Latest / The Tech Matchmaker / Vintel AI: Real-Time Intent Data That Beats Static Lists
Transcript
- speaker-0: Good morning everybody. Today we're chatting with Ulysses Alvarado, the founder and CEO of Vintel AI. Ulysses, welcome to the podcast. We're we're grateful to have you here because the context in our advertising worlds don't often collide like this. And I'm really excited to share what you do ⁓ with our audience because it's definitely something different than we we normally talk about on here. So why don't we start with the basics and why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? speaker-1: No, absolutely. So my name is Ulysses Alvarado, CEO of Vintel AI. And what Vintel AI is, and just ⁓ an elevator pitch, if you will, is a real-time high-intent ⁓ consumer intelligence platform. We provide data ⁓ to any type of industry that's looking for leads or looking for a way to lower their cost per acquisition and increase their revenue by targeting people that are specifically looking for the product and service in the last 48 hours, seven days, or 10 days. speaker-0: Now, you didn't come from a traditional tech background, I think. You built Vintel A of a marketing and media career spanning over a couple of decades. So with that unconventional path, what did that give you ⁓ from an insight perspective that a typical founder might not have had? speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. So my background, just so you know, is ⁓ as you said, is marketing. But my first ⁓ gig out of college was IBM. ⁓ so because of IBM, the technology and the curiosity of being a tech person ⁓ started there. ⁓ I started working with a lot of ⁓ software engineers, ⁓ and a lot of ⁓ CTOs. And from there, ⁓ I took a route in going to marketing in general, and that was ⁓ traditional marketing. And and then I I opened my own ⁓ ad agency. And that journey, what I realized is that data is so key. A lot of our ⁓ clients were just getting frustrated with ⁓ just the digital platforms and the algorithms that keep continues changing every three to four months. ⁓ and just getting old lists ⁓ that are two or five years old and and and co-calling or just trying to send direct mail and realizing that list was two or two to five years old and and probably sold five times. For that reason, we started and investigating and we started figuring out ways and how to get accurate data to our clients. And that's how Vintel AI ⁓ you know, if you will, ⁓ was born is the curiosity how we can help our clients and how we can improve their CPAs and increase revenue. And that's why Vintel AA now exists. speaker-0: And I love that. And you you mentioned it a little bit about the behavioral. So monitoring over, I think it's sixty billion behavioral signals or something like that. And eighty million URLs are those the correct numbers, I think, like every second to identify ⁓ what people are searching. And I think everybody here and everybody listening can ⁓ relate to the ⁓ having a conversation in the house with your friends or your spouse or out and the next day you're getting targeted or Not even the next day. You're getting targeted marketing. speaker-1: Exactly. ⁓ speaker-0: So talk to me about how Vintel AI is different. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean so what you're just talking about, it it it just happens, you know, constantly and I think it's the norm now. If you have ⁓ you know, an echo, if you have any type of Android or Apple phone, anytime you talk to someone ⁓ about the new iPhone that's coming out in September, well I I probably in thirty seconds I'm gonna get I'm gonna get an ad right now. ⁓ and it's because they're listening and we're not that intrusive. So we're you know what How it works, just so you guys know, and the difference is that we're not listening and we're not following. So don't be scared. It's it's not that we're compliant. And how it works is that there's three parts. So I'm sure all the audiences out there have traveled one time in their lifetime in the last, you know, 20, 30 years. Well, if you have downloaded ⁓ free Wi-Fi ⁓ at LAX Airport or Atlanta or New York or Washington. You have now entered into the ecosystem of the identity graph. ⁓ you just entered where you're ⁓ legally have given them permission to share your information to a third party. ⁓ that third party can be ⁓ you know ad networks, ⁓ it can be ad technology companies like us, and that allows us to actually look at behaviors. Now we're not following you. What happens is that that person needs to at least look at pricing, look at ⁓ testimonials, and our AI then goes in after we're getting signal from our partners, which is what you mentioned, 80 million websites. Those are our partners. So they signal us that hey, they're you know, they're they're looking at ⁓ pricing and they're looking at this. So we go in anonymously, which is you know really important to know, because we go in there just identifying the IP address and device name. And that's all we know about. That person. We don't know their full name. We don't know any of that. If we believe that person is truly high intent and really goes through the 30-point checklist our AI goes through, then we match it to an identity graph. And that's when we then say, okay, this person, Gina, is looking for furniture. ⁓ or and you know, looking, or the CEO of this company is looking for ⁓ you know, a software for our contact center. Then we could provide that person's. full identity graph that includes their name, all of their demographics, ⁓ their a you know, address, where they work, their personal email, their business email, ⁓ even company information. And and that information is then so key for companies to now target that specific person in myriad of ways. ⁓ and our clients are just having great success in lowering their CPAs and increasing revenue due to the data that we're providing them. So we're different just to just we're different because we're not following