Thanks to the advent of the
OpenID standard, which allows Internet users' online identities to be verified by a third party, logging into sites like Spotify or Instagram with a Facebook account has become commonplace.
In Philadelphia, a marketing firm known as
Ajungo -- the name is derived from a Latin word meaning "to connect" -- is going a few steps further, trying to turn those logins into brick-and-mortar customers for clients. The company layers a simple advertisement for an enticing offer over a client's homepage: the website of a neighborhood pub might offer a free burger or drink, for instance. If a web user is willing to login with his Facebook credentials, the offer is his for the taking.
That same user's social data will later be crunched -- a process that leads to even more offers, but only for goods and services the Facebook profile indicates the user has a genuine interest in.
"What we've done is put email marketing on steroids, basically," says Ajungo's Mike Wham.
While it took Ajungo's IT team almost two years to build out the company's technology, they've only been actively selling the service since last June. Around 120 clients have already signed on, including
Tony Luke's and
Ladder Fifteen in Philadelphia.
Wham concedes that "there are [companies] doing elements of what we're doing," pointing to
Gigya and
Constant Contact as competitors of a sort. "We've combined certain things that are sort of semi-traditional," he says, "but with a much more exciting and useful way to look at email marketing."
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Mike Wham, Ajungo