Mr. Ellenberger is a seasoned technology executive with more than 25 years of experience in the software industry, having served as the CEO in multiple growth stage companies.  At 170 Systems, Inc., he grew revenues many fold via marquee customers such as Google, Starbucks, and Verizon, resulting in a successful acquisition by Kofax plc.  At DataSage Inc., he led a successful expansion strategy that resulted in a $600M acquisition by Vignette, Inc.

“Pursway’s leadership team has conceived and built a unique capability and product that is being validated by some of the most respected marketers in the world today,” said Mr. Ellenberger. “Every brand marketer dreams of harnessing the power of big data to boost their word-of-mouth marketing, and that’s what we deliver.  I look forward to working with the team to help many more customers realize those dreams.”

Pursway’s solutions enable leading global organizations in industries such as retail, financial services, hospitality and mobile communications to realize measurable 3-5x ROI improvements in key areas like customer acquisition, cross-selling, and churn prevention.  The Company has been recognized by Word of Mouth analyst firm Keller Fay as “…one example that illustrates that there are scalable methods for recognizing real-life social networks, cracking the code for how influence really works, and allowing companies to identify and reach such people in large numbers” (How Influence Works, Admap, Dec 2012).

With this appointment, Elery Pfeffer, founder of the Company, will become Chief Science Officer.  “This is an exciting time at Pursway, and we’re lucky to have found a great executive to help us build on the vision that my co-founders and I set out,” said Mr. Pfeffer.  “The industry is abuzz with the idea that Chief Marketing Officers are on track to outspend Chief Information Officers in the years to come, and we’re confident we can help ensure those dollars are most effectively used.”

Pursway’s patent-pending technology uses big data analytics and proprietary algorithms to help companies identify which individuals within their customer base truly influence the purchase decisions of others.  Just as a FICO score indicates an individual’s credit worthiness, Pursway’s PIVO score indicates the influence that individual has on others. Pursway provides different PIVO scores for different topics, reflecting the reality that an individual’s influence over others will vary for different products and services.  Companies can use that knowledge to target, market to, and communicate with their high influencers to drive increased revenue.

About Pursway

Pursway empowers consumer-facing organizations to close the gap between how they market and how people buy. The Pursway patent-pending technology enables companies to identify, measure, and impact how opinion leaders shape their followers’ purchasing decisions. Using Pursway’s big data analytical solutions, leading global organizations in industries like retail, financial services, and wireless communications are realizing significant improvement in the ROI of customer acquisition, cross-sell, and churn prevention efforts. For more information:  www.pursway.com

Ann Arbor, MI (PRWEB) June 15, 2012

Amplifinity, creator of AMP, the Advocate Management Platform, today announces that they have added Pursway to their growing list of partners. Amplifinity’s new Partnership Program is quickly assembling the leading innovators in Word of Mouth and Brand Advocacy marketing and combining their capabilities to create the world’s most powerful technology and services offering in the space. Pursway’s Big Data Influencer Marketing Management Solution enables organizations to identify customers who influence their friends’ and families’ purchasing behavior. Amplifinity will target these special customers with programs designed to generate new revenue, increase loyalty, and profitability.

“We found Amplifinity to be a perfect match for Pursway’s solution,” said Ran Shaul, EVP and co-founder of Pursway. “While Pursway identifies influencers who can drive new customer acquisition and increase sales, Amplifinity provides a complete solution for social enterprises to mobilize those influencers to drive sales and marketing initiatives both online and offline, and brand advocacy programs that enable companies to utilize these influencers’ power.”

Pursway uses their proprietary algorithms to integrate the power of influencer marketing with their clients’ CRMs. Amplifinity will provide a referral program with a full range of integration. Amplifinity’s platform creates a data set that provides clients with powerful information about who their advocates are, and what their social graph and reach is. Then, Amplifinity creates highly intuitive social programs that can be integrated with existing systems to reach customers and mobilize them.

