Dive Brief:

• On Wednesday, Autopilot announced the launch of Headsup, a new channel dedicated to bringing personalized messages to consumers in app and on websites.
• Headsup allows marketers to engage with consumers while they are actively engaging with apps and websites.
• According to Autopilot’s internal testing, Headsup is achieving a 41% response rate, a figure substantially higher than typical email clickthrough results.

Dive Insight:

With the buying journey for consumers has morphed in the last ten years, where consumers now have many touch points for getting to know a business, and are often already hyper-informed before they even make contact with the salesperson.

Headsup was created as a solution for marketers, allowing them to "send attractive, personalized messages to their audience where it matters most, in-app or on-site, within the context of the customer's buying journey,” Mike Sharkey, CEO and co-founder of Autopilot, told Marketing Dive. “The majority of the world’s marketers today are still using batch and blast email solutions or annoying pop-ups, both of which are turning customers off with their generic, interruption-based marketing.”

Sharkey added that Headsup, empowers marketers to “move towards more personal forms of communication with their customers and reach them in the places they want to be reached.”

In a statement, Autopilot reported Autopilot its study of 1,200 U.S. consumers, which found that consumers are four times as likely to respond to a company’s proactive outreach when it's personalized to them

This summer Autopilot raised $7 million in a second round of financing led by Salesforce ventures. Other investors in the round include One Capital, Blackbird Ventures, Garnett Ventures, Rembrandt Venture Partners, Southern Cross Venture Partners, and Tim Draper.