Sojern
 | This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. (February 2024) |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Travel/Data Advertising |
| Founded | Omaha, NE, September 2007 |
| Founder | Gordon Whitten |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Mark Rabe (CEO) Aman Kothari (CFO) Noreen Henry (Chief Revenue Officer) Kurt Weinsheimer (Chief Solutions Officer) Preeya Patel (Chief People Officer) Paul Huie (SVP and General Counsel) John Moragne, Trident Capital, Board Director Ellen Keszler, Clear Sky Associates, Board Director Woody Marshall, TCV, Board Director |
Number of employees | 300+ |
| Subsidiaries | Adphorus, VenueLytics |
| Website | sojern |
Sojern provides a marketing platform for the travel industry that utilizes programmatic buying across multiple digital media channels and is powered by machine learning technology. Sojern partners with travel entities, including hotels and destination marketing organizations (DMOs) to enrich first-party data, profile, find, and target ideal travelers, and build custom audiences to enable relevant campaigns that get return on investment. Beyond helping travel marketers build brand awareness and generate direct bookings, Sojern’s suite of guest experience solutions, including AI-enabled concierge technology and reputation management, give hoteliers the tools they need to engage with guests before, during, and after their stay to build long standing relationships and brand loyalty.
Sojern services thousands of customers across the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific with teams based in San Francisco, Dubai, Dublin, London, Mexico City, Omaha, Paris and Singapore. The company was named a Deloitte Technology Top 500 Fastest Growing Company for 6 years in a row (2013-2018).
History[edit]
Sojern was founded in 2007 by Gordon Whitten in Omaha, Nebraska. In April 2011, Yahoo! veteran Mark Rabe succeeded Whitten as CEO.
Sojern began as a boarding pass advertising company and was awarded U.S. Patent 8,131,502 for “providing customized or personalized content, relevant and timely messages and targeted advertising to travelers based on their destination and dates of travel.”
In 2011Sojern released its media platform, the Sojern Traveler Platform (STP,) now known as the Sojern Travel Marketing Platform, which utilizes billions of traveler data from the Sojern Traveler Ecosystem(™) to help travel marketers identify and market to their ideal travelers. In 2023, the company launched its guest experience solutions to give marketers additional AI-enabled tools to interact with guests and maximize revenue pre-, during-, and post-stay.
The company launched its first international office in London in 2013 and expanded to Mexico City, Dubai and Singapore in 2015.
The company made its first acquisition in November 2017 when it purchased Facebook and Instagram marketing partner Adphorus, an Istanbul-based advertising tech startup, for an undisclosed amount. The company made its second acquisition in July 2023 when it acquired VenueLytics, an AI-Driven Customer Analytics & Contactless Guest Engagement platform for venues such as hotels, casinos, live events and resorts.
Product and data collection[edit]
The Sojern Traveler Platform collects data on travelers' online search and booking behavior (travel intent data) and uses this information to place targeted ads in front of travelers while they are shopping for travel.[1][2][3] Specifically, the company supports travel marketers with advertising across display advertising, native, mobile, video, search engine marketing (SEM), metasearch, connected TV (CTV), Facebook and Instagram, prospecting, and retargeting.[2][4] Sojern uses its traveler intent data in addition to targeting algorithms and programmatic bidding to reach travelers with personalized marketing offers. [1][5]
In 2016, Sojern became the first company in travel to be named a DoubleClick Certified Marketing Partner, giving them access to the full suite of DoubleClick Marketing products, including YouTube.[6]
Privacy[edit]
Sojern collects and uses anonymous, non-personally identifiable information.[7][2][8][9] In order to identify what information and offers a site visitor might be interested in, anonymous cookies record which pages a site visitor has browsed or which products were purchased on partners’ websites.[9]
Travel trends[edit]
In addition to using data to advertise to travelers, Sojern also provides reports and insights on global travel trends. Their travel trends reports have been cited by several sites including HuffPost, USA Today, and Fortune.[10][11][12]
Sojern has also released joint research on travel and consumer trends with Think with Google.[13]
Funding[edit]
With more than $40 million raised, Sojern ranked #14 on travel news website Skift’s “Top 31 Most Heavily Venture-Funded Startups in Travel.”[14] Sojern received $16 million in Series A round funding in 2008, $10 million and then $7.5 million in Series B in 2013, and secured a Series C funding round of $10 million in 2014.[15][16] The company’s investors include Industry Ventures, Focus Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital, and Triangle Peak Partners.[3][15]
In 2016, Sojern announced they hit the $100 million-annual revenue run rate threshold.[17]
References[edit]
- ^ a b "Sojern confirms $7.5 million funding". EyeforTravel Limited. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
- ^ a b c Lunden, Ingrid (27 March 2012). "Sojern Raises $7.5 Million For Its Push Into Travel Tech And Targeted Travel Ads". TechCrunch. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
- ^ a b Schaal, Dennis (17 December 2013). "Sojern Raises $10 Million in Series C Funding Round". Skift. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
- ^ "Company Overview of Sojern Inc". Bloomberg L.P.
- ^ "Sojern Takes Flight: Big Data Travel Company Reports More Than Double Year-on-Year Growth" (Press release). March 7, 2013.
- ^ "Find a Certified Marketing Partner - DoubleClick". DoubleClick by Google. Retrieved 2016-12-01.
- ^ "Sojern brings its Big Data travel technology to Europe". Travolution. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
- ^ "Travelport and Sojern Forge Partnership to Provide Destination Targeted Content on Travel Itineraries".
- ^ a b "Website Privacy Policy".
- ^ Green, Dane Steele (May 31, 2015). "Cuba: So What Now?". HuffPost.
- ^ "Fourth of July weekend brings explosive travel blitz". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2016-12-01.
- ^ "What Americans should expect when traveling to Cuba". Fortune. 2015-08-14. Retrieved 2016-12-01.
- ^ "Travel Trends 2016: Data Reveals Hot Spots and New Consumer Insights". Think with Google. Retrieved 2016-12-01.
- ^ Ali, Rafat (January 31, 2014). "The Top 31 Most Heavily Venture-Funded Startups In Travel". Skift.
- ^ a b May, Kevin (December 17, 2013). "Sojern wins $10M funding round as travel marketing goes hi-tech". Phocuswire.
- ^ Hoge, Patrick (December 2013). "Sojern raises $10 million more for travel data, ads". American City Business Journals.
- ^ O'Neil, Sean (November 3, 2016). "Programmatic native ads show promise for Sojern, Google, and San Francisco Travel [INFOGRAPHIC]". Phocuswire.