“We found Amplifinity to be a perfect match for Pursway’s solution,” said Ran Shaul, EVP and co-founder of Pursway. “While Pursway identifies influencers who can drive new customer acquisition and increase sales, Amplifinity provides a complete solution for social enterprises to mobilize those influencers to drive sales and marketing initiatives both online and offline, and brand advocacy programs that enable companies to utilize these influencers’ power.” Pursway uses their proprietary algorithms to integrate the power of influencer marketing with their clients’ CRMs. Amplifinity will provide a referral program with a full range of integration. Amplifinity’s platform creates a data set that provides clients with powerful information about who their advocates are, and what their social graph and reach is. Then, Amplifinity creates highly intuitive social programs that can be integrated with existing systems to reach customers and mobilize them.

Dick Beedon, Founder and CEO of Amplifinity, said, “Pursway does important work for their clients. Their software consistently identifies and caters to a company’s influencers, and they have a significant impact on how these people affect purchasing decisions. Amplifinity’s technology mobilizes and monetizes those powerful networks. We have great synergy with Pursway and our partnership is going to boost our clients’ abilities to get ahead in the social space.”

About Amplifinity
Amplifinity is the Brand Advocacy pioneer and has consolidated the most effective Word of Mouth Marketing/Brand Advocacy methods into a powerful platform that allows companies to activate, nurture and grow their advocate base. Headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI, the company is backed by leading investors such as Early Stage Partners and RSVP Capital. Amplifinity is a proud member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). Information about Amplifinity can be found at http://www.amplifinity.com.
About Pursway
Pursway empowers consumer-facing organizations to close the gap between how they market and how people buy. The Pursway patent-pending technology enables companies to identify, measure, and impact how opinion leaders shape their followers’ purchasing decisions. Using Pursway’s big data analytical solutions, leading global organizations in telecommunications, retail, and financial services are realizing 5-10x improvement in the ROI of customer acquisition, cross-sell, and churn prevention efforts. http://www.pursway.com

BOSTON, MA (May 01, 2012) – Pursway, Ltd. announced today that Phillip J. Riese has joined the companys board of directors.

Phillip Riese is President of Riese & Others, his personal vehicle for investments made alongside a number of venture and private equity firms. He is the former President of American Express Consumer Cards Services Group, where he spent 18 years of his career developing, marketing and servicing charge and credit card products. He serves on the board of a number of privately held companies in the US, Europe and Asia. He holds a B.Com in Textile Engineering and Economics from the Unversity of Leeds in the UK, an MBA from the University of Cape Town and a SM from MIT in the US.

“We are excited to welcome Phillip to Pursways board,” said Elery Pfeffer, Chief Executive Officer of Pursway. “Few executives today have the experience and expertise, as evidenced by his years of success at some of the world’s largest financial services companies. Phillip’s contributions will be invaluable to the Company and its shareholders as we continue to expand the business in the financial services and other marketplaces”.

Direct marketing’s holy grail is to identify the few influencers in every crowd, focus the marketing effort on changing the behaviour of the few, and getting the few to influence and change the behaviours of the many. commented Riese. “Pursways analytics and technology had now done this for companies in financial services, telecommunications, retail and hospitality. In each case good marketing programs have become great and ROI has increased significantly.

Pursway empowers consumer-facing organizations to close the gap between how they market and how people buy. The Pursway patent-pending technology enables companies to identify, measure, and impact how opinion leaders shape their followers purchasing decisions. Using the Pursway solutions, leading global organizations in telecommunications, retail, and financial services are realizing 5-10x improvement in the ROI of customer acquisition, cross-sell, and churn prevention efforts. Pursway is led by a team with an innovative track record in consumer marketing, social network analytics, advanced algorithmic development, and big data.

