It has been six years since I started the global digital marketing SaaS (Software as a Service) business (support), including my previous job at Rakuten LinkShare (Rakuten Marketing Japan). We have continued to keep an eye on various digital marketing SaaS technologies that are emerging every day around the world, and have actually supported the global digital marketing SaaS business of 23 companies in 12 countries with a cumulative total of my career.

Today, especially about this very enthusiastic business
“Why are we doing the world’s most advanced global digital marketing SaaS business (support)?”
I would like to elaborate this intriguing question in depth.

First of all, regarding “Why are we doing the world’s most advanced global digital marketing SaaS business (support)?”, there are a few reasons for this. First of all, as a matter of fact, “almost all of the world’s most advanced digital marketing AI technology and other functions are born from global digital marketing SaaS.” “ As I explained in The Strengths and Limitations of GAFA’s AdTech, my first encountering with such a tech was Auto-Piloting DSP (Display Advertising): Rocket Fuel (which was like a black ship to the Japanese ad technology industry at the time), a tech with auto-optimization that no ad tech company in the world had in 2012. Rocket Fuel was from the states. In addition to this, retargeting display advertising that came like a comet 1-2 years later: Criteo (France) also had a retargeting advertising technology that was unparalleled in the world. In other words, looking back on history, it is these world-leading global digital marketing SaaS startups and venture companies that have taken unprecedented steps in the areas of digital marketing technology and ad technology.

The second reason is that “the Japanese digital marketing and ad technology market is becoming isolated.” The solution I mentioned earlier is a tech startup / venture company that was able to raise funds relatively quickly and successfully in north American and European markets, and has been able to expand into Japan with a time lag of 1-2 years. On the other hand, there are many digital marketing and ad technology companies overseas that have sharp AI technology and other technologies that do not meet the above conditions. In this case, Japanese companies prefer to use only domestic SaaS in a culture where Japanese companies do not take risks, or are hindered by the thick barriers of language, business customs, and markets. As a consequence, the global SaaS give a priority to the other Asian markets where English is a main spoken language in business. We are in the business, and we have a great sense of risk about this situation and have been working on this business with the desire to make a difference to this.

The third reason is that “state-of-the-art technology x people can create the possibility of overturning the inferiority”. Even in such an isolated situation, Japanese digital marketing SaaS has fewer system bugs, the UIs are easier to see, and there are many detailed functions that can meet the Japanese standards. However, many of them have already been proposed and introduced by major competitors in the metropolitan area and major regional companies, which are naturally reached by major traditional / online specialized advertising agencies. In other words, in order for local small to medium-sized businesses (eg, annual sales of less than 1 billion yen) to compete in this part, there is no choice but to have an advantage in the “people” part, but a major traditional / online advertising agency’s top-notch consultants and advertising account managers are assigned to major competitors in the metropolitan area and some major regional companies. As with our company, in order to overturn this inferiority, we will aggressively challenge cutting-edge digital marketing technology that local small to medium-sized businesses do not originally distribute in Japan, or we will need to hire, train, outsource, and collaborate to get such a talent inside and outside a company.

The fourth and final reason is that “this is the area that I am most interested in and can contribute most to people and companies”. I’ve seen a lot of different industries, but this global digital marketing technology SaaS area is one of the areas where the most changes and evolutions are born and the decline is fast. Rocket Fuel mentioned earlier was acquired by another company called Sizmek five years after landing in Japan, and this happens like a daily occurrence. In a certain digital marketing technology field, if the company name remains global for three years, there is fierce corporate competition that will make you admire “It’s really amazing!”. It is really difficult to continue to be attentive towards the various global digital marketing SaaS industries where the torrent of this river continues endlessly, and to propose and introduce it to Japanese companies in a timely manner, with extremely high expertise, adaptability, and execution. I think that it is worthwhile to provide products and services to Japanese people and Japanese companies because we can always feel the growth as a businessman and the number of people who can do it is overwhelmingly small.

Next time, I will spell out the secret to the success of this SaaS support service, which was revealed by the encounter with m19. Look forward to it!

Masaki “Mark” Iino
Founder & CEO
SOPHOLA, Inc

PS: His son has grown up and started to rebel against me with a hateful face saying “bye bye, bye bye”;)