Digital Marketing Boot Camp

Inflection is San Francisco startup in the big data aggregation space. From a subset of records pertaining to names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other public information, the company built a platform to repackage and sell its data to consumers through multiple vertical products. The primary two products with which I worked were PeopleSmart.com and Archives.com.

Inflection Logo
“You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.”
— Warren Buffet
 

REPURPOSING IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL PARTNERS

One of Inflection's core principles centered around solving a problem, applying the solution in a test environment, and once verified - repurposing the solution in as many ways as possible. This methodology can be applied to many things in life, but in the context of marketing it was applied across our digital partners.

Our collaborative team proactively shared successes from one digital partner to the other. Nearly all of our affiliates were motivated by campaign expansion, so we took the mindset of "striking while the iron is hot." Ultimately, if we didn't jump on an opportunity fast enough, one of our competitors surely would. We frequently recycled API and display campaign types across our network of affiliates.

Recycle Digital Ads
 

TRACK EVERYTHING

If there is anything that Inflection valued above everything, that was data. Even if we didn't know how to use the data (yet), we chose to track it. We built an in-house platform called STORM that allowed us to track nearly any visitor interaction. Unlike many existing affiliate programs, ours was set up with optimization in mind. Every link we distributed was tracked by source, campaign placement, contract type, and creative version.

Here are some of the ways we reused the data:

  • Build affiliate software for partners and 3rd-party program integrations
  • In-house analytics to enable continuous optimization and testing
  • Integrated marketing solutions for PPC and SEO
  • Ad server centralization for broad reach and targeting
  • Automation for important customer support processes and internal tasks
  • Warehousing and indexing for hundreds of unique data sets
  • Scalable search platform with robust APIs
  • Real-time "fuzzy match" algorithms

We valued data to the extent that we created our own in-house Qlikview build whose primary function was to pinpoint growth opportunities.

Qlikview Analytics Reporting
 

ARCHIVES.COM ACQUISITION AND TRANSITION

Archives Acquisition By Ancestry
 

In April 2012 it was announced that our efforts with Archives.com have been recognized by Ancestry.com, and we entered into a binding agreement to sell off the brand for $100 million to our previous competition. I became a part of the transition, and took on responsibility in migrating all of our affiliates and digital partners into the Ancestry.com portfolio of brands.

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT 
DIGITAL GOODS ACQUISITION MARKETING

  • Learn new systems fast.
  • Know how to ask for help.
  • Certain perceptions are inherent to age.
  • You can only try to predict tomorrow, but have a plan nonetheless.
  • Fail fast. Really fast.

TECHNOLOGY USED

Google Analytics, Qlikview, OpenX, Commission Junction, Proprietary Affiliate System, STORM

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