Q: Tell us a little about Channel99 and how it got started.
Channel99’s mission is to provide B2B marketers and finance teams with a level playing field for measuring dollar efficiency and financial impact across all marketing channels. These include search, social, and display channels to PR, email, and many others. This way businesses can reduce dollar inefficiencies, lower customer acquisition cost, and more predictably exceed sales pipeline numbers.
But the idea for Channel99 has been baking since 2006. Then Chris had a business plan to build a marketing platform for B2B marketers that allowed them to measure all their vendors and channels in one place. This way, they could have tight control of the volume, quality, dollar efficiency, and pipeline impact of every dollar invested. But at that time, the market needed something else first. It needed to measure the quality of target accounts, which led to the birth of account-based marketing (ABM).
Heading into 2023, it’s now essential to look beyond ABM and understand the performance of vendors and channels driving traffic from a company’s TAM (total addressable market). But with only 15-20% of visitors to a B2B website coming from the TAM, marketers need to shift to opportunity-centric models and measure channels and vendors based on quality visits and the amount of pipeline influenced per dollar invested. Enter Channel99.
Q: What areas do you see Channel99 impacting the most?
Channel99 bridges the gap between marketing and finance, uniting the teams to improve the value of marketing investment. It’s time to bring a financial lens to marketing and align with finance on a common language to eliminate dollar inefficiencies, more predictably exceed sales pipeline goals, and understand the business outcomes of the choices made.
Q: Give us some background on Chris and how he has changed/is changing the face of marketing.
Chris is an award-winning and three-time software entrepreneur. He pioneered the account-based marketing (ABM) technology category while leading Demandbase. Demandbase is widely recognized as the industry’s first and leading provider of ABM. ABM has evolved into a staple in all B2B marketing strategies. This is especially true as businesses have shifted gears to focus on penetrating and winning high-value accounts through personalizing the buyer’s journey. Businesses do this by tailoring all communications, content, and campaigns to those specific accounts.
He’ll change the face of marketing again with Channel99. It’ll pioneer the next wave of B2B technology as companies move beyond ABM. In the coming years, we will see businesses strive to become more dollar efficient. They’ll do this by measuring channels and vendors based on quality visits and the amount of pipeline influenced per dollar invested. Also, just like Demandbase and ABM, we will be able to attach Chris’ vision to the next big technology category in B2B marketing.
Q: This project received seed funding from Jackson Square Ventures (JSV). How pivotal do you see their commitment in this new venture?
JSV is known for investing in early-stage SaaS and marketplace startups with bold plans to transform industries. But, the firm is also bullish on reinvesting in entrepreneurs with a proven ability to shape the market. As the largest shareholder in Demandbase, JSV’s decision to invest in Channel99 not only demonstrates its commitment based on the product offering alone, but also its firm conviction in the team. They’ve seen firsthand how Chris can establish, manage, scale, and lead a company to category ownership.
Q: How do you see Channel99 growing in the future?
Channel99 is starting with an innovative and free mobile app. It enables marketers to benchmark the performance of their digital channels against industry averages. Nearly 100 customers of various sizes and across industries — including F500 enterprises and mid-market companies in technology, manufacturing, retail and financial services — are already using Channel99’s mobile app to collect insights into which vendors and channels are driving quality traffic from their key accounts.
Early next year, Channel99 will release its full platform. The enterprise solution will integrate vendor spend and customer relationship management (CRM) data. This includes insights to maximize pipeline, eliminate wasted budget, and increase transparency into vendor and channel performance.
Q: What else would you like us to know?
The team at Channel99 has done it before and we are going to do it again.
