Innovative Zero Party Data Software Platform prioritizing the needs of customers: Jebbit

Zero-party data is revolutionizing how businesses interact with their online customer base, creating strong shopper engagement, retention, and loyalty. The zero-party data trend represents a welcome move toward transparency and trust. Collecting zero-party data is essential for marketers as it will eliminate many issues. The data is collected freely and directly from the consumer. This helps to reduce the guesswork in customizing the customer experience. Zero-party data also helps brands to measure and build trust with their customers. Globally, there are various companies providing excellent zero-party data platforms, among them Jebbit stands out. Jebbit is the zero party data software platform that allows anyone from c-level executives to summer interns to be able to build fun and engaging quizzes and digital experiences in order to collect zero party data at scale.

Jebbit enables brands to stay ahead of general data protection regulation and legislation such as Apple's privacy guidelines; and easily launch marketing campaigns with enhanced personalized content. Jebbit is available for brands to start collecting data for free and with each paid tier comes more customization and integration capabilities so that your Jebbit experiences can feed directly into the rest of your tech stack. Jebbit's seamless integrations enable brands to not only gather quality data, but data that the customer intentionally offers, allowing brands to activate on data across their owned channels, email campaigns, social media platforms, and other forms of communication that provide real value to new customers.

In conversation with CEO of Jebbit, Tom Coburn

Q. What was the motivation behind starting Jebbit?

Jebbit started as an idea between myself and co-founder during our sophomore year at Boston College when we decided to participate in a business plan competition. The original idea formulated from helping brands ensure that consumers understood their advertising by creating consumer experiences where brands paid & consumers were rewarded per every question answered about the advertisement. In return, brands knew that consumers truly understood their messaging. After seeing some initial traction, what Jebbit has become today is rooted in the idea of asking consumer’s questions, or collecting zero party data, about their preferences and intents in order to better understand their needs, wants and desires. Over the course of Jebbit’s tenure how brands use the product to collect zero party data has continued to evolve through our 10 different experience types (quizzes, customer surveys, conversational pop up etc.), but it always has been grounded by the belief that in order to have successful marketing efforts, you need to leverage zero party data collection in order to understand who your customers are and what they care about. This has ultimately led us to be the leader in helping brands to collect zero party data: data that the company directly collects from a customer who is willingly and proactively sharing. This data can include purchase history, preference center data, behavioral data, demographic information, interests, personal context, and how the individual wants the brand to recognize her.

Q. How does data transparency between brands and consumer make marketing efforts more convenient and cost effective?

Brands that prioritize their customer’s wants, needs and desires and lean into the idea of customer preference centers will find themselves in a better position in the future. Buying signals show that the customer wants to feel like they are being listened to and taken care of and that is true for every part of the customer journey, from how their data is handled to product discovery. Brands that prioritize a personalized experience, and turn zero party data into meaningful data so that the customer feels as though their privacy and preferences matter will come out on top.

Q. The marketing segment is one of the most challenging to transform, because of the huge number of avenues and constant innovation, combined with the amount of highly sensitive, personalized information. How do your solutions address this concern?

An important north star that Jebbit has leaned into is the idea of a consumer first environment and providing genuine value exchanges. This has been something that has set us apart and allowed Jebbit and our customer base to grow and expand together. It also is about where the industry is going as a whole and Jebbit being in the right place at the right time to serve those needs. GDPR and CPRA Legislations have put a spotlight on the marketing and advertising industry. Now and as we move into a cookieless world, global industries will be forced to do the right thing by putting consumer privacy FIRST.  We are already seeing the effects and in the short time since both legislative rollouts:

• Apple made seismic changes to their iOS privacy features, impacting both the ad-platforms and the brands who advertise bottom lines.
• Google has put marketers and advertisers in further disarray with their announcements regarding nearly identical changes to their Android OS privacy features as well as the deprecation of the third party cookies.

As data security and privacy continues to be something that brands must address, those that set themselves up for success now by turning to a zero party data strategy are those that will end up seeing.

Tell us about your data management system and compliance.

We are incredibly proud that Jebbit is a SOC2 Type II compliant organization. This means that our platform and its underlying infrastructure have been assessed by an independent auditor and found to meet the highest standards for security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. In an effort to help organizations gain a competitive advantage with zero-party data, being SOC2 Type II compliant demonstrates our commitment to protecting our clients' sensitive and proprietary data. SOC2 Type II compliance is THE gold standard for data security, and we are proud that Jebbit meets its rigorous standards.

Q. What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful CEO?

Success is a mixture of a little bit of luck, a little bit of being in the right place at the right time and a whole lot of hard work. I think this formula is heavily influenced by:

• Taking advantage of opportunities that are put in front you
• Surrounding yourself with people who are smarter than you & masters at their craft
• Always having open lines of communication

Q. What do you think is the most memorable moment in your career?

In those early days, we were lucky enough to have some great mentors who we could turn to bounce ideas off. That meant that the challenges and pivots we were able to overcome were made possible by people who had more experience than us, being open and honest about the direction of the company. One example of an early on challenge was finding our first customers. This was definitely an on-the ground effort where we were literally going door to door to find people willing to sign up for our service. Me and my co-founders were constantly asking the question, “Do I really want to do this?” For me, the answer was always yes. I remember a moment where I was having lunch with one of the mentors we were working with and they would tell their founding story and how difficult it was to get the first customers in the door. It comforted me to know that there were some patterns in their founding stories that related to what I was experiencing in real time.

Q. Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

Jebbit’s platform is constantly evolving to the needs and demands of our customers and the market. We have a world class product team that is constantly working to make sure our product is best in class. Plus Jebbit is so much more than a quiz platform - you can launch 10 different experience types right off the bat, so there’s something for everyone.

Q. What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?

We are a venture backed business, so while I live and breathe Jebbit every day, it’s likely not a company that we will run for the next 40 years. Typically the path for venture backed businesses is either to IPO or sell the company to one of the big key players in the space.That said, we have a world class team and we are always trying to innovate and expand our offering. Couple that with the fact that our core product is in a lot of demand, so the focus for the next few years is really about scaling the business and on continuing to hit our goals each quarter.

Meet the Leader behind the success of Jebbit

Tom Coburn, CEO and Founder of Jebbit was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30. Jebbit has been named one of the Top 25 Most Promising Companies in the World by CNBC. Coburn also co-founded two nonprofits: The Enjoy Life Leadership Academy, focusing on youth leadership empowerment, and the Soaring Startup Circle, helping Boston College entrepreneurs launch their companies.

“Jebbit’s seamless integrations enable brands to not only gather quality data, but data that the customer intentionally offers, allowing brands to activate on data across their owned channels, email campaigns, social media platforms, and other forms of communication that provide real value to new customers.