Proclivity CEO Sheldon Gilbert featured in the New York Times
The good people at Proclivity have gotten a nice bit of PR in the NYT tomorrow: Guessing the Online Customer’s Next Want, interviewing Proclivity’s CEO Sheldon Gilbert. Congratulations to Sheldon and the team!
SilverDock interviewed Sheldon Gilbert about Proclivity at last year’s Shop.org Annual Summit. Sheldon shared his thoughts on Proclivity’s behavioral targeting technology. Check out the whole interview here:
Some excerpts from the New York Times article on Proclivity, written by Eric A. Taub:
Among online retailers, pushing customers toward other products they might want is a common practice. Both Amazon and Netflix, two of the best-known practitioners of targeted upselling, have long recommended products or movie titles to their clientele. They do so using a technique called collaborative filtering, basing suggestions on customers’ previous purchases and on how they rate products compared to other consumers.
The search for a better recommendation continues with numerous companies selling algorithms that promise a retailer more of an edge. For instance, Barneys New York, the upscale clothing store chain, says it got at least a 10 percent increase in online revenue by using data mining software that finds links between certain online behavior and a greater propensity to buy.
Using a system developed by Proclivity Systems, Barneys used data about where and when a customer visited its site and other demographic information to determine on whom it should focus its e-mail messages.
Barneys experienced at least a 10 percent increase in online revenue, as compared to control groups, said Larry Promisel, Barneys’ vice president of e-commerce. It found 20 percent more customers would purchase once sent the targeted e-mail messages. The company has saved money by not sending e-mail letters to customers unlikely to buy.
Not only are sales increasing, Mr. Promisel said, but with the store focusing on customers with items they are likely to buy, its clientele feels that it understands their interests, which increases good will.