AddGlow challenges Reddit and Facebook with community-building software tailored for brands

Ina Herlihy perceives a missed opportunity for e-commerce brands that rely exclusively on third-party community platforms like Reddit and Facebook Groups. She argues that these brands are forfeiting potential organic traffic and revenue. As the costs associated with acquiring new users soar, often by significant margins, brands must prioritize enhancing retention and organic traffic, Herlihy explained to via email. She posits that by establishing an onsite community, brands can bolster retention rates and drive more organic traffic because the community resides on their own domain.

In response to this observation, Herlihy embarked on a mission in late 2022 to develop community software tailored for brands to host communities directly on their websites, resulting in AddGlow. Herlihy views owned communities as the next major marketing frontier for the $17 trillion e-commerce sector. While many brands currently cultivate communities through platforms such as Facebook Groups, Herlihy believes these third-party environments present limitations for both customers and brands. For instance, customers may lack context about the identity of posters, hindering engagement and trust. AddGlow aims to address these shortcomings by offering detailed user profiles, empowering brands to retain ownership of data and streamline the purchasing journey for customers.

Here’s how AddGlow works: The New York-based startup collects data by gathering profile attributes specified by the brand, such as skin concerns, hair types, or favorite types of shoes. This data enables the brand to personalize various aspects of its online presence, including the homepage, product description pages, emails, and SMS messages.

Additionally, AddGlow seamlessly integrates with a brand’s product catalog, allowing community members to tag products when mentioning them. This feature enables site visitors to add products to their cart without leaving the community platform.

Moreover, AddGlow offers an onsite engagement-based loyalty program, where community members can earn points for completing specific actions like completing their profile, posting, and replying to posts. All aspects of this loyalty program are customizable by the brand.

Despite being in its early stages following a year of product development, AddGlow has secured $1.7 million in pre-seed funding to propel it into its next phase, according to Herlihy.