The rub on the advertising has long been that companies couldn’t really tell what was working and what wasn’t, best symbolized by John Wanamaker’s famous quote: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
Bizible, a Seattle startup that recently graduated from the TechStars incubator program, wants to change that. And the five-person company just landed $1.7 million in fresh financing in a deal led by Madrona Venture Group. Total funding now stands at just over $2 million.
In his pitch at TechStars a few weeks ago, co-founder Aaron Bird noted that all too often insurance companies, real estate firms, painters, dentists and the like lose the “digital trail of the customer” when they pick up the phone or walk into the office.
“We bring Internet-grade marketing analytics to the offline world,” said Bird, a former Microsoft advertising manager.
In a press release, Bird added:
“We are able to track how their customers found them and how much revenue was generated by each of their marketing efforts across search engines, directories, local review sites, social media, etc. We can even track revenue down to the exact search term. This is the first time these businesses have had this level of insight into their marketing efforts and we are super excited to be partnering with Madrona to seize this opportunity.”
As a result of the funding, Madrona’s Len Jordan has joined the board of Bizible. Here’s the TechStars’ pitch from Bizible’s Aaron Bird.
