It seems the fight is still on to become the Web marketing software of choice.
New York-based Conductor plans to double its engineering staff this year, says CEO and founder Seth Besmertnik, thanks to a recently raised $27 million Series D round. The company developed a software dashboard that helps marketers with Web search optimization for their brands as well as leveraging content and social media to reach consumers.
Besmertnik says with consumers focusing more attention on the Web, where they exert greater control over what they see, he believes content such as videos and articles can be more useful marketing tools than banner ads. “You have to reach customers on their own terms,” he says. That means being discovered, Besmertnik says, through search engines and video sites such as YouTube.
The forthcoming hires follow another spree in the last 12 months, when Conductor grew its engineering staff from about 30 to 35 up to about 60 to 70, Besmertnik says. The company also plans to invest in such areas as user experience and customer support, he says.
The new hires, he says, will be supported by this month’s funding round, which was led by Catalyst Investors with participation from Blue Cloud Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Investor Growth Capital, and Matrix Partners. Thus far, Conductor has raised $60 million in total funding.
Besmertnik says Conductor’s software and data collection helps marketers influence, manage, and measure how consumers find brands’ websites and content. Its clientele includes FedEx, Citibank, and Apartments.com.
Competition in digital marketing technology is intense, Besmertnik admits, but he says much of the industry is focused on content management systems, visitor analytics, landing page personalization, and paid media. Conductor’s software, he says, helps marketers get to consumers who have not yet visited a brand’s website or have not been reached through banner ads. “We differentiate by focusing exclusively on that and not other areas,” Besmertnik says.