and we're not listening. And everything's compliant. Right. Yeah. So yeah, yeah. So not that, you know, Amazon and Google is not compliant. I'm sure they're, you know, they're compliant. But it's kind of scary when they're listening. speaker-0: Absolutely. Absolutely. So who is your ideal customer? Like how can you help those people? Mm the majority of our audience listening today is in the contact center industry and and I know one of my customers is is using you and they're very fresh in their in their list and I think they're three or four days in and already have confirmed the accuracy of the data that you're providing them. They're doing a cold outreach program. ⁓ they used to use a very popular one that all of us are are LinkedIn on and ⁓ they use that and they're saying that the the accuracy of the contact information is far greater. They're getting a higher contact rate and I believe they've already resulted in higher bookings in three days than they had had using the previous in in like two to two weeks to a month is what they're seeing in three days. So I know they're a software company, but who what is your ICP? speaker-1: Yeah, the ideal customer profile really is vast. It's huge. And here's the reason. Just think about this. Because we we have ⁓ taught AI to go through over 80 million websites. Now it's going towards a hundred million websites out of the 145. So i every single website's different industry, right? So it could be B2B, B2C. And for that reason, we're able to serve every single type of industry. If it's B2B or B2C. So there's, you know, ideal customer profile is really anyone that's looking to lower their CPA and increase their revenue, who's looking for accurate leads, right? Who's looking for intent instead of ⁓ static or old or predictive ⁓ predictive ⁓ data, we're real time high intent. We're giving you the person specifically that's searching for that. There's other platforms that we all know. That are in a credit system because and they tell you, hey, this company is looking for ⁓ a service that you're you're providing or product that you're providing. ⁓ and here's the employee list. Good luck to you. we're not doing that. We're actually telling you specifically the VP, the CEOs, the directors, if you're doing B2B, this is the person that's looking. And this that's the reason. That your client, and thank you so much for referring them to us, is having success because we're specifically informing them this person is having intent, has intent to purchase your service that you provide. Right. So ⁓ and then B2C is obviously, you know, if someone's looking for furniture or looking for roofing, looking for solar, ⁓ we can provide that specific household of that specific person that's looking. So again, for that reason, ⁓ our clients are having great success. again lowering their CPAs and increasing revenue. speaker-0: And how do you help a brand like what does onboarding look like? How do you help them kind of figure out where to start and and I mean I have a look there there's so many different categories out there, right? So how do you help them kind of figure out where to begin? speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. That's probably the ⁓ the top five question is like, this sounds great. How do I use it? speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. speaker-1: What's best practices? Yeah. So thank God our clients have our great clients and they give us feedback to give new onboarding clients feedback. So how the onboarding goes is that depending if you're B2B, B2C, we share all the ⁓ key factors and best practices that our clients have given us. So for example, on a B2B. You know, how to use data, what's you know, what are what's the most common practice is that you want to use it in three ⁓ three to four ways. One is before you contact or do a cold call is ⁓ you could do email marketing from a third party, not not just on your own, because you don't want to bring your URL. So you want to warm that up, make sure that that email goes out and it gets open. So that when you call, you know who they know who you are. So the first is email marking. Second could possibly potentially be text messaging, so certified text messaging. And then third would be ⁓ potentially digital marketing. So it would be LinkedIn, Facebook, or now ⁓ transparently, all those have different policies, right? ⁓ they all want different types of data. ⁓ so you gotta you gotta figure out your risk assessment. But our comp our clients are usually utilizing all platforms. ⁓ and That's on you know, that's really their their decision. And then the fourth is then when you then you do the call. And the reason why that it's important to do that process is because even though they have intent, Gina, you and I probably ha get calls all the time from numbers that we don't know, right? And even when we answer, it'll be very strange for someone to say, Hey Gina, I understand that you're looking for a sofa. Yeah. speaker-0: Little creepy, yeah. Absolutely. speaker-1: Didn't you get defense? Off the bat, and you're gonna say no, absolutely not. I did not, you know you did, but say no because you're freaking out. How does this person know? So you want to warm that up, and that's really key. I mean, and we found that out very quickly from you know a couple of our clients, and and and we chose a couple of clients before we launched this because they're very you know flexible and they're you know they're ⁓ you know they don't take they don't take no for an answer. So ⁓ they want to make this work. So they that was the feedback that we got. Is like, you know what, maybe we should warm up before we say, we know that you're looking for this. so that was the success. And then BUC is a very, very similar. You, you know, you you, you know, especially with the laws out there, you want to focus on on opt-ins and and and before that you make a call. So you you, you know, you could do text messaging, you could