ChannelSight signs ecommerce technology deal with Mondelez

Irish technology firm ChannelSight has signed a partnership with Mondelez International that will see the multinational company use its ecommerce technology to drive sales.

ChannelSight allows brands to add “buy it now” buttons to its product pages, social media video advertising and other online campaigns, linking to retailers that stock the products.

"What's cutting edge is what we've developed for after the customer clicks the buy-it-now button," said ChannelSight chief executive John Beckett. Customers are presented with a list of relevant retailers that stock the product. This list is compiled through ChannelSight's technology rather than partnerships struck with the retailers.

“It’s not reliant on feeds from the retailer,” he said.

The company has developed technology that crawls retailers’ sites, and even if they are using different information or a slightly different image from the brand’s official one, it will recognise the product and add it to the list.

Mr Beckett said conversion rates from advertisements can increase, while the retailer can also gain valuable data such as what ads drive the most interest and lead to sales.

Mondelez, which owns brands such as Cadbury and Oreo, has already piloted the technology in 20 markets with more than 100 retailers, and now plans to add the buy-it-now buttons to media platforms across 25 markets, linking to more than 130 retailers’ websites.

“As a global company, we’re looking at converting all our media investments into buying opportunities for consumers by driving ecommerce transactions at key retailers’ websites. This partnership is a crucial step . . . to help accelerate growth through ecommerce,” said Bonin Bough, chief media and ecommerce officer at Mondelez International. “By turning more of our branded content into buying opportunities for consumers, we’ll also continue to improve our return on investment and this will help fuel growth for our power brands.”

ChannelSight was established by Mr Beckett and chief technology officer Kieron Dundon in 2013 and has offices in Ireland, Greece and Romania. The company's account management team is based in Dublin, with its development team in Romania. Mr Beckett said this was primarily due to the availability of the talent needed to develop its products.

It is in the process of raising €3 million in funding, which will fund expansion. “We expect to extend our growth next year,” Mr Beckett said.

Despite the lack of a sales and marketing team, it has already worked with major brands such as Philips, Bosch-Siemens and P&G.