After working with Pursway for a year on several marketing programs, Pursways software has consistently identified key influencers and their followers within our customer base said James Sartain, Vice President, Strategy & Analytics, MetroPCS. As a company that already enjoys strong word-of-mouth marketing, identifying and catering to an influencer customers specific level of interest in MetroPCS products and services provides additional leverage in our marketing programs to reach more potential customers.

Consumers today are influenced by the people they know as much as any marketing message. Pursways IMM solution enables organizations to identify customers that influence their friends and families purchase behavior.

We are excited to add MetroPCS to our growing list of marquee customers seeking to maximize the effectiveness of their marketing spend through influencer marketing, said Elery Pfeffer, CEO of Pursway. Identifying and managing influencers will enable MetroPCS to better fit their marketing communications to customers varying interests and levels of engagement, and as a result increase the return on investment on marketing campaigns.

About MetroPCS Communications, Inc.
Dallas-based MetroPCS Communications, Inc. is a provider of no annual contract, unlimited wireless communications service for a flat-rate. MetroPCS is the fifth largest facilities-based wireless carrier in the United States based on number of subscribers served. With Metro USA (SM), MetroPCS customers can use their service in areas throughout the United States covering a population of over 280 million people. As of December 31, 2011, MetroPCS had over 9.3 million subscribers. For more information please visit www.metropcs.com.

About Pursway
Pursway empowers consumer-facing organizations to close the gap between how they market and how people buy. The Pursway patent-pending technology enables companies to identify, measure, and impact how opinion leaders shape their followers purchasing decisions. Using Pursways big data analytical solutions, leading global organizations in telecommunications, retail, and financial services are realizing 5-10x improvement in the ROI of customer acquisition, cross-sell, and churn prevention efforts. www.pursway.com

London, United Kingdom (February 13th, 2012) Pursway, Ltd. announced today that it has formed a strategic sales and marketing alliance with Innect, Ltd., a full service consulting company focused on providing innovative marketing solutions in the European Union.

The alliance will see the two companies offer joint industry and vertical specific solutions for Customers implementing influencer marketing in the telecommunications, retail, and finance markets. Commenting on the partnerhsip, Ran Shaul, EVP solutions of Pursway said We are excited about working with Innect to maximize the return on investment that customers seek when implementing Pursways solutions. Innect provides a wide range of critical and highly specialized services and know-how that marketing organizations need to maximize outcomes of marketing efforts.

Pursways Influencer Marketing Management platform is geared to solve some of consumer facing organizations most difficult problems, such as the reduction of churn or an increase in acquistion. One of the unique capabilities and differentiators Pursway and Innect bring to the marketplace is a complete turnkey cloudbased big data solution for influencer marketing analytics with the marketing expertise and consultancy required to fully turn the technology into a sound business gain.

Our Customers receive a wide range of capabilities that empower them with Pursways technology to identify the most influential end-customers in their client databases. More importantly, it directly translates into a significant ROI by mastering influence phenomenon in marketing efforts, said Piotr Buszka, CEO of Innect.Our company is the first promotor of influencer marketing in Poland and we have already made very successful marketing campaigns with multifold increase in their effectiveness. We believe that influencer marketing answers two key challenges of todays marketing: the necessity to focus on consumer positive experience on one hand and quickly diminishing returns of traditional marketing communication on the other. Our experience together with Pursways technology frees the potential of influence today locked in Customers databases and turn it quickly into tangible and measurable financial results.

About Innect
Innect, based in Wrocaw, Poland, is a marketing consulting company specializing in delivering innovative and complex multi-domain projects to Customers in the telecommunications, finance, and retail in Europe. Innect is the first Polish company to offer a full range of services to enable companies to assess, design and deploy Influencer Marketing solutions. They specialize in all aspects of mass consumer marketing and CRM consulting. For more information please visit www.innect.eu.

