AgilOne is bringing predictive analytics algorithms to new territory: digital marketing. With less than 10 percent of marketers using any predictive modeling, according to Gartner Research Director Martin Kihn, there’s plenty of room for growth.

While the predictive techniques that AgilOne uses have long been applied in business intelligence or among credit scoring companies, notes Kihn, doing this kind of work in marketing posed a “logistical challenge.” Faster computers and an increase in data-driven marketers have made more marketing teams ready to do the sophisticated segmented messaging AgilOne enables.

This year, AgilOne introduced predictive segmentation, which enables companies to automatically group customers into personas based on behavior and product preferences. Marketers can figure out which customers are more likely to buy and which have higher lifetime value. As a customer’s behavior changes, she can fluidly move to a different group and receive different messaging. “You can segment the database, use that to help you put together the right offer strategy, and then predict the response,” Kihn says.

AgilOne has gained a foothold among e-commerce--focused brands, but is moving to help retailers with brick-and-mortar operations as well. Its capabilities around replenishment and subscriptions have attracted clients such as PetCareRX, which saw an 18 percent increase in repeat sales and a 38 percent growth in quarterly sales with the technology.

Another feature introduced in the past year, the universal customer profile, enables retailers to merge online and offline behavior for a better view of the customer. That information can be brought in to an existing CRM system through the company’s newly created application programming interface.

The company, though, is not without its challenges. Adobe announced at its Digital Marketing Summit that its premium product would have advanced analytics features similar to AgilOne’s. Custora and Sailthru also focus on analyzing customers to identify the right time to message customers and identify high-value customers or those likely to churn. 

The competition doesn’t appear to have deterred investors. In April, AgilOne raised $25 million in Series C funding, in part to aid global expansion. The increased focus on predictive marketing is good news as far as CEO Omer Artun is concerned. “We’re in the phase of early maturity. [Predictive marketing is] on everyone’s radar. They know they have to do something about it, and they’re looking for vendors to help them with that.”  —Sarah Sluis