Dynamic Yield, A Tricksy Content Server, Raises $12.25 Million From Marker LLC

In an era where finely-tuned advertising efforts are on the rise and web organizations that don’t consist of underpaid college grads at Buzzfeed-esque puppy mills are waning, there is a movement afoot to create customized and A/B tested content at all times. That’s what Dynamic Yield hopes to do and they just raised another $12.25 million to do it.

Founded by Liad Agmon, formerly of Onigma and Delver, and Omri Mendellevich, the company was founded in 2011 and has raised $14 million so far from Bessemer Venture Partners, The New York Times, ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors. Things are going well. They’re talking to major news organizations (the NYT included) and are bringing their unique brand of customized “ad-server-esque” content modifications to the world.

“We are the only ‘ad server’ for content in the market,” said Agmon. “We use a lightweight installation JavaScript tag to help marketers and editors automatically optimize content, promotions and full-page template for revenue yield.” The service now powers three billion page views.

Agmon said that A/B testing has shown the importance of quantitative data in content creation. Instead of asking writers to change their headline slightly and hope for the best, the service sends the best headline or image to specific readers. “This is critical – if, for example, you have a 4th of July sale – it makes no sense to A/B test different offerings and arrive to the office after the weekend and see in retrospect what worked for you,” he said. “You want the optimization to take place in real-time.”

He said that the service allows IT focus to focus on managing the servers rather than writing wonky scripts to do headline and content test.

“The trigger of starting Dynamic Yield was the introduction of the paywall in the NY Times. We asked ourselves – ‘Why do they arbitrarily block access to the site after 20 page-views?’ What if I have a strong Twitter following, and every time I share an article, I actually drive a lot of traffic to their site? By delivering real value, shouldn’t I be treated a bit different than other users?” he said.

Perhaps, with a little work, the company can unlock the entire NYT for people with a high enough Yo score? A Yoer can dream.