Iterable Inc. today updated its cloud-based marketing platform with new features designed to help brands more easily deliver personalized offers to customers. 

San Francisco-based Iterable is backed by more than $340 million in funding from Silver Lake, Capital One Financial Corp. and other investors. The startup offers a marketing platform that enables brands to send promotions to consumers via email, SMS messaging and other channels. According to Iterable, its platform is used by more than 1,000 companies, including several publicly traded tech firms.

The update that Iterable introduced for its platform today includes a new set of SMS marketing features. Using the new features, a company can target its customers with text messages that contain personalized shopping offers. Iterable’s platform automates several of the steps involved in generating personalized offers and makes it possible to measure how an SMS campaign contributes to revenue.

Another new addition to Iterable’s platform is an artificial intelligence feature dubbed Channel Optimization. It automatically determines the marketing channels through which a promotion should be distributed to maximize its effectiveness. The feature will complement Iterable’s existing AI capabilities, which help marketers with tasks such as finding the best time of day to send product offers.

Channel Optimization is rolling out alongside a tool called In-Browser Messaging. Using the latter tool, a company can configure its website to display a marketing banner to visitors at opportune moments. According to Iterable, the banner can be used for tasks such as highlighting new product releases. 

“In today’s mobile-first world, the brands that succeed are the ones that invest in customer connection,” said Bela Stepanova, senior vice president of product at Iterable. “Leveraging Iterable’s latest mobile and cross-channel capabilities, marketers are able to deliver harmonized and personalized cross-channel campaigns that create lasting connections with their individual customers.”

Iterable enables marketers to create software workflows that automatically deliver personalized promotions to users when certain conditions are met. An online retailer, for example, could create a workflow that detects when users place an order and sends them a coupon to encourage repeat purchases. Marketers can specify how and when promotions should be sent using a drag-and-drop interface.

According to Iterable, marketers can now also specify when a promotion shouldn’t be sent thanks to a new feature called Journey Exit Rules. The feature will make it easier to ensure that consumers only receive relevant offers. 

In conjunction, Iterable has added a capability that tracks how the automated workflows a company uses to deliver promotions change over time. The capability makes it easier for marketers to revert a workflow to a previous version when campaign requirements change. 

Image: Iterable