Data driving marketing at Akquracy agency

Cancer unleashed the entrepreneur in Scott Petinga, founder of Akquracy, an independent data-driven marketing communications agency in Minneapolis.

Now, five years later, Petinga is in good health and Akquracy has been recognized as one of the country's fastest-growing private companies. It also is expanding into Asia by opening a Singapore office.

"I didn't start living until the day I thought I was dying," said Petinga, 39, who celebrates the anniversary of his 2004 diagnosis as a "second birthday." "That's the one thing cancer teaches -- there might not ever be a tomorrow. I quit a well-paying job and gave up everything to take a huge risk, which, knock on wood, has definitely paid off."

Akquracy does data-driven marketing. Petinga said the agency gets insights from consumer and other data, and develops creative communication and marketing campaigns.

"It's essentially using data to determine who you're going to communicate to, what you're going to communicate and how you're going to communicate," Petinga said.

Petinga, Akquracy's chairman and CEO, launched the agency in his basement in July 2007. He found out he had testicular cancer in May 2004, less than 30 days after getting married. Petinga underwent two years of treatment. He and his wife have three children.

Akquracy has 15 employees at its Minneapolis headquarters, and a data science lab opened last year in Madison, Wis., for number crunching.

To attract experienced talent, Akquracy pays 100 percent of medical, dental and disability coverage for employees and their families and matches 10 percent of 401(k) contributions, which employees are vested in from their first day.

"We're nimble yet we're seasoned and we're entrepreneurial," Petinga said. "We're a bunch of accountability freaks. If I spend a dollar of my client's money, I want to be able to maximize the return for the dollar that I'm spending."

Sales up in 2011

Akquracy's $6.1 million in sales last year represented an increase of more than 200 percent over 2008 sales. That put Akquracy on Inc. magazine's 2012 list of the country's fastest-growing private companies, placing 134th among advertising and marketing firms, 20th among Minneapolis-area companies and 1,385th nationally.

Sales are up 44 percent this year, Petinga said, and next year is looking even better. Akquracy partners with such local agencies as Risdall Marketing Group, offering that company data analysis while relying on it for interactive or other services outside Akquracy's specialties.

"They have a proven track record," said Randy Sprenger, who was Harley-Davidson's manager of direct and e-mail marketing before moving recently to another job in the company. "We wouldn't continue that relationship if we didn't see innovation as well as the types of results that we're looking for. They are very passionate and very committed to the areas of direct marketing and database marketing."

Petinga expects the work for Harley-Davidson to grow. But with the motorcycle maker accounting for 95 percent of the agency's business, he knows he needs additional clients. That's a reason for the office in Singapore, where he expects to work with American companies.

Petinga would like to open other satellite offices with a similarly small, flat structure as new clients sign on.

"We can remain small yet collectively ... be really large and a force to be reckoned with," Petinga said. "I don't want Minneapolis Akquracy to be 300 people. The most I'll take is probably 20 [local employees].

He got his creative start in the early 1990s as an illustrator, moved into desktop publishing, working with newspapers and then ad agencies. He began doing focus groups and other research to answer questions about his creative choices, setting out on a path to data-driven marketing.

The expert says: Mike Porter, adjunct marketing instructor and director of the master of business communication program at the University of St. Thomas' Opus College of Business, said direct marketing aims for "the audience of one," an approach many companies overlook. "There's so much dependence on Web analytics, and that's fine," Porter said. "But how do you drive them to your landing page? If you want to significantly impact traffic, some level of direct marketing is necessary."

Akquracy offers a rare combination of data analysis and strategy, Porter said. "He has the potential to really explode," he added. "If he gets two or three other clients like Harley-Davidson, he could have a $20 million company very quickly."