McDonald’s announced Tuesday that it’s selling personalization platform Dynamic Yield to Mastercard, a few years after purchasing the technology for $300 million.
The terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Dynamic Yield assists brands with delivering algorithmically matched content, products, and offers to customers based on multiple factors, including past purchases, page views, time of day, store traffic, and trending products. The company supports more than 400 concepts across retail, financial services, travel, restaurants, and more.
McDonald’s acquired Dynamic Yield in 2019 and has since deployed the technology to drive-thrus and ordering kiosks globally. The move enables the fast-food chain to provide a more personalized customer experience by customizing outdoor digital thrive-thru menu displays to show food based on time of day, weather, current restaurant traffic, and trending menu items. The technology can also instantly suggest and display additional items to a customer’s order based on their current selections.
Mastercard said the acquisition of Dynamic Yield will help it “meet consumers’ growing demand for a more personalized experience, no matter where they shop or do business.” In addition, McDonald’s said it plans to “further scale and integrate Dynamic Yield’s capabilities globally and across ordering channels” and that the purchase by Mastercard will strengthen its digital engagement experiences.
“The notion of going into a store or opening a webpage to find an experience perfectly tailored to you is no longer farfetched. It’s a reality that more brands are deploying and more consumers expect. With Dynamic Yield’s expertise and our scale and relationships, we’ll be able to bring the connections between the end consumer and our customers to new heights,” Raj Seshadri, Mastercard’s president of data and services, said in a statement.
“We’re delighted to continue working with McDonald’s, a longstanding client and proven innovator in this space,” he added.
The agreement comes about two months after IBM agreed to acquire McD Tech Labs, which was formed after McDonald’s purchased Apprente, an automated voice-ordering solution. With the transaction, the burger brand said IBM’s expertise with AI and natural language processing will accelerate development and scale of the technology. Essentially, McDonald’s chose to partner with a company with better resources and knowledge to elevate the technology beyond what it could do internally.
McDonald’s said Dynamic Yield’s integration is part of an overall strategy to improve ordering experiences, introduce a global loyalty program, and expand its delivery footprint—all objectives that have experienced much progress. Since launching nationwide in July, MyMcDonald’s Rewards has garnered more than 21 million members, and by mid-2022, the program will be in all of the chain’s top six markets. Additionally, in the past five years, McDonald’s delivery footprint has grown from 3,000 to 32,000 locations across 100 countries.
The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2022. Upon close, current chief technology officer Ori Bauer will become CEO. Liad Agmon, the current CEO, will stay on in an advisory capacity.
