-commerce executive Steve Papa, founder of Endeca (swallowed by Oracle in 2011 for a reported $1.1 billion). The former CEO of Wal-Mart US, Eduardo Castro Wright, is also a director along with Benioff and Lane.

到目前爲止，Reflektion公司已經籌集到總計1,130萬美元的風險投資。幾個星期前，另一位經驗豐富的電子商務高管，Endeca公司創始人史蒂夫o帕帕也加入了Reflektion公司董事會。（Endeca公司於2011年被甲骨文公司收購，成交價爲11億美元。）除了貝尼奧夫和萊恩外，沃爾瑪美國公司(Wal-Mart US)前CEO愛德華多o卡斯特羅o賴特也是Reflektion公司的董事之一。

“[Reflektion's] platform demonstrates the fusion of traditional customer experience management with the leading edge of advertising monetization,” noted Papa. “Not only is it the next generation of e-commerce personalization, it has broader applications to all customer-facing web applications.”

“Reflektion的平臺將傳統的消費者體驗管理與最先進的廣告貨幣化技術完美地融合在一起，”帕帕說。“它不僅是新一代的電子商務個性化營銷技術，並且在所有面向消費者的網絡應用市場有着廣闊的前景。”