• by Jess Nelson , September 14, 2017

A new company is looking to leverage data science and machine learning to tackle a widespread issue in marketing: customer data management and targeting. It could also help brands prepare for the upcoming European GDPR data regulation.

Based in Seattle, Amperity is a Customer Data Platform that unifies disparate data sources so brands can segment their customer data to deliver more personalized marketing campaigns.

Amperity was founded 18 months ago with $9 million in seed funding from Madrona Venture Group, and has already launched out of stealth mode working with major brands. The company’s technology serves as a software layer in a marketing stack that pulls data from every available data source, and then uses machine-learning algorithms to segment customers. A biproduct of Amperity is a simplified marketing stack that collaborates more cohesively.

Data management is still a huge challenge for marketers, yet it is critical for personalization.

“We talk a lot about personalization, but we still don’t see it in our inbox,” says Kabir Shahani, CEO at Amperity. “We know brands have our information because we’ve given it to them, but they’re hamstrung because they don’t have the technology to use it.”

The sheer plethora of marketing technologies available only exacerbates the issue, as multiple tools and multiple marketing channels make data management more difficult. “People hate this data problem -- it’s boring and highly technical,” says Shahani. “They just want the data to be right.”

Amperity brings in all of a brand’s data from siloed sources, and then cleans, de-dupes, and normalizes the data -- connecting data in order to create “rich customer profiles that can be actionable,” says Shahani.

Shahani says his team built Amperity from the ground up with GDPR in mind, and that he has experience with compliance-related issues. He says it’s critical for brands to ensure they are working with consumers that know how to prepare for GDPR. 

Amperity’s database also has search functionality. Marketers can ask the machine what they’re looking for and Amperity then populates those insights. Databases can be segmented or downloaded via Amperity’s visual or SQL segment editors, and then shipped to a marketing automation platform for more personalized email marketing.

Amperity currently employs a staff of 40, but Shahani says the company plans to expand the team to 100 employees by this time next year.