Mobile Marketing Magazine discusses targeting advertising without tracking, the importance of smart personalisation in apps, and serving content whilst securing personal data with Covatic CEO Nick Pinks.
Mobile Marketing: So what’s the story behind Covatic?
Nick Pinks: Covatic creates the tech, data and tools to drive targeted and engaging in-app experiences on mobile devices, while maintaining an absolute guarantee of user privacy. Using integrated proprietary technology within a host app, Covatic is able to target users with contextualised, timely messages, based on their known behaviours and preferences. This ensures that communication is impactful and effective, driving engagement, acquisition and retention
MM: How does Covatic help brands and advertisers better serve their customers?
NP: Covatic allows brands to analyse their customer’s daily routine and serve them personalised, targeted content without the need for login or tracking IDs. It does this with on-device machine learning, ensuring quality and keeping user data private. Covatic empowers media companies to deliver exceptional in-app experiences by identifying when, where and how each individual can engage with content – all without needing to expose personal data. Every piece of personal identifiable data is kept safe and secure, never needing to leave the user’s mobile device. Today Covatic’s innovative SDK can be found in apps on over a million devices in the UK, including those from KISS, Absolute Radio and Magic.
MM: What makes Covatic different from its competitors?
NP: We envision a future where media apps are smart enough to preload relevant content based on your day. Our insights allow you to build dynamic segments based on aggregated real-world user actions, including daily activities, commute patterns, points of interests and media consumption habits. With this new tangible data, content can be better targeted and tailored to suit your audience. Covatic allows brands to integrate the tools and tech into their apps that enable personalised, targeted messaging, informed by behavioural insights and data, but without tracking users, and while maintaining absolute privacy of personal data 
MM: What role do mobile devices and on-device AI play in Covatic’s product offering?
NP: Our solution is a mobile SDK for iOS and Android which builds a unique engagement schedule and profile for the user by learning and predicting an individual’s activities, behaviours and preferences. In the world of personalisation and audience insight, questions of privacy and security are inevitable. Privacy has been part of our design from day one. The SDK ensures that private information is processed securely on your user’s own devices, only releasing the needed information. By using data on devices, we can predict what tomorrows going to be like for consumers. If you understand what tomorrows going to be like for your audience, you can then serve the most content to them. If you make a journey of the same duration every day, it’s even possible to provide content that exactly matches the time available, so you can identify who is at risk of churning if they are not using their device at certain times.
MM: What does the future look like for Covatic and the wider digital industry?
NP: We are looking at expansion and planning to fundraise to capitalise on the momentum Covatic has managed to build over the past six months.
After a challenging year for both consumers and brands alike, many will be finding practical ways to adjust to their new reality. The pandemic has completely changed how consumers go about their daily routine, since many are now working remotely. This ‘new normal’ impacted every facet of people’s lives and how they consumed content. It also opened up a huge opportunity for Covatic to pursue other sectors and verticals, including sport, which are now showing the most traction and momentum. We suspect brands will be future-proofing after the events of last year and they need to find more innovative ways to target consumers when they are most engaged.
With our unique mobile SDK, brands can gain deeper insights into their consumers’ post-COVID schedules and habits to serve them relevant content at a time that suits them.
