Kansas City-based tech startup Stealth Data LLC is arming companies with a coveted asset — uncovering their anonymous website traffic to create valuable leads.
Its data mining technology can identify up to 50% of a website's anonymous traffic and deliver data such as individual names, phone numbers, emails and physical addresses. The insights also go deeper and can include a website visitor's job title, employer, annual income, age, and personal and professional social media profiles.
Chief Architect Till Paris, a co-founder who spearheaded the software's development, has 25 years of marketing experience. He founded California-based Dream Team Media, a full-service digital marketing agency that has worked with clients such as Cartoon Network, Sprint Corp. and the Marriott hotel chain.
The problem with sources like Google Analytics is the information is limited, Stealth Data co-founder Kevin Puckett said. It tells you how many people visited your site, how long they stayed and which pages they viewed. But it doesn't tie those visits with information like names and phone numbers, he said.
"They will tell you somebody visited your website, but you don't know if that's the CEO or the janitor, and of course, marketing and sales teams are highly interested in that information," Puckett said.
Paris described Stealth Marketing, which was founded in 2020, as the missing ingredient to the sales funnel that gives companies access to actionable data. Its customer base includes marketing agencies, chambers of commerce, insurance and real estate companies as well as financial advisers.
Stealth Data's third co-founder Chad Sneed experienced marketing frustrations firsthand through his family's dealership, Dennis Sneed Ford in Gower, Missouri. Sneed, who's a vice president and partner, said the dealership spends a significant amount on marketing, from search engines to third-party advertising. A bulk of the dealership's website visitors were anonymous, however, which meant it couldn't follow-up with visitors to try and close a sale. Sneed wanted to unlock that information and started talking to the dealership's outside marketing firm, Phame Influence, to see if it was possible. Puckett, who co-founded Phame with Paris, also is a trial lawyer.
"My lawyer hat instantly says no," Puckett said.
But after digging further, he discovered it's legal and that using the information for cold calling and emailing is fair game.
Sneed said he's not worried about data privacy concerns holding back the business's success.
"We have absolutely traded privacy for convenience," Sneed said. "People want a customized experience online. They already know that Facebook turns on your microphone, and they say they do it for speech-to-text, but really they do it to serve you customized ads."
Stealth Data's technology gleans information from sources like a person's website browser and then uses the unique data points to compile a visitor's profile. Its user-friendly dashboard organizes and categorizes leads as mild, warm or hot to help sales associates know which ones to contact first. The dashboard also includes aspects such as top visitors, top page visits and email stats. Through Stealth Data, companies also can schedule email marketing and direct mail campaigns.
"From an email marketing perspective, some of these lists can cost $50,000 to buy a decent email marketing list that isn't necessarily hypertargeted," Pucket said. "This finally gives business a chance to actually build a hypertargeted list."