do email marketing, and again, you could do ⁓ of you know meta and and google that's on your risk your own risk assessment and and the risk assessment is very simple is that you know the Google and and Meta ⁓ they do want first party ⁓ data we provide first party data but once you guys buy it it is third party data and then the risk assessment is up to the company you know ⁓ the the clients that we have currently are using all digital platform ⁓ and and they did their own risk assessment and they're having great success, right? So it's totally up you know per client. But ⁓ At the end of day, it it's really important to use the data correctly. And then even with the digital platform B to C, you need to know how to do the how to implement it. ⁓ because if you don't, it will not work. And and that's something that we would ⁓ provide as part of the onboarding. speaker-0: Excellent. And now building a company in the AI space right now means the landscape is shifting like nonstop, right? So as a CEO, Ulysses, how do you stay focused on what you're building when the market is constantly moving? Like how are you adopting the platform on a continuous basis? speaker-1: Yeah, so that's when you bring a team. Right. So ⁓ you know, we I I needed to bring ⁓ a couple of people that are, you know, very ⁓ immersed in AI and and teach me, right? ⁓ I mean that's that's one of the things is is okay, what's out there and and what should we use and how to be ⁓ up to date on what's going on, right? So as I'm building the an AI platform, I still need to be sure that I know what's going on in AI. And I think just having one person really focused on that ⁓ and helping you and really ⁓ identifying key factors that we can implement in our company. I mean, there's so many things. You have like, for example, so in our company, we use cloud, chat GPT, we use bla ⁓ something called Blaze. ⁓ Blaze is ⁓ you know, ⁓ for for social media. We also use even ⁓ AI lawyer platforms. So a lot you know, s to to go over contracts and that has saved us a lot of money. So we have we have ⁓ you know one person to really take a a a look at all the AI tools that are out there and figure out which ones we need. And they take they they assess, you know, probably monthly because there's so many new so many new tools out there. Yeah. Right. so we have that person take a look. I mean ⁓ as you know Gina, you and I and and many CEOs and CMOs and CTOs, we don't have that time. But if you could if you can identify a person, and and that person doesn't have to be young. It doesn't have to be 20 or 30. The person that we we ⁓ we gave this ⁓ this you know task is is is you know it's X ⁓ you know generation so they don't have to be a millennial or they don't have to be a Z generation They were just hungry to learn and they interstate. And they learn. And and it it is great because ⁓ they love the fact that they're learning new tools and and ⁓ and they are assessing to see if those tools will work for us. You know, now we're looking at, you know, ⁓ right now our our platform is gonna have in a way where ⁓ AI is ⁓ taking speaker-0: Curious. speaker-1: payments and there there's there's a pro there's a work new workflow and new process that we're now implementing because we just found a new way to not only accept ⁓ payment but also a contract and I mean there's just a workflow that we just found out and and again going back to your question is that you know a sign in a person that's been with your company loyal you know and and been with you you know years instead of replacing them have them Take a next step and learn AI and see what they can do for you. speaker-0: Yeah, I love that. Is there anything, Ulysses, you'd like the audience to know that I haven't asked you? speaker-1: Yeah, no, absolutely. ⁓ if you guys want to know more about Vintail AI, how we can help you to lower your CPA and increase your revenue, ⁓ as we have with so many clients, ⁓ you know, contact Gina one and let's get a ⁓ consultation going. Or you could go to Vintelai dot com forward slash think forward B2C or think forward B2B, whichever whichever you want. And if you set up a consult ⁓ consultation with both of us, ⁓ we'll give you a a thousand ⁓ data profiles at no charge. ⁓ and and and just so you know, you know, that 100 data profile it can you can very quickly know ⁓ how accurate our data is. speaker-0: Thank you for doing that for the listeners. ⁓ that's fantastic. I appreciate that. I'm sure my audience will as well. And ⁓ speaker-1: only to you ⁓ for now for the this is only for you for this podcast we haven't done it you're the first so so just know that thank you speaker-0: I love it. ⁓ to wrap things up, Ulysses, I've always been a fan of James Lipton and so I do some rapid fire to close things out. So what noise or sound do you love? speaker-1: ⁓ peace. I don't I yeah. So I when I drive I don't even listen to music. I just I love peace. So speaker-0: That. What sound or noise do you hate? speaker-1: ⁓ probably we have a dog, so probably barking dog because she barks at three ⁓ in the morning. speaker-0: Not good. ⁓ And what profession other than your own would you like to attempt? speaker-1: ⁓ photography. So that's one of the things that I would love to do once once I retire. ⁓ there's a lot of photos around the house that I've taken ⁓ from our travels and and people love ⁓ and I ⁓ I love to just, you know, go out and just take photos. speaker-0: Fantastic. Ulysses, thanks so much for your time. This one was totally worth the wait. ⁓ I I can't, you know, it's it's such a shift from our normal conversation around contact centers and contact center software, but I think finding the right prospects at at the right time is, you know, the whole game for a lot of our customers that are listening, for those that do prospecting. So I love the way Vintel AI is changing how that gets done. So thanks for your time today. speaker-1: Thank you, Gina. Have a great day. You too. Bye bye. speaker-0: Yeah.