Fireside Chat with R. J. Talyor, CEO at Quantifi

“Marketing is the new finance.” And, Quantifi has taken the first step towards making it true. The marketing R&D and digital ad experimentation platform announced its launch and the $2 million seed funding today. Of course, the latest funding is the result of a phenomenal team that Quantifi has. However, I wanted to know more about their journey. So, I went a step ahead to ask the pilot himself, who is at the helm at Quantifi—  R. J. Talyor, the CEO (R. J.).

Here is what played out last evening between me and R. J.

MTS: Tell us about what Quantifi does? 

R. J. Talyor (R. J.): Quantifi is a marketing R&D platform for digital ads. We enable marketers to rapidly explore hundreds of combinations of the audience, channels and creative across paid social and emerging ads platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Reddit.

MTS: How did Quantifi plan this funding round? What are the factors that prompted your investors to believe in your product and company culture? 

R. J.: At Quantifi, we sought investment from VCs and strategic angels that believed in the promise of Marketing R&D. We sought out experts in digital advertising, digital marketing, SaaS and AI. Our investors consistently gave positive feedback on the top-notch team building Quantifi, our vision for owning Marketing R&D, and the backing of High Alpha.

MTS: How are you planning to use this newly acquired capital? 

R. J.: We’ll continue to build out our team, with a focus on AI/data science, engineering, and marketing/sales. 

MTS: Are you looking to invest in new markets and technologies? 

R. J.: Yes, we are increasing investments in data science, incorporating new machine learning libraries including Tensorflow, as well as image analysis and natural language processing (NLP). In addition, we’re continuing to increase our usage of production environments to match the demand of our software.

MTS: Do you plan to launch or integrate your platform with any Marketing Automation software as part of your growth plans? 

R. J.: Yes, in the future, we plan to integrate Quantifi with content platforms, DMPs as well email, mobile and other marketing technology (MarTech) solutions to drive experimentation based on customer contact profiles.

 MTS: How do you see AI pushing the ceiling in marketing and advertising? 

R. J.: Marketers typically try testing with an A/B test–but there are thousands and thousands of potential options that they’re not testing. With AI, marketers can prioritize what to test, then run thousands of possibilities at the same time to discover what works best for their brand–for each individual consumer. 

MTS: We recently did a piece — Modern Marketers Awry About Turning into Data Scientists! What is your opinion on this?

R. J.: At Quantifi, we’re delivering AI-powered coaching for marketing–in order to translate data into actionable insights. Today, marketers need data to be successful but don’t necessarily want to be data scientists. Instead, marketers need coaching on the what analytics matter to help them make the strategic decisions to drive revenue.

MTS: Thank you, R. J., for answering our queries. We look forward to having you again at MTS very soon.