Although, according to Statista, the value of online retail sales is growing and its global share of retail sales is expected to reach 22% in 2023, we still cannot forget that the remaining 78% is for offline trade.
When conducting online retail sales, there are many effective tools to promote your store and thereby attract customers. You can use sponsored links, SEO or take advantage of the benefits of social media and for example create a competition for customers, thanks to which they will engage more and probably also promote the store on their own. You can also offer small discounts for first-time purchases and use a very powerful tool which are subscriptions. According to AdWeek’s analysis subscription model is perceived among clients as budget-friendly and convenient and at the same time, it makes it easier for businesses to scale and predict revenue.
It follows from the above that the possibilities to attract customers online are practically endless. The reality is quite different in offline world. Therefore, all solutions that attract customers are in high demand even more concerning offline retail. This is where a Cosmose AI decided to step in and make a revolution.
Cosmose AI is a Polish behavioural targeting technology startup which was founded in 2014 by Miron Mironiuk and it holds that its current valuation is more than $ 100 million. It has offices in Shanghai, Hongkong, New York and Warsaw. Huge and innovative companies such as Walmart, LVMH, L’Oréal, IWC, Este Lauder,FENDI, Samsung and many more use their solutions.
What this company basically does it tracks foot traffic in traditional offline stores in order to help to predict how customers will behave. The company is able to indicate the customer’s location with 2-meter accuracy, i.e. indicate in which aisle the customer spent a certain amount of time. This 2 meter accuracy is possible due to proprietary solution based on neural networks. Thanks to this, then, a few hours or a day after the visit, an advertisement for this store with, for example, the product or subject from/of the aisle/shop will display itself on this persons social media. Cosmose works with online media platforms like Facebook, Google, Line, Weibo,WeChat. Regarding the prediction, a very high 73% accuracy was achieved for when where and who will go shopping (concerning beauty category). The startup also claims that it can determine whether a customer will or will not like a certain product. Of course, the possibilities for this solution do not end with the displayed ads .Through the application dedicated to interested stores, also the impact of the advertisement on the recipients can be checked, i.e. how many people who clicked or saw the add visited the physical store again. This application also allows you to track changes in the traffic of competing stores, which is very interesting feature because it provides a valuable insight and companies can mutually inspire themselves and improve. And what is even more useful- the app enables us to connect also with customers from competitor stores.
To conclude, the company offers the mentioned above location tracker- Cosmose Analytics, a prediction and analytics platform which is aimed at helping sellers with marketing and stimulating sales- Cosmose AI and also Cosmose Media which is used for targeting online advertisments. Regarding the very targeting, the company analyzes shopping patterns, what allows them later to chose customers who will with the highest probability be interested in your product. According to Acxiom, this results in Cosmose delivering 135% higher offline conversion in comparison with leading advertising platforms.
So what is the technology behind all these wonders? These unique marketing services are possible thanks to the company’s proprietary technology, which is OMNIcookie. OMNIicookies allow you to locate customers using GPS and a network of WIFI transmitters, but what’s important-without the need to connect with it. So no visitor action is needed- they don’t have to open any apps nor connect with anything. The company uses agentless component (a tool which collects performance metrics without the need to install any agent software on the devices that are monitored) which works somewhat like this; the company access the data they need but they don’t know who they belong to because they use anonymous mobile user IDs. They access the data from weather apps, social media platforms and also fitness, radio, gaming and news apps. So the above explains how the company’s activities are in compliance with data protection.
As the numbers best describe the scale of operations, the company’s ecosystem consists of; 1 + billion tracked devices (this equals to 1 billion understood and influenced shopping habits), 360,000+ stores scanned (they aim to grow that to 10 million by 2022) and data from 400,000 applications.
800 million, so the vast majority, of those tracked devices are from China. Now, why China and not Europe or U.S? According to the founder and CEO, Miron Mironiuk, he first was set on chasing American dream, but in the U.S smartphone penetration was not very high. The opposite was true in China, where this penetration was 90% high. To present you with some numbers; China has over 1 billion operating smartphones. Also, Mironiuk mentioned that due to a very high competitiveness in the extremely fast growing China market, you always have to improve your product. This is both very challenging and rewarding.
Nowadays, it is impossible not to mention the COVID-19 pandemic. It would seem that since the company provides services to physical stores, its activity is currently much more difficult. Well, this is not entirely true. During these difficult times Cosmose aims to help their clients by providing useful insights on which basis clients can make decisions about when to reopen their stores, how to enlarge revenue and what kind of inventory will attract customers. They also enable their customers to connect with those who used to shop in their physical shops in order to inform about the opportunity to buy online.
Couple months ago the startup announced that it has raised $15 million in Series A. This, according to the company is used to improve the product and expand globally. Considering the opportunities offered by the company, its valuation and the amount of investments that are made in it are not shocking. Cosmose very effectively combines the analysis of customers in-store behaviors and habits, so offline activities with the power of online marketing.It is a very interesting and innovative startup that definitely changes the situation of many entrepreneurs and creates a huge change in marketing.
https://justjoin.it/brands/story/cosmose-sp-z-o-o
https://www.eginnovations.com/it-monitoring/agentless-monitoring
https://innovator.news/startup-of-the-week-cosmose-bb9fec26d7a6
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-10/07/c_139424517.htm
https://siliconcanals.com/news/polish-startup-tracking-1-billion-smartphones-funding/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanrobinson/2019/01/29/attract-more-customers-online/?sh=721908f841f8
I am well acquainted with CosmoseAi and admire their business model. It is good that at least someone can take advantage of global pandemic.
I think so too! Their business model is extremely interesting 😉