Funding for Personalization, Globalization Raises GDPR Question

Amberly Dressler
by Amberly Dressler 27 Oct, 2017
Funding for Personalization, Globalization Raises GDPR Question
Earlier this year, Reflektion CMO Kurt Heinemann told us that consumers do not expect much from on-site search but this was quickly changing thanks to the use of content, photos and voice to improve user experience (interesting Q&A to read here).

It seems VCs want to be part of this change as Reflektion just announced an additional $12 million in funding to be used to continue improving upon its individualized solutions including site search, photo search and its behavioral/triggered emails as well as to continue its expansion into international markets particularly Europe, the Middle East and Africa (or EMEA), which already account for 10 percent of its total revenue. The funding was led by Hasso Plattner with participation from existing investors including Battery Ventures and Clear Ventures.

With Reflektion's use of analytics to fuel individual experiences (more on that below) and its continued expansion into EMEA markets, however, it begs the question of how Reflektion is addressing pending General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) alongside international growth. For companies working with European Union (EU) customer data, this should be a question asked of all vendors. 

Reflektion told us via email it is GDPR compliant with:
  • having servers in the EU that serve those clients,
  • data not being shared outside of the EU,
  • following their clients' applications of GDPR.
"In regards to leveraging data to create individual experiences, a strong part of what Reflektion does is respond to customers' intent in the session that they are in, understand their preferences and needs and make the product selection pivot around their interests in that session," said Heinemann. "Recency is the most powerful weighting element. Making a website respond to a shopper's intent during a session and narrowing the store to the most relevant items is leveraging customer data and aligns with GDPR."
Amberly Dressler
Amberly Dressler
Head of analyst relations, public relations, customer advocacy (People Heroes), customer community, content marketing (full funnel/lifecycle), content operations and optimization, reputation management and social media. Leads a team of nine superstars to exceed our goals multi-fold.