4INFO Inc. is an American targeted advertising corporation.[5] The company was owned by Nielsen Holdings. It was acquired by Cadent in 2020[6].
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4INFO Headquarters
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Company type | Subsidiary |
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Industry | Targeted advertising Big data |
Founded | September 8, 2004; 19 years ago (2004-09-08)inPalo Alto, California, United States |
Founder | Pankaj Shah, Zaw Thet |
Headquarters | San Jose, California |
Area served | United States, Latin America and Mexico |
Key people | Tim Jenkins (CEO) |
Revenue | ![]() |
Number of employees | 45 |
Parent | Nielsen Holdings |
Website | 4info |
Footnotes / references [1][2][3][4] |
4Info was founded in 2004 by Pankaj Shah[citation needed] and Zaw Thet.[2] It originally focused on text-based SMS advertising, SMS publishing and mobile search.[7][8]
In 2008, the company was estimated to be the largest provider of business-to-consumer SMS content in North AmericabyNielsen Holdings,[9] claiming to send 80 million text messages a month in early 2009[10] and 200 million text messages a month in early 2010.[11] Nielsen rated 4Info the fourth largest SMS U.S. Network.[12] In 2010, the company was the largest provider of free text message alerts and information in the United States.,[13][14] and the largest American SMS Network.[1][15][16]
The company began providing mobile display advertising in 2010, based on connecting American households to IP addresses.[17] In 2010, 4Info acquired Butter, a company which created ad campaigns for the iPhone and Android platform.[18]
The company is headquartered in San Jose, California with other offices in the United States. As of 2015, it employed 45 people.[19] In 2015, the company was included on the Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies.[19] In May 2015, MBlox, an independent SMS provider, acquired 4Info's SMS business line.[20]
In March 2016, 4Info and Crossix formed a strategic alliance for targeted advertising of pharmaceutical products in the United States.[21]
The company purchases anonymous data from internet service providers, mobile network operators, and other information aggregate sources, then uses marketing mix modeling to send targeted advertisements from their clients.[22][23] The company then cross references with CPG data to look at actual purchases made by those who viewed ads.[24][25][26]
In 2014, the company added multiscreen functionality that identifies PC and laptop activity, enabling cross-device targeted advertising, retargeting and multichannel retailing.[27][23] The company also offered geotargeting and geofencing.[28] In August 2014, the company was awarded a patent for "Systems and methods for statistically associating mobile devices to households"[29] claiming they can link 95% of mobile users to their IP address and other devices.[24]
The company has provided advertising data to companies such as AOL, Acxiom,[30] Catalist, Datalogix,[31] and Experian.[32]