Sojern

Sojern
Private
Industry Travel/Data advertising
Founded Omaha, NE, September 2007 (2007-09)
Founder Gordon Whitten
Headquarters San Francisco, CA
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Mark Rabe (CEO)
Curtis Atkisson (CFO)
Brad King (VP of Sales)
Stephen Taylor (International VP & Managing Director)
Number of employees
 100+
Website www.sojern.com

Sojern is a provider of a data-driven traveler marketing platform that utilizes programmatic buying and machine learning technology.[1][2] Sojern partners with travel companies including airlines, OTAs, hotels, and rental car companies to collect anonymized (non-personally identifiable) traveler profiles.[2][3] The company utilizes this data to target travelers and deliver marketing messages across media channels.[1][3] Sojern is currently headquartered in San Francisco, CA with key offices in New York, Omaha and London.[1]

History

Originally based in Omaha, Nebraska, Sojern was founded in 2007 by Gordon Whitten and has since acquired patents for its products.[4] In April 2011, Yahoo! veteran Mark Rabe succeeded Whitten as CEO, though Whitten has stayed on as a member of the board of directors.[4] According to Rabe, the company’s mission has been to build the world’s leading data-driven travel engagement platform.[5]

Sojern began as a pioneer in the boarding pass advertising space; it was the first company in the U.S. with exclusive patents for Printed and Online Boarding Pass customization technology.[6][7][8] In 2008, the company’s airline partners, including Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines, began utilizing Sojern’s technology to offer targeted ads on boarding passes.[9][10] Sojern released a new media platform, the Sojern Traveler Platform (STP), in 2011 that focused on improving its technology's targeting capabilities.[6][11]

To protect its platform technology, the company received a U.S. Patent for “providing customized or personalized content, relevant and timely messages and targeted advertising to travelers based on their destination and dates of travel” in March 2012.[12]

Since its founding, Sojern has been expanding with a 3,811% fiscal year revenue growth between 2008 and 2012.[13] The company has also made moves towards international expansion, establishing a London office in 2013.[3] Sojern has now worked with over 600 brands, such as Hyatt, Avis, Microsoft, and US Airways.[14]

Product

In addition to online and print boarding pass products, the Sojern Traveler Platform uses data collected by the platform to target audiences and provide access to customer touch-points.[2][6][11] Specifically the company offers solutions in such areas as display advertising, mobile, video, Facebook (FBX) campaigns, prospecting, and retargeting.[6][15] Sojern uses data on traveler behavior in addition to targeting algorithms and programmatic bidding to provide these solutions.[2][5]

Funding

With over $40 million raised, Sojern ranked #14 on travel news website Skift’s “Top 31 Most Heavily Venture-Funded Startups in Travel.”[16] Sojern received $16 million in Series A funding in 2008, $10 million and then $7.5 million in Series B in 2013, and recently secured a Series C funding round of $10 million.[17][18] The company’s investors include Industry Ventures, Focus Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital, and Triangle Peak Partners.[11][17]

Privacy

Sojern collects and uses anonymous, non-personally identifiable information.[3][6][19][20] Traveler profiles are anonymized to ensure that personally identifiable information, such as name and contact information, is hidden.[6][20] In order to identify what information and offers a site visitor might be interested in, anonymous cookies record which pages a site visitor has browsed or which products were purchased on partners’ websites.[20] This data is anonymous and cannot be used to identify visitors.[20]

Travel Trends and Online Presence

Sojern’s travel trends reports have been cited by several sites including Zagat, Skift, Tnooz, and The Boston Globe.[21][22][23][24] The company’s holiday and travel trends infographics are also found on sites like Reddit, Tnooz, and Visual.ly.[25][26][27] Following the release of the Q4 2013 report, The New York Times featured CEO Mark Rabe in an article on current and future travel trends.[28]

Other news organizations have also covered the company's VPs; in 2013, the company’s VP of product Chris Smutny wrote an article for Ad Age on monetizing data assets.[29] Stephen Taylor, VP & Managing Director of Sojern’s international operations, has also made appearances on news sites, including British travel site Travel Bulletin, for which he wrote the articles “Knowing Your Traveller Through Big Data” and “Sojern - Industry Predictions 2014.”[30][31]

