Algorithm Allows Advertisers to Tap Trends in Social Media; Taykey Closes $9 Million in Series B Funding From Sequoia Capital
New York, NY – Taykey, the online advertising platform created by three intelligence alumni of the Israeli Defense Ministry, announced the launch of their service. Using real-time data and trend analysis, Taykey’s proprietary algorithm not only tells you where your audience is, but tells you where they’ll be next – providing advertisers with a constant stream of the right audiences at the right time. Taykey’s patent-pending technology predicts online behavior with unprecedented accuracy, and delivers campaigns that continue to perform on various social networks over time, rather than plummeting quickly in effectiveness, as much existing social advertising does.
Taykey also announced that it has closed $9 million in Series B Funding from Sequoia Capital, Softbank Capital and Crescent Point. The 19-employee company plans to use the funds, in part, to hire additional engineers in Tel Aviv, and to build out the New York City-based sales team. The company and its platform has already executed several highly successful campaigns for a number of Fortune 100 clients, including Pepsi, yielding results much higher than existing benchmarks.
“On the social web, demographics are dead,” said Amit Avner, Co-Founder and CEO of Taykey. “Until now, though, the vast potential power of social media advertising has been caught in the stranglehold of of demographically-targeted campaigns. Taykey empowers advertisers to tap into the real way audiences move online – in vast flocks not determined by age and gender, but by interests. This technology will cause a complete transformation in how brands are able to discover their audiences and advertise online.”
Prior to launch, Taykey worked with Pepsi to drive awareness and participation for the Pepsi Refresh Project, an idea-funding competition. In the first two days of a targeted Facebook campaign, Taykey engaged over 17,000 relevant consumers. And these were not one-off results; in a separate Facebook campaign for Pepsi’s Lipton Brisk brand with the aim of engaging 20,000 consumers, Taykey generated a 200% increase in engagement in 2 days.”
“The outcome of our Facebook initiatives with Taykey far exceeded our expectations for a social media advertising campaign,” said Shiv Singh, Head of Digital for PepsiCo Beverages America. “Taykey constantly tracked consumer conversations that were happening across Facebook, Google, Twitter and other social media, then helped place our brands in front of consumers who were active and engaged in the right conversations, in real-time. Taykey’s audience discovery technology brings to life our philosophy of real-time marketing in compelling ways.”
Taykey is unique in both its technology and talent and is growing rapidly,-projecting double-digit employee growth over the next 12 months. The privacy-safe technology works from public data and statistics to monitor trends and predict consumers’ online behavior, without tracking users’ cookies or invading their privacy.
“The problem brands face with social campaigns is that the ads stop performing after only a few days, and do not reach their desired audience.” said Amit. “At Taykey, we are all about audience discovery and empowering advertisers to find their audiences online, as we speak.”
About Taykey
Taykey (www.Taykey.com) was founded in 2008 as a trend-based, social media advertising platform, is backed by Sequoia Captial, Softbank Capital and Crescent Point, and was chosen as one of the top ten most promising companies in Israel in 2011. Taykey’s mission is to make advertising more effective on the social web. Taykey’s patent-pending technology harnesses deep insight into emerging trends and consumer conversations across various social media platforms to identify audiences’ real-time interests and predict online behavior, rendering previous targeting methods obsolete. Using real-time data and an innovative algorithm, Taykey helps advertisers deliver their messages to a steady flow of fresh, interested audiencess – resulting in more meaningful interactions and effective campaigns.
