Starting in January, Google's Chrome browser will start phasing out third-party cookies – those digital tags that make an ad follow you from your phone to every tab you open on your laptop.
A software "Covid project" by Columbus digital marketing agency Futurety LLC is gaining traction as a potential replacement.
Huckle software subscriptions represent about $500,000 of Futurety’s projected $5 million in 2023 revenue, which itself is up from $3.2 million last year. That proportion is expected to expand or even flip.
"Huckle went from being a nice secondary product a lot of our clients liked, to suddenly having widespread interest," Futurety founder Bill Balderaz said. "It's growing very rapidly."
The software ingests lists of customer names and combs vast data sets to build online personas that can be used for more tailored email, Facebook, Google or other marketing campaigns, such as interests for Spanish-speaking moms in their 40s who own horses.
“Your marketing communication becomes really effective,” he said.
The 8-year-old company near Upper Arlington has grown to 22 employees. Healthcare represents about 80% of business, with clients including Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, according to its website. Futurety specializes in digital marketing for highly regulated industries, as well as consumer brands, such as Sbarro and Bob Evans, that depend on search engine optimization.
In 2020, as business was slowing everywhere, clients asked Futurety how to learn more about their existing customers. Unable to find an accurate and affordable offering on the market, the company designed its own tool, hiring contract developers overseas for the early version.
Balderaz’s then-8-year-old daughter kept writing her cat’s name on the whiteboard. So, Huckle it was.
“It does cause some confusion around the dinner table when we talk about Huckle,” he said.
The company is growing quickly through revenue alone without raising outside capital. Futurety this year made Columbus Business First's Fast 50 list of the fastest-growing private companies by revenue. And with Huckle as a differentiator, the parent business is winning larger accounts.
“The regulatory environment is helping us," Balderaz said.
Besides the cookie issue, new federal regulations require hospitals to mask patient IDs from Google analytics to comply with privacy laws.
“Any organization that touches healthcare data suddenly had to come up with a solution, and we were able to come up with a solution,” he said. “It’s been a very high-demand service for us.”
Automating what focus groups did in the past, Huckle combs various public records such as real estate transactions, vehicle registrations, marriage records, and access licensed data such as from survey firms, credit cards or retail loyalty card programs. The software’s job is to resolve a single identity from hundreds of sources, even if there are misspellings or an address change.
"It’s not about creeping on your audience," Balderaz said. "Huckle tosses out those who say 'never sell my data.'"
This year JumpStart Inc., the Cleveland venture development organization akin to Columbus' Rev1 Ventures, selected Futurety for its Preferred Partner Program offering discounted professional services. Toledo-based software developer WynHouse built the latest version of Huckle incorporating machine learning.
"We could not have developed the next version of Huckle if we were paying the list price to WynHouse," Balderaz said.
Futurety has a two-year head start on solving a looming industrywide problem, Chris Smith, the preferred partnerships director, said in a release.
"We recognized the opportunity to help accelerate the company’s impact and future growth," Smith said.
The latest version of the software, rolled out this fall, integrates directly with ad platforms, which wasn’t needed when cookies were available. It now gathers some 300 data points compared with an earlier version’s 35. Instead of pegging an interest of “sports,” it can specify hunting, basketball or running.
Early versions would hunt good matches for about 60% of names on a customer list, he said. Now it’s 95% or greater.
Huckle’s profile for Carrie Ghose, which Balderaz called up when asked, listed my correct age, address, work email and phone number. It identified that I’m white, married, with kids (even the age range of one). I own a single-family home that is occupied and lacks a working fireplace; English is my primary language; I don’t own a horse, motorcycle or boat; I’m very interested in cooking and current events, but don’t collect sports memorabilia; I donate to charities.
My married surname, which is Bengali, apparently tricked the software, as it incorrectly guessed my religion as “potentially” Hindu.
