What would you do with the power to persuade?

At its core, marketing has one job: to persuade. But persuasion is bigger than marketing; it’s one of the most powerful tools humans have, capable of building iconic brands, sparking global movements, and supporting the election of decisive political campaigns. 


Unfortunately, the way persuasion works is not fully understood. As a marketer, you can look at how many clicks your ad generated, or how many views your TV video received. But these are proxies for persuasion. How do you measure the emotional resonance of a funny ad? Or quantify the likelihood to vote from an inspiring speech? 

The true test of whether something persuades is typically not known until it’s too late: Someone decides to buy your product. Or they don’t. They cast a ballot for your candidate. Or they don’t. Which means marketers and campaign managers are constantly releasing communications with a big leap of faith, hoping that their work will persuade, with little data on what will actually work.

PhDs James Slezak and Valerie Coffman co-founded Swayable to apply advanced statistical methods to the question: What changes minds?  We use randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the type of tests used in clinical research, to isolate the impact of creative assets, and provide the most robust data available on messaging persuasion. We started in the world of politics, working with campaigns and their agencies to determine effective messaging and craft persuasive political campaigns. Now, we work with some of the most beloved consumer brands, helping marketers apply science to creativity. 


As we’ve grown we’ve also focused. We’re selective about who we work with - and what kind of media we will test. Our mission is to accelerate social and economic progress by making scientific insights instantly accessible to communications decision-makers. We only work with brands that are aligned to this, and we have an independent board to advise on new clients.

Product

Resources

Company

We measure Persuasion.

Our history

2017

2018

2019

2020

2022

2023

Founded, launched MVP

Funded by Y-Combinator, first paying customers

First brand customers test messaging in Swayable

Supported first winning Presidential campaign messaging

Emotional resonance launch, Published Meta Study on voters, Supported 100% of contested elections in Congress, crossed 8-figures in ARR

Named best place to work, 30+ team members, Self-serve product launch

Join the team

Our team

We’re a team of data scientists, creatives, and clients

James Slezak

CEO

New York Times / Purpose / McKinsey / Cornell Experimental Physics PhD

Valerie Coffman

CTO

Xometry / NIST / Cornell Computational Physics PhD

Kathy Gerlach

COO

Airbnb / McKinsey / Harvard Cognitive Neuroscience PhD

Shane Mullane

VP of Sales

Experian / Moat / Oracle Data Cloud / Trinity College (Dublin)

Anshuk Gandhi

VP of Product

LinkedIn / McKinsey / U. Michigan / IIT (Bombay)

Darien Lee

Finance and Growth

Verkada / Silver Lake / McKinsey / Yale

Michael Wallace

Sales

Dropbox / Facebook / Box / Miami University (Ohio)

Roberto Guerra

Sales

eMarketer / Moat / Fordham U MBA

Nigel Walker

Sales

Autify / MFS Investment Management / UConn

Tim Wackman

Sales

MikMak / Ibotta / News America Marketing / University of Minnesota

Bobby Charlton

Sales

Remesh / Coe College

Brandon Disch

Sales

Skai / COOP / SFSU

Michelle Wiles

Marketing

P&G / Ogilvy / McKinsey / London Business School

Olivia Myszkowski

Advanced Services

Lake Research / Morning Consult / U. Chicago

Ali Hoffer

Advanced Services

Better Place Forests / Stanford MS

Thomas Connelly

Advanced Services

Civic / Georgetown U

Jason Toups

Client Success

McKinsey / J.P. Morgan / Yale

Anish Bharadwaj

Product

On Deck / Sounding Board / Amazon

Alissa Sasayama

Client Success

TubeScience / UCSD Chemistry PhD / Stanford BS

Taylar Harrington

Client Success

Fix It People / Adler U MPPA / Wittenberg U

Iri Hoxha

Product Design

HEVO / CUNY CityTech

Josh Dean

Engineering

HP Inc. / Procore Technