Email marketing outfit GetResponse acquires Recostream, an AI-driven personal recommendation engine

News has emerged that Gdansk, Poland-based e-mail marketing company GetResponse just acquired an AI product recommendations startup called Recostream, also based in Poland.

This all Poland, CEE tie-up comes ahead of an another acquisition in e-commerce customer experience due to be announced later today.

Software functionality like product search and recommendations help e-commerce customers stay engaged for longer. Research published by Bain & Company shows how convincing them to stick around can impact a company's bottom line. In financial services, for instance, profit typically rises by a quarter, the study says, in response to a 5% boost in customer retention.

Founded three years ago, Wrocław-HQed Recostream says its "advanced" AI/machine learning software integrates successfully with every "popular" e-commerce platform on the market. It says 7% of "clicked" product flags created by its software lead to the customer making a purchase.

Recostream is the first acquisition deal for GetResponse, which was set up as a bootstrapped venture with minimal external cash and is tied to a $50 million annual recurring turnover.  The GetResponse e-commerce marketing platform launched earlier this year (the company's been around since 1997) with features including promo codes, e-commerce forms and "quick transactional" marketing e-mails.

The incoming software is set to expand the product offer for GetResponse's email marketing customer base, who will be able to integrate personalised product and content tips based on AI-driven analyses of their web traffic. Recostream product flags will be embeddable in marketing email bulletins from GetResponse as well as directly on the client's e-commerce channel.

Simon Grabowski, founder and CEO of GetResponse, says e-commerce sales have skyrocketed again this year.

"In 2022 alone ecommerce sales will reach almost 6 trillion US dollars," Grabowski said.

"If you run a business that's looking to tap into that market, you must ensure a tailored shopping experience for your website visitors. Right now, there's no other personalisation solution that could have a bigger impact on ecommerce sales than product recommendations."

Recostream's chief technology officer Arkadiusz Drysch explained the biggest drivers behind the creation of its software.

Drysch said: "We had a big dream: to build a state-of-the-art, real-time recommendation engine available to ecommerce sites of any size.

"The key features: blazing fast integration with any ecommerce platform, advanced recommendation models and transparent analytics are still unbeatable amongst our competitors."

Michael Glomba, Recostream co-founder and CEO, added: "I am incredibly proud of what we have built at Recostream over the last 3 years. Behavioural, data-driven insights leading to highly personalized recommendations and communication are the key components of next-gen ecommerce.

"This acquisition is just the beginning of a fantastic journey for Recostream and our clients within GetResponse ambitious roadmap."