Every experienced marketer has worked with a range of email automation platforms — from the simple to the seemingly advanced.
Most of these email marketing platforms can send emails according to pre-programmed schedules. Some can even adapt campaigns around customers’ responses — and help you sort your subscribers into segments, which can each be targeted with more focused campaigns.
But none of those tools can tell you when a specific customer will respond to a new product category, or when they’ll buy at full price — or which series of purchases will guide them organically toward moments of discovery in new product categories.
These might sound like magical abilities — and in a way, they are. In fact, they’re precisely the abilities built into the brand-new mathematical modeling system that Coherent Path has just patented.
Retailers who’ve plugged their existing marketing tools into Coherent Path’s system have already realized revenue lifts of more than 28 percent, and order lifts of more than 30 percent — over the course of just a single campaign.
To see why, let’s take a closer look at what makes Coherent Path’s newly patented technology so unique — and how our uniqueness translates to turbo-charged ROI for retailers.
Marketing tools can only be as intelligent as the models they use.
Today, just about every email marketing platform claims to be “intelligent,” because (of course) it’s “driven by data” and “powered by machine learning.” But when we cut through all the sciencey-sounding buzzwords, what do these claims actually mean?
What the developers of these platforms are saying, basically, is that their software “learns” from customer interactions — using data from many touchpoints to build mathematical models of customer segments. The software then uses these models to predict which content to send to which segments, at which times.
But even the smartest software is limited by the resolution of its learning model — especially by how that model adapts to sudden changes in customer behavior.
Just as an old analog TV set shows you a lot less detail than a modern 4K plasma-screen, many of today’s marketing platforms limit you to looking at customer segments, rather than giving you clear optics on each customer’s unique journey.
And while that level of resolution might be great for reinforcing customers’ existing taste within semi-static boxes, the problem is that customers’ lives and tastes rarely stay static for long.
In fact, yesterday’s platforms really show their limitations at the moments when your customers’ journeys suddenly take a sharp turn.
For example, how does your software respond when “Maggie the Millennial” buys a house and develops a sudden interest in home decor — or when “Craig the CTO” suddenly retires, moves to Montana, and takes up fly fishing full-time?
Most likely, the software keeps recommending products similar to the ones that customer purchased in the past. Or maybe it whirls through rules-based recommendations like your most popular products, or tries to move overstocked inventory. What it doesn’t do — and, in fact, can’t do — is make accurate predictions about what those customers want now.
That’s because — you guessed it — the platform is limited by the resolution of its mathematical model. To get a clear picture of your customers’ evolving tastes and aspirations, you’ve got to move beyond segmentation, and enter the world of predictive individualized modeling.
An adaptive learning model creates magical moments of discovery.
The core of Coherent Path’s platform is a revolutionary mathematical modeling approach known as “hyperbolic geometry.” Developed by Dartmouth PhD mathematician Greg Leibon, this newly patented system creates a “canvas” of a retailer’s product space — then paints an ever-adapting journey for every customer.
What this means, in practical terms, is that Coherent Path builds a unique mathematical model of each of your customers’ tastes — which turns every change of direction into a brand-new opportunity.
Take, for example, the moment when “Craig the CTO” suddenly retires and takes up fly fishing. In that critical moment, conventional marketing software is limited by the customer segment it’s constructed — the box into which it’s sorted Craig. When he departs from that box, the old software has no idea which products to show him, until he starts behaving like the customers in some other predefined box.
Coherent Path’s patented model, on the other hand, never puts Craig in a box at all. From the moment you begin interacting with him, it recognizes him as a unique individual with ever-evolving tastes and aspirations — and when his interests begin to shift across the mathematical canvas, our software recognizes where he’s heading, and surprises him with product recommendations that feel as meaningful as gifts from a trusted friend.
What’s more, Coherent Path’s model can even shape Craig’s unique journey according to your business goals — helping him discover new products that guide him gently toward your highest-value categories.
In short, instead of just reinforcing what you know Craig already likes, Coherent Path’s model helps him discover new products he hasn’t even known to ask for yet — building lifetime value through an endless series of magically connective moments.
And while this might sound like a vast and complex toolkit, the truth is that Coherent Path’s mathematical canvas plugs directly into almost any ESP. That means you can keep using the exact same marketing workflows your team already knows and loves — while tapping into unprecedented clarity and connection with every one of your customers.
That’s a quantum leap forward in email marketing technology, from every possible perspective.
Want to learn more? Check out this short video on how Coherent Path constructs unique personalized journeys for every subscriber and request an invite to an upcoming Peer Forum where you’ll hear about Greg Leibon’s latest research on how to reduce email promotions.