| Sojern | |
| Type: | Private |
| Founder: | Gordon Whitten |
| Area Served: | Worldwide |
| Key People: | Mark Rabe (CEO) Aman Kothari (CFO) Noreen Henry (Chief Revenue Officer) Kurt Weinsheimer (Chief Solutions Officer) Preeya Patel (Chief People Officer) Paul Huie (SVP and General Counsel) John Moragne, Trident Capital, Board Director Ellen Keszler, Clear Sky Associates, Board Director Woody Marshall, TCV, Board Director |
| Industry: | Travel/Data Advertising |
| Num Employees: | 300+ |
| Subsid: | Adphorus, VenueLytics |
| Foundation: | Omaha, NE, |
| Location City: | San Francisco, CA |
Sojern is a marketing company specializing in services for the travel industry. It utilizes programmatic advertising and machine learning to assist travel businesses in identifying and targeting potential customers across various digital media channels.
The company partners with a range of travel entities, including hotels and destination marketing organizations (DMOs). By enhancing first-party data, Sojern helps these partners to identify and reach their target audiences. This process involves building custom audiences and deploying tailored campaigns aimed at increasing brand awareness and driving direct bookings.
In addition to its marketing services, Sojern provides tools for improving the guest experience. These include AI-enabled concierge technology and reputation management solutions, which help hoteliers engage with guests throughout their stay, fostering long-term relationships and brand loyalty.
Sojern operates globally, serving clients across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific. It has offices in cities such as San Francisco, Dubai, Dublin, London, Mexico City, Omaha, Paris, and Singapore.
From 2013 to 2018, Sojern was recognized by Deloitte as one of the Technology Fast 500 fastest-growing companies, reflecting its growth and influence in the travel marketing sector.
Sojern was founded in 2007 by Gordon Whitten in Omaha, Nebraska. In April 2011, Yahoo! veteran Mark Rabe succeeded Whitten as CEO.
Sojern began as a boarding pass advertising company and was awarded U.S. Patent 8,131,502 for “providing customized or personalized content, relevant and timely messages and targeted advertising to travelers based on their destination and dates of travel.”
In 2011, Sojern released its media platform, the Sojern Traveler Platform (STP), now known as the Sojern Travel Marketing Platform, which utilizes billions of traveler data from the Sojern Traveler Ecosystem(™) to help travel marketers identify and market to their ideal travelers. In 2023, the company launched its guest experience solutions to give marketers additional AI-enabled tools to interact with guests and maximize revenue pre-, during-, and post-stay.
The company launched its first international office in London in 2013 and expanded to Mexico City, Dubai and Singapore in 2015.
The company made its first acquisition in November 2017 when it purchased Facebook and Instagram marketing partner Adphorus, an Istanbul-based advertising tech startup, for an undisclosed amount. The company made its second acquisition in July 2023 when it acquired VenueLytics, an AI-Driven Customer Analytics & Contactless Guest Engagement platform for venues such as hotels, casinos, live events and resorts.
The Sojern Traveler Platform collects data on travelers' online search and booking behavior (travel intent data) and uses this information to place targeted ads in front of travelers while they are shopping for travel products. Specifically, the company supports travel marketers with advertising solutions across display, native, mobile, video, search engine marketing (SEM), metasearch, connected TV (CTV), Facebook and Instagram, Sojern uses its traveler intent data in addition to machine learning targeting and bidding algorithms to reach travelers with personalized offers.
The Sojern portfolio of guest experience solutions offers an AI Concierge, Reputation Manager, and Guest Marketing Suite created for hotel marketers. Using these tools, they can automate answers to guest questions and escalate requests to in-person staff, understand in-stay feedback to prevent negative reviews, and email or text compelling offers to increase ancillary revenue.
Sojern collects and uses pseudonymous, non-personally identifiable information. In order to identify what information and offers a site visitor might be interested in, pseudonymous identifiers record which pages a site visitor has browsed or which products were purchased on partners’ websites.
In addition to using data to advertise to travelers, Sojern also provides reports and insights on global travel trends. Their travel trends reports have been cited by several sites including HuffPost, USA Today, Fortune and Forbes.
With more than $40 million raised, Sojern ranked #14 on travel news website Skift’s “Top 31 Most Heavily Venture-Funded Startups in Travel.” Sojern received $16 million in Series A round funding in 2008, $10 million and then $7.5 million in Series B in 2013, and secured a Series C funding round of $10 million in 2014. The company’s investors include Industry Ventures, Focus Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital, and Triangle Peak Partners.
In 2016, Sojern announced they hit the $100 million annual revenue run rate threshold.