Achievements

2013 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 List (#60)[13]

2013 Mediapost.com Digital Out-of-Home Awards: Finalist - Best Venue/Location-Based Execution[32]

2011 Technology Company of the Year – AIM Institute[33]

2010 Edison Awards Winner – Media & Visual Communications[34]

2009 OnMedia Top 100 for Technology Innovation[33]

2009 HSMAI Advertising Award[33]

2008 OMMA Award for Online Advertising Creativity[35]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Sojern". CrunchBase. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Sojern confirms $7.5 million funding". EyeforTravel Limited. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Sojern brings its Big Data travel technology to Europe". Travolution. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
  4. 1 2 Stacy, Michael. "Sojern brings Yahoo! veteran Mark Rabe aboard as CEO". Silicon Prairie News. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
  5. 1 2 "Sojern Takes Flight: Big Data Travel Company Reports More Than Double Year-on-Year Growth". Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lunden, Ingrid. "Sojern Raises $7.5 Million For Its Push Into Travel Tech And Targeted Travel Ads". TechCrunch. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  7. ↑ "United States Patent 8,131,592". USPTO. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  8. ↑ "United States Patent 8,150,731". USPTO. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  9. ↑ Prior, Anna. "Delta Launches Online Boarding-Pass Ads". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 18 March 2014.
  10. ↑ Yu, Roger. "Airlines turn boarding passes into ad space". USA TODAY. Retrieved 18 March 2014.
  11. 1 2 3 Schaal, Dennis. "Sojern Raises $10 Million in Series C Funding Round". Skift. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  12. ↑ "Sojern Receives U.S. Patent for Method to Provide Customized Messages to Travelers". Retrieved 13 March 2014.
  13. 1 2 "Technology Fast 500 2013 Ranking" (PDF). Deloitte. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
  14. ↑ "Sojern Named Top Travel-Focused Technology Company on Deloitte's Annual Fast 500 List".
  15. ↑ "Company Overview of Sojern Inc.". Bloomberg.
  16. ↑ Ali, Rafat. "The Top 31 Most Heavily Venture-Funded Startups In Travel". Skift. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  17. 1 2 May, Kevin. "Sojern wins $10M funding round as travel marketing goes hi-tech". Tnooz.
  18. ↑ Hoge, Patrick. "Sojern raises $10 million more for travel data, ads". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 18 March 2014.
  19. ↑ "Travelport and Sojern Forge Partnership to Provide Destination Targeted Content on Travel Itineraries".
  20. 1 2 3 4 "Website Privacy Policy".
  21. ↑ Clark, Colleen. "Most U.S. Travelers Go It Alone". Zagat. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  22. ↑ Shankman, Samantha. "Travelers More Likely to Book Hotels on Day of Arrival Than Any Day Prior". Skift. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  23. ↑ Vivion, Nick. "Latest analysis of US consumer travel show marketable trends". Tnooz. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  24. ↑ Kandarian, Paul. "Sojern releases quarterly travel data". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
  25. ↑ "Infographics". Reddit.
  26. ↑ "Most recent data breaks down summer travel trends". Tnooz.
  27. ↑ "2013 U.S. Summer Travel Trends". Visual.ly.
  28. ↑ Christiansen, Kenan. "Travel Trends and the Year Ahead". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  29. ↑ Smutny, Chris. "The Bottom Line: Turn Your Data Into Dollars". AdAge. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  30. ↑ Taylor, Stephen. "Knowing Your Traveller Through Big Data". Travel Bulletin. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  31. ↑ Taylor, Stephen. "Sojern - Industry Predictions 2014". Travel Bulletin. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  32. ↑ "2013 Finalists". MediaPost.
  33. 1 2 3 "Sojern Named Technology Company of the Year by AIM Institute". Business Wire.
  34. ↑ "2010 Edison Award Winners". Edison Awards.
  35. ↑ "Sojern Wins 2008 OMMA Award for Online Advertising Creativity in Content Integration". Reuters.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, April 23, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.