Sokrati introduces digital marketing service for SMBs

Digital marketing and analytics services provider Sokrati has introduced its paid digital marketing offering for small & medium businesses (SMBs). The service was in private beta since January this year and the company claims to have on board more than 35 advertisers. Prior to this, Sokrati was focusing on large companies.

Founded in 2009 by ex-Amazonians Ashish Mehta, Anubhav Sonthalia and Santosh Gannavarapu, Sokrati has various offerings in paid search, social and display networking and managing the digital marketing spends of brands. Pune-based Bogolik Software Solutions Pvt Ltd is the company behind Sokrati.

"We are excited to serve the burgeoning mid-sized and small businesses with performance-based commission model, the first of its kind in this industry," said Santosh Gannavarapu, co-founder and head of emerging business group at Sokrati. Focusing on the paid online channels like Google AdWords, Facebook Ads and remarketing, the company aims to help the SMB segment with a full-service model.

The addressable market in this segment is about 1 million businesses out of 50 million small & medium businesses in India overall, claimed an official statement. "The SMB fraternity is fast adapting to cost-effective and competitive technological solutions to leverage the power of digital advertising, compared to the conventional media. The opportunity is huge and we look forward to deliver value to our customers in this space," added Gannavarapu.

Sokrati says it improves performance by 40 per cent within six weeks, compared to other search marketing platforms and tools available in the industry. It also offers a free audit programme that will provide 'missed opportunities' and data on improvement factors on existing search campaigns.

The company claims to drive more than 12 million monthly visits to advertisers by managing over 100 million active ad entities on a real-time basis (this was in October last year and the numbers could have changed). It also boasts a clientele from e-commerce, travel and finance sectors across India and the US. Sokrati is backed by Inventus Capital from whom it raised  an undisclosed Series A funding in March 2011. Prior to that, the startup was bootstrapped by the founders.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)