About Pursway
Pursway empowers consumer-facing organizations to close the gap between how they market and how people buy. The Pursway patent-pending technology enables companies to identify, measure, and impact how opinion leaders shape their followers purchasing decisions. Using the Pursway solutions, leading global organizations in telecommunications, retail, and financial services are realizing 5-10x improvement in the ROI of customer acquisition, cross-sell, and churn prevention efforts. For more information see , please visit www.pursway.com

We are delighted to have Pursway join Tmura as a Donor company said Baruch Lipner Executive Director of Tmura. Pursways generous grant to Tmura is greatly appreciated and we hope will encourage other companies to consider their commitment to social responsibility as well.

Rather than cash donations, Tmura receives grants of stock from companies and uses the proceeds from successful “exits” to fund education and youth-related charities.

About Tmura

Tmura, a foundation with a unique business model, was established in 2002, and is supported by leading venture capital firms and philanthropic foundations which fund the organizations operating expenses. Promoting a unique model for philanthropy and a new standard for investments, Tmuras goal is to create a culture of giving within the high-tech sector by enabling companies to donate equity to support education and youth-related initiatives. For more information, please visit www.tmura.org

About Pursway

Pursway empowers consumer-facing organizations to close the gap between how they market and how people buy. The Pursway patent-pending technology enables companies to identify, measure, and impact how opinion leaders shape their followers purchasing decisions. Using the Pursway solutions, leading global organizations in telecommunications, retail, and financial services are realizing 5- 10x improvement in the ROI of customer acquisition, cross-sell, and churn prevention efforts. Pursway is led by a team with an innovative track record in consumer marketing,social network analytics, advanced algorithmic development, and large scale data mining. For more information, please visit www.pursway.com

We are very excited about this alliance, said Ran Shaul, Executive Vice President and co-Founder of Pursway to be able to offer the marketing expertise and consulting resources of the Keller Fay Group to customers in the U.S. and Europe will significantly enhance our value proposition in the marketplace. The alliance represents an important strategic move for Pursway as it continues to grow its influencer marketing ecosystem.

Social influence can no longer be ignored by companies, whether they be financial service providers, telco operators or retail marketers. The majority of consumers buy based on the conversation and recommendations of trusted friends, family members, and colleagues. Companies that are able to harness the power of the influencers and turn them into advocates for their brands can see a significant boost in the success of their marketing efforts, in the order of 5-10x compared to their return on marketing today.

Were excited by the opportunity to work with one of the true pioneers and technology leaders of influencer marketing said Ed Keller, CEO of the Keller Fay Group. This agreement opens the door to greater market penetration in our existing space, as well as attractive to new business opportunities in related areas.

The alliance is the latest in the companys growing ecosystem that enables the marketplace to quickly adopt Influencer Marketing Management as a core component to an organizations marketing strategy by providing rich and valuable insight into consumer behavior.

About The Keller Fay Group

The Keller Fay Group is the first full-service market research company focused exclusively on Word of Mouth (WOM) Marketing and offers a complete array of research and advisory services related to WOM and influencer marketing. The firms CEO, Ed Keller, is co-author of  The Influentials and has a forthcoming book with Brad Fay.  Launched in the US in 2006 and the UK in 2011, Keller Fays TalkTrack program is the only continuous study of WOM in all channels (online and offline) designed to closely monitor and measure the marketing relevant attributes of actual consumer conversations. For more information visit www.kellerfay.com

About Pursway

Pursway empowers consumer-facing organizations to close the gap between how they market and how people buy. The Pursway patent-pending technology enables companies to identify, measure, and impact how opinion leaders shape their followers purchasing decisions. Using the Pursway solutions, leading global organizations in telecommunications, retail, and financial services are realizing 5- 10x improvement in the ROI of customer acquisition, cross-sell, and churn prevention efforts. Pursway is led by a team with an innovative track record in consumer marketing,social network analytics, advanced algorithmic development, and large scale data mining. For more information, please visit www.pursway.com

In their session they will present a unique approach to give expression to the inherent real-world social networks that are locked-up within existing customer databases. Their approach is based on an in-depth statistical analysis that uses proprietary algorithms which look at a variety or parameters such as incidences of shopping together, geographical location and other factors. This analysis can infer with a very high accuracy the existance of social relationships between customers. The study to be presented is based on 300+ million consumer behaviors analyzed for a diverse set of major global companies and demonstrates the distinctive ability to identify and leverage market influencers. The annual summit is being held this year at the Cosmopolitan Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pursway’s session is on Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 2:30 PM.

