Founded in May 2014, K Wizdom is hoping its integrated ad+platform offering will allow brands to better manage different marketing channels, specifically social media, to gain valuable consumer insights.

The Singapore-based startup taps artificial intelligence (AI) as well as tracks ad spend and performance metrics to deliver more robust targeting capabilities, according to K Wizdom CTO Sun Wenting. In this Q&A with ExchangeWire, Sun explains how the ad+platform aims to fill a dearth of tools to help marketers make sense of data from social media, while tapping the cost efficiencies of the cloud as a delivery model.

ExchangeWire: Why did you found K Wizdom, and what does your startup aim to achieve?

Sun Wenting: Our founding team comprises scientists and engineers who have always had the burning desire to turn data into actions that solve pressing problems. With the continuously increasing number of digital marketing channels, and the ever-growing amount of data, we found the digital marketing space perfect to apply the science and knowledge to that we had accumulated over the past decade. We work closely with businesses to provide affordable, scalable, effective, data-driven AI marketing solutions that are customised for each business.

How does your ad+platform work?

It integrates different digital marketing channels, including Facebook, email, and Google, under a single platform and leverages the power of AI to derive the best targeting settings. It also automates digital marketing execution across multiple platforms.

Sun Wenting

Our analytics is evidence- and fact-driven. We do not just analyse social media, and the noise with which it's associated, but also track the actual ad spend, and the entire set of performance metrics, to learn the patterns using AI.

Are your customers mostly based in Singapore? Do you have plans to expand beyond the city-state in the region and other markets?

Currently, yes, we do have plans to expand. The prime markets we are targeting are China and Southeast Asia. We will be seeking a funding round soon, and with those funds, we will be able to expand quickly to these regions.

What are your key objectives this year? And where do you see growth opportunities in the Singapore market?

Our key objectives are, first, to perfect our product and, second, to on-board more marketers who can use our system to enhance their marketing function. Companies in Singapore are moving away from traditional channels to adopt digital functions in their operations; and this huge digital disruption presents growth opportunities.

More corporations are starting to see the importance of digital marketing as a revenue generator, but do not have the necessary expertise to execute their plans. This is where ad+platform comes in.

What kind of challenges do you foresee facing, and how will you be looking to address these?

We foresee challenges from shortening the duration of on-boarding. Although there has been a strong emphasis on digital growth in the region, not every company knows how to adopt it. We hope to be able to refine our system to enable as much self-service as possible to ease the pain of lengthy adoption cycles.

Your platform runs entirely on Alibaba's cloud infrastructure. Why did you choose this delivery model and how would you address potential concerns your clients might have about running on a cloud platform?

This allows us to operate as a team across geographical borders and work closely with our potential clients in China. Cloud service is easy to use. It's on-demand and also enables self-service. It will significantly reduce the time needed for on-boarding and better support the fast pace of marketers.

Your solution currently focuses on social media marketing. Why did you choose to exclusively support campaigns in this space?

To be clear, we are not exclusively supporting social media and nothing else beyond that. We simply chose to begin with the social media space because it was the most widely adopted channel, but with few platforms able to make sense of the data and insights it can provide. We are working on, and adding on, new features to our system that will include other marketing channels, such as email marketing and ad exchange, in the future.

There's been much discussion about the emergence of walled gardens. How has this impacted your ability to collect and analyse data in Singapore?

We only collect data that we've been authorised to do so from our clients or partners. As such, walled gardens will have zero impact on our business going forward.

What are key challenges Singapore marketers and brands face today?

Most face an era of disruption, and a lot of them are struggling to keep up with changing consumer behaviours and buying patterns. The lack of support from top management, and absence of an agile team within companies, also have resulted in their inability to adapt to modern business.

Through ad+platform, we hope to help brands solve this by addressing the most difficult problem of all: using data to tell people what they don't know, what to do next, and how to do it.