Interview With Larry Kim, CEO of Customers.AI

Hello TechWyse Blog-readers!

Today, we have the honour of sharing an interview with Larry Kim. Larry is the CEO of Customers.ai, a leading software company that leverages artificial intelligence to revolutionize customer analytics and drive business growth. 

With a background in computer science and a passion for marketing, Larry has cemented himself as a visionary leader in the tech industry. Prior to Customers.ai, he founded WordStream, a popular online advertising software platform, and served as its CEO until its acquisition.

Larry previously interviewed with TechWyse back in 2020 and we’re happy to have him back on our blog. Thanks again, Larry!

Without further ado, let’s start the interview!

1. First off, how did you come up with a cool feature name like “X-Ray Website Visitor Identification” for your product?

X-Ray Website Visitor ID is a metaphor for our product’s ability to capture the identity of your anonymous website visitors, which is helpful for sales and marketing professionals looking to supercharge their leads and sales.

2. Why do you think Website Visitor Identification isn’t standard practice for every website? What makes the concept so hard for people and/or companies to implement?

It’s weird! If someone was visiting your pricing page, wouldn’t you want to know who that person is? They’re in-market for your products or services and are therefore extremely likely to become a future customer! I think every company should be using this!

Perhaps, marketers have become so accustomed to Google and Facebook removing more and more useful data from their platforms that they’re skeptical when some new company offers to provide new and valuable insights and sales outreach tools. But I will say that once someone sees it in action, they’re hooked for life.

3. Automation has changed over the last five years. In your opinion, what’s been the change that has made the most impact on businesses?

Sales outreach automation has been a total game changer for companies that have embraced it. It’s like having an army of Business Development Representatives doing prospecting and booking meetings or selling things 24/7!

4. Every Sales and Marketing Rep or Manager focuses on how often their messages are getting delivered. What’s the maximum amount of messaging one should give to a prospect?

Rather than setting an absolute number, you should focus on the user engagement levels. If your average email open rate is low (e.g. 5-20%), then your email list is telling you they’re not that interested in you and it’s time to cut bait.

Conversely, if you’re seeing engagement rates of 30-60% open rates, keep sending more emails because your list is basically in love with your company.

This strategy of sending more emails to engaged users and less or no emails to unengaged users will dramatically increase your email domain sending score and improve your email deliverability. 

5. You’ve deservedly been guest-speaking a lot at industry events and webinars. Do any of them stand out to you? Conversely, any that you haven’t done that you would want to be a part of?

Every conference is special, but what comes to mind are: 

• My keynote at Unbounce CTA conference in Vancouver on Facebook Ad Hacks was rated the #1 session for that year according to attendee feedback.
• Paddy Cosgrave and the folks at WebSummit invited me to their enormous conference in Lisbon. Plus, I got to meet Twitter founder Ev Williams.
• Dharmesh, Brian and the Hubspot Team invited me to speak at INBOUND for 8 years in a row!

6. There is all this talk of AI, but it stems from automation. What are your thoughts about the growing AI industry and the buzz it is creating?

AI and its impact for sales and marketing automation is a total game changer. Right now, marketing is extremely dumb: for example, you probably have a big list of emails that you send every week; the same email, more or less, at the same time.

In the next few years, AI for email marketing will send individual emails triggered via user intent signals, and the copy will be 1:1 completely customized creatives (text, email, video) at scale. By the way, you can already do this in Customers.ai!

7. Customers.ai has been recognized for multiple awards in G2 and Iconiq (congrats by the way). Do any of these awards stand out to you, personally?

Earlier this year, Customers.ai was recognized as the fastest-growing GTM tool for 2022, according to ICONIQ Capital, which has a strong relationship with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. 

Also, while this wasn’t an award per se, it was cool to be featured on the NASDAQ market site in New York City earlier this year, celebrating our Series A investment round!

8. The company name has changed in the last five years, so what can we expect from Customers.ai as well as yourself for the next five years?

We want to be the best way for B2C businesses to find their customers through our innovative AI sales outreach automation tools and unique B2C data, which crushes the ROI of traditional go-to-market motions like Facebook Ads and Google Ads by +100x! 

Thanks again for your time, Larry! If you have any questions about how sales reach automation can help out your business, head to Customers.ai to learn more about what they offer!

Do you love reading insights from marketing specialists? Check out our past interviews! If there is someone you’d like to see interviewed on the TechWyse blog, be sure to leave a comment below!