Why Rokt Invests in Product Innovation
From founding insight to full-funnel relevance
Rokt began with a sharp insight drawn from founder Bruce Buchanan’s experience at Jetstar: many ecommerce businesses operate on razor-thin margins and depend on ancillary revenue to drive profitability. Yet the tools for monetizing the checkout journey were either clunky or ineffective.
That experience sparked a simple but powerful belief that the moment after a customer commits to purchase is the most valuable time to offer relevant, additive experiences. Rokt called this the Transaction Moment™ and set out to help clients make the most of it.
The early product was singularly focused on one part of this moment, the confirmation page. But as we scaled, it became clear that unlocking full value would require expanding capabilities across the entire transaction flow. That meant building and acquiring products that support merchants and advertisers from cart to confirmation and beyond.
Unlocking relevance across the entire Transaction Moment
Today, Rokt’s product roadmap remains anchored in its original mission: to make every transaction smarter, more profitable, and more relevant for both customers and businesses. Each investment connects back to that core belief, solving a distinct part of the checkout and post-purchase journey.
Whether through internal innovation or targeted acquisitions, Rokt delivers enterprise value through smarter infrastructure. Each new product, Rokt Pay+, Aftersell by Rokt, and mParticle by Rokt, plays a role in maximizing performance across industries.
Rokt Pay+: Turning a cost center into a profit engine
Checkout is where commerce converts, but payments have traditionally been a cost center. With Rokt Pay+, Rokt is changing that. By monetizing this step of the checkout, Rokt Pay+ enables clients to drive new revenue without disrupting the customer experience.
Since launch, Rokt Pay+ has scaled rapidly across verticals and is now a core component of the Rokt platform. Clients using Rokt Pay+ are seeing measurable profit increases while preserving fast, frictionless checkouts.
Rokt Pay+ has driven over $75 million in incremental revenue for enterprise clients since launch.
Aftersell: Extending relevance to upsells
To help merchants continue the experience after checkout, Rokt acquired Aftersell, a platform that powers custom cart, checkout, and post-purchase upsells. Originally built for Shopify brands, Aftersell has helped thousands of merchants increase average order value through smart thank-you page optimization.
Rokt is now bringing this capability to enterprise retailers, integrating it with our AI-driven decision-making engine to ensure every post-transaction touchpoint adds value.
Aftersell has increased average order value by up to 30 percent for top-performing merchants.
mParticle: Unlocking smarter data activation
Rokt’s merger with mParticle accelerates our ability to deliver real-time relevance. As a leading customer data platform (CDP), mParticle allows clients to compound their outcomes through privacy-safe personalization and smarter data activation. Rokt recognized the critical role that a robust CDP plays in unlocking value across every customer touchpoint – and invested $300 million to acquire mParticle to ensure clients have the right solution.
Together, Rokt and mParticle create a performance-maximizing engine for checkout and beyond. Brands can activate customer data in milliseconds, ensuring relevance never lags behind behavior.
Clients using Rokt with mParticle have seen up to 50 percent better consumer and business outcomes.
Innovation that compounds over time
Rokt’s shared success model is powered by continuous innovation. We invest more than $100 million annually in R&D, ensuring that partners benefit from state-of-the-art capabilities without having to lift a finger.
Beyond product launches and acquisitions, we are constantly improving existing systems to maximize value:
- Smart Bidding: An AI-powered bidding engine that dynamically optimizes advertiser bids in real time. This leads to higher fill rates and revenue per impression, while helping advertisers reach ROI targets efficiently.
- Adaptive Content Engine (ACE): Launched in 2024, ACE uses generative AI to help advertisers automatically generate and test different messages and images for Rokt placements. Better content means better conversion, and partners benefit from more engaging on-site offers.
- Rokt Brain: Our proprietary machine learning engine determines the most relevant offer or experience to show each customer. Continuously refined over years, Rokt Brain powers personalization across our network, driving stronger outcomes without added complexity.
Together, these advancements make Rokt a future-ready platform that improves over time and grows with your business.
What this means for clients
Rokt’s strategy is simple: build and acquire what clients need to stay competitive and grow. And that’s why Rokt has become a favorite partner of not just the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), but also the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), the Chief Product Officer (CPO), and ultimately the Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
By expanding the product suite with Rokt Pay+, Aftersell, and mParticle, and layering in innovations like Smart Bidding, ACE, and Rokt Brain, we enable enterprise brands to:
- Drive net-new revenue from existing commerce flows
- Improve relevance through real-time data activation
Extend value creation throughout and beyond the point of purchase
Our growth is rooted in the same belief that inspired our founding: that the Transaction Moment™ holds unmatched potential. Every investment reflects that mission and strengthens our ability to deliver measurable outcomes. See why the most trusted brands choose Rokt.