Interview with Kelly Stewart, Growth Marketing Manager, Sampler
Welcome to MarTech Made In Canada – Qoints’ new writing series about uniquely Canadian MarTech startups.
We have curated a number of interviews with Canadian Marketing Technology startups, as they reveal the perks of growing in the Great White North. Stay tuned as we feature some thought leadership from the diverse MarTech companies Canada has to offer, and showcase the amazing products that they are building here!
Located in the heart of downtown Toronto’s startup community, Sampler provides brands with access to millions of consumer profiles through partnerships with high value online communities. Today they give us a sample of how they help companies create sustainable brand-consumer sampling relationships.
Briefly describe your company
Sampler’s product sampling management and insights platform helps brands distribute product samples to hyper-targeted audiences. There are two ways to work with us: Sampler can help brands create promotions that are integrated directly into their own marketing channels, or the Sampler Exchange helps brands distribute their offers across Sampler’s audience network.
How big is your team?
15 members
Why is your tech needed?
Prior to learning about Sampler, brands tend to use traditional sampling methods (like in-store sampling and direct mail) to spread the word about their product. Brands have been using the same product sampling strategies for decades and grew to believe that blindly distributing samples to non-targeted audiences was as efficient as sampling could get.
This is the perfect time for Sampler’s technology to flourish in the marketplace because we’ve created a solution to the pain points marketers have experienced for decades, like minimal ROI and a lack of targeting. Our publisher partnerships help brands target niche audiences, so brands can ensure their products are reaching their target consumers.
In 10 years, how will your company have changed the face of marketing?
Because product sampling has been such a traditional space for so long, Sampler is constantly working towards changing this piece of the marketing puzzle to a more digitally-savvy, turnkey process. No company is currently offering brands a targeted, end-to-end solution to manage their digital product sampling efforts.
Sampler’s technology is the first central database of product sampling activity for brands and publishers, and has collected over ¾ of a million deep consumer profiles since inception (using online communities including thekit.ca, Healthline, and Canadian Mother Resource). In 10 years, we hope that brands continue to see how valuable digital product sampling can be versus the traditional methods (direct mail, experiential marketing), and that Sampler becomes the go-to digital sampling tool for both enterprise and niche brands globally.
What is the biggest advantage of being based in Canada?
There are so many incredible advantages to being based in Canada, but I would have to say the top two are the booming startup community culture as well as the amazing talent. Canada has such a supportive and growing startup technology community that all help each other to push Canada’s technology notoriety even further.
With events, seminars, and mentorship constantly occurring all over the country, there is a real sense of camaraderie here. As for the amazing talent, there are so many incredibly talented individuals who really know their specialized fields inside and out. There’s no shortage of talent to be found here, which makes it easy to build a really strong team.
What was your biggest “win” this year?
A big win for Sampler this year was the launch of a second solution, known as the Sampler Exchange. The Sampler Exchange gives brands access to the audiences of major publications and online communities while helping these online publishers with large reach launch fully-branded sampling programs that their audience loves to join. Brands can now tap into niche audiences and reach high quality, targeted consumers. In the few months since the Sampler Exchange’s launch, we have secured partnerships with major publications like Prevention, The Bump and Healthline.
Qoints is excited to promote Canadian talent within our MarTech Made In Canada series, following the positive reaction to last year’s article. If you wish to share the story of your Canadian MarTech startup’s journey, reach out to [email protected] today! To find out more about Sampler’s ability to seamlessly put products into the hands of your target consumer, visit their website.