New York loy­al­ty and rewards plat­form CrowdTwist is tak­ing loy­al­ty-cre­ation to new heights after a $9 mil­lion Series B invest­ment round.

Omni-chan­nel loyalty

While Adland’s account man­agers focus their efforts on opti­miz­ing rela­tions with key agency clients, no one with media jobs in online adver­tis­ing agen­cies is unaware of the impor­tance of cul­ti­vat­ing cus­tomer loy­al­ty. And CrowdTwist, which was found­ed by NY com­padres Irv­ing Fain, Josh Bowen and Michael Mon­tero in 2009, has fast become a lead­ing sup­pli­er of mul­ti-chan­nel loy­al­ty and ana­lyt­ics solu­tions for brands, mar­keters and advertisers.

Essen­tial­ly, intrigued account man­agers may wish to know, CrowdTwist pro­vides tools to help its clients cre­ate online loy­al­ty pro­grams. Co-founder and CEO Irv­ing Fain says that the new cash will help it expand beyond the “intense fer­vor around gam­i­fi­ca­tion” with which it’s been asso­ci­at­ed, and deliv­er “long-term, sus­tain­able val­ue to brands.”

Accord­ing to Mr. Fain, CrowdTwist’s unique appeal resides in what it actu­al­ly does with loy­al­ty pro­grams, how it puts them to work: they become sources of valu­able con­sumer data on an “omni-chan­nel” basis (i.e., across offline, online, social and mobile chan­nels). Not only that, but all the data that gets sucked up is opt-in and owned by the brand instead of a third-par­ty provider. Busi­ness-savvy account man­agers will quick­ly see that that’s a key dif­fer­en­tia­tor vis-à-vis the competition.

Tai­lored pitches

Fain told TechCrunch jour­nal­ist Antho­ny Ha:

“In a world where brands want to cus­tomize their expe­ri­ence based on who you are and the things that you care about, they need to look at eight or nine dif­fer­ent plat­forms and points of data and rec­og­nize they all come from the same indi­vid­ual. Oth­er­wise they’re nev­er going to be able to deliv­er on the promise of true personalization.”

The data CrowdTwist’s tools gen­er­ate can be used to tai­lor pitch­es to dif­fer­ent cus­tomers, sig­nif­i­cant­ly improv­ing sales in the process (the startup’s clients typ­i­cal­ly see a 20 per­cent hike in sales).

And since launch­ing in 2009, Fain insists, more clients than ever before are pur­su­ing “mul­ti-chan­nel loy­al­ty.” For instance, brands spe­cial­iz­ing in con­sumer pack­aged goods sold through drug­stores or super­mar­kets can use CrowdTwist to cre­ate more direct rela­tion­ships with their clients (the startup’s newest clients now include L’Oreal USA, Ulti­mate Fight­ing Cham­pi­onship, Sports Clips and USA Track & Field).

The new round brings the company’s total invest­ment to $16.2 million.