WOMMA Summit 2011, word of mouth and social media conference, will teach the Best Practices and Next Practices for creating Talkable Brands.

Summit 2011 Will Teach:

• How to get customers talking about your brand
• Best practice advice from brands using social media
• New trends in word of mouth marketing
• Recent research findings and measurement methods

For More Information Contact Pursway, Ltd.

About Mr. Ran Shaul

Ran Shaul is co-founder and Executive Vice President of Pursway, Ltd. Mr. Shaul is a marketing and customer relationship management practitioner with vast experience around the world. Over the past decade, Mr. Shaul has led hundreds of projects for Fortune 500 companies in areas including market segmentation, social network analysis, customer profitability and lifetime value analysis, behavioral modeling, data mining, retention and communication strategies, customer advocacy, and campaign management. Mr. Shaul is one of the leading practitioners, thought leaders, and experts in Influence Marketing Management. As a co-founder of Pursway, Mr. Shaul has overall leadership of customer projects, laying out the strategy and overseeing the tactics for implementing influencer marketing initiatives at many of the largest global organizations. Mr. Shaul has a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Management from Tel Aviv University.

About Prof. Barak Libai

Barak Libai is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Recanati Graduate School of Business, Faculty of Management, Tel Aviv University. In 2006-2008 he was a Visiting Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has a Ph.D. in Marketing from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prof. Libais research deals much the economic value of customers word of mouth. Relevant
questions he examines include how customer lifetime value changes when word of mouth is taken into account, what the ROI of word of mouth programs is and how advertising effectiveness measurement should take social effects into account. His current work centers on integrating social network data with agent based models to explore the social value of customers. His research on the economic consequences of customers’ word of mouth have won prizes from the Journal of Service Research, The Marketing Science Institute, The American Marketing Association, the International Journal of Research in Marketing and ESOMAR. He teaches executive and MBA courses and consults on areas related to word of mouth marketing, customer relationship management and branding.

About WOMMA

WOMMA Summit 2011, the most premier word of mouth and social media conference, will show the Best Practices and Next Practices for the coming year. Case studies from leading brands and the most innovative marketers will be presented alongside top-level keynotes. Outside of the sessions, ample time is scheduled for attendees, most of whom are Director level or above, to network with each other.

About Pursway

Pursway empowers consumer-facing organizations to close the gap between how they market and how people buy. The Pursway patent-pending technology enables companies to identify, measure, and impact how opinion leaders shape their followers purchasing decisions. Using the Pursway solutions, leading global organizations in telecommunications, retail, and financial services are realizing 5- 10x improvement in the ROI of customer acquisition, cross-sell, and churn prevention efforts.

Pursway is led by a team with an innovative track record in consumer marketing,social network analytics, advanced algorithmic development, and large scale data mining.

‘No (wo)man is an island’ – the old saying goes. This is particularly true in a digital society. The Internet has not only transformed the way we interact but also the way we make purchasing decisions. Increasingly, consumers are collaborating to gain better collective bargaining power in retail. This phenomenon is known as collective buying decisions.

“Collective buying power is when a group of consumers come together and use the old rule of thumb, there’s power in numbers, to leverage the group size in exchange for discounts”
(Wikipedia).

Increasingly, consumers are collaborating to gain better collective bargaining power in retail. This phenomenon is known as collective buying decisions. The objective of this article is to discuss the rise of collective buying decisions an d its implications on retailers. A case study is presented at the end to illustrate how Influencer marketing enables B2C organisations to harness the power of social influence and leverage on this rising phenomenon of collective buying decisions.

The evolution of collective buying decisions

Historically, collective decision making was made primarily involving household members. Today, the Internet has enabled consumers to rely on each other as a trusted and credible source for decision making.

“The phenomenon where a group of web users collaborate via the internet to approach retailers together to negotiate a discount is known as Tuangou, ‘Swapping’ is where consumers barter goods and services, thereby eliminating the retailer altogether.”

The idea that anyone would reach out (effectively) to strangers and seek advice was difficult to imagine a decade ago vet online reviews are one of the key influences in today’s purchasing decision. The rise of the web 2.0 digital consumer society had caused a panic attack amongst retailers. Over the past couple of years, we have seen retailers across the spectrum (from global brands to ‘mom and pop’ shops) furiously drawing out social media strategies. Tactics include web trawling to monitor online feedback (including real time tweets), employing professional bloggers/online ambassadors to promote products and services as well as creating corporate or sponsored online communities. There have been many case studies to highlight the success of some of these aggressive social media strategies yet the ROI is debatable.

The Internet has not only enabled consumers to be heard individually, but also to collaborate and gain better bargaining power, The phenomenon where a group of web users collaborate via the internet to approach retailers together to negotiate a discount is known as Tuangou. A further extension of this approach is another growing phenomenon called ‘swapping’ where consumers barter goods and services, thereby eliminating the retailer altogether, Rachel Botsman discusses this phenomenon in a book she recently co-published, ‘What is Mine is Yours – The Rise of Collaborative Consumption’ (www.collaborativeconsumption.com).

Implications of collective bargaining power

“Influencers represent 5 to 10% of a typical consumer base. In the case of group buying decisions, targeting Influencers enables retailers to amplify the virality of the offer/promotion and attract a greater number of consumers.”

So what does the evolution mean and how does it change the value chain? One of the most notable cases is a website called Groupon which actually sees retailers benefiting from collective buying decisions. Consumers are required to collectively bid for discounted products and services. The business model is very lucrative as the consumer needs to earn (pay for) the right to bid and the retailer too has to pay a fee to promote its products and services. Groupon is reputed to be worth over $1billion dollars today.

Underlying Groupons success is a strong element of virality. This brings us back to the main premise of this article in that consumers are ultimately influenced by others. There are two types of influence that take place in a social network: outbound and inbound influence. The former is the influence created by an Influencer while the latter relates to peer/group pressure.

“The collective/group offer had a social component in it meaning the more friends you bring, the more your “tribe” enjoys.”

Pursways analysis of over 500 million subscriber records globally across retail, telco and finance has revealed that Influencers represent 5 to 10% of a typical consumer base. Our analysis also shows that there are different types of Influencers and varying viral speeds. In the case of group buying decisions, targeting Influencers enables retailers to amplify the virality of the offer/promotion and attract a greater number of consumers.

In a recent referral member-get-member (MGM) campaign which targeted Influencers, a retailer was able to attract two additional customers per one converted Influencer (through word of mouth). In a second attempt, the retailer combined Influencer targeting with a collective/group offer which proved to be more successful; each Influencer convincing four other customers to subscribe to the offer. The collective/group offer had a social component in it meaning the more friends you bring, the more your “tribe” enjoys.

In the case study below, the top half shows the collective/group offer resulting in a factor of 2 (from 2 to 4 new customers) in terms of referral impact.

The lower half of the diagram shows the same campaign approach based on a BAU (Business as Usual) selection and although BAU referrals were not as strong as targeting Influencers, the collective/group offer still managed to amplify the referral effect by a factor of 1.6.

The success of such campaigns can be further improved through inbound influence i.e. peer pressure. By leveraging on the dynamic power of social networks and understanding the nature of collective buying decisions, we have helped companies improve marketing effectiveness by 3 to 5 times. To learn more about our solution, please visit our websitewww.pursway.com or contact Info@pursway.com.