Airship expands web capabilities, eyes HVAC market with new software

Driving the news: Airship, a mobile-first customer experience company, is extending its Experience Platform (AXP) to the web. This expansion allows brands to create seamless customer experiences across apps, websites, and other channels without developer support.

Why it matters: Brands are grappling with declining referral traffic from search engines and social networks, coupled with rising paid acquisition costs. Airship's move aims to deepen customer engagement and boost loyalty.

• Siloed teams and data across multiple touchpoints make unified customer experiences challenging.
• Direct customer relationships are becoming crucial as referral traffic wanes.

The big picture: Since 2009, Airship has pioneered solutions like push notifications and in-app messages. Now, it's tackling the HVAC industry, which is undergoing significant shifts due to retiring tradespeople and market consolidation by private equity firms.

• Airship is developing point-of-sale software to help HVAC contractors increase sales by providing information on incentive programs and rebates.
• The company raised $4 million in pre-seed funding and plans to launch the product in November, with a broader rollout early next year.

What they're saying: "Since relaunching our app in April 2023, we have increasingly focused on delivering personalized user experiences, and Airship has been there to support us early in our development," said David LoPresti, U-Haul App Director.

Zoom in: Airship's recent $4 million pre-seed funding round was led by QED Investors, with participation from Silence, Lorimer Ventures, Four Acres Capital, and Twine Ventures. The company has also announced partnerships with ServiceTitan and other home services platforms.

• The home services industry is evolving rapidly due to demographic shifts, such as millennials becoming the largest group of homeowners.
• The aging U.S. housing stock is pushing a shift from DIY to DIFM (Do It For Me).
• Climate change and rising equipment and labor costs are further influencing the industry.

By the numbers: Customers using Airship's platform have seen a 20% increase in ticket sizes and a 15% improvement in close rates.

• Referral traffic from Facebook has declined by 50% in one year.
• News publishers receive 61% of their traffic from smartphones.
• Nearly half of online adults in the U.K. and U.S. want more personalized experiences from companies.

Between the lines: Airship evaluated 25 leading U.S. news publishers' websites for first-time visitor experiences. They found that email opt-in prompts were more common than web notification prompts among news publishers. Findings also showed that news publishers could improve the activation of both smartphone and desktop audiences.

What's next: Airship plans to use its recent funding to hire more staff and continue product development. The point-of-sale software is the first step toward building a comprehensive platform for HVAC contractors.

• ServiceTitan has raised $1.5 billion in VC funding.
• Jobber has raised more than $183 million.
• Service Fusion raised $10 million before being acquired by EverCommerce in 2020.