Todd Greer heads SpotRight, a consumer insights and analytics company based in Little Rock and Boulder. He previously spent 15 years at Acxiom Corp., serving as SVP responsible for its global data line of business, which represented almost one-third of Acxiom’s $1 billion-plus annual revenue.
Before joining Acxiom, Todd practiced law at Friday Eldredge & Clark, specializing in commercial law and business transactions in the technology industry.
Greer graduated from the University of Mississippi with a Bachelor of Science in computer science and an MBA and from the Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with a Juris Doctor.
SpotRight completed a Series A financing round in 2015 and raised more than $6 million.
Please explain in layperson’s terms what SpotRight does.
SpotRight makes it fast and easy for large national consumer brands to understand people and turn them into customers. Using our web-based application called PersonaBuilder, our clients can understand and discover unique groupings of people who might buy their products (i.e., buyer personas), which will be used to drive their marketing strategies and campaigns. Our application is powered by information on people, such as social connections, media consumption, preferences, interests, purchases and demographic characteristics.
How does SpotRight make its money?
We make money in two ways: 1) we sell subscriptions to our PersonaBuilder application to marketing planning teams, and 2) we license our data-to-data analysts and marketing engagement teams.
How does information gathered from social media differ from that gathered through other means?
Information from social media is immediately available, gives insight into attitudes, behaviors and connections, and is contextual and dynamic. Conversely, consumer information that comes from myriad other sources (e.g., surveys, government censuses, data aggregators, public records) has great descriptive qualities and provides another view into attitudes and behaviors, but often takes a long time to compile and then make available to marketers.
It is the combination of social media data and these other trusted consumer-data sources that creates a deeper and richer dataset. In fact, the source of the data is less important than its usefulness, and ultimately we focus on bringing data together that is highly predictive for marketers.
You have an interesting resume, starting out as a software developer, moving into the law and then leaving law for the tech sector. What led you to your current job?
The path from A to B in life is rarely a straight shot, for sure, but my trek from Acxiom to SpotRight was a logical one. After 15 years at Acxiom, I knew I wanted to build a great technology company in Arkansas with the same caliber of people. With the advice, encouragement and support of an amazing network of mentors, family and friends, we devised a plan to raise capital, acquire the assets of a cutting-edge Boulder-based technology company, move the headquarters to Little Rock while maintaining a Boulder presence, and build an exciting business. We raised over $6 million, completed the transaction, hired world-class talent and are in the second year of executing on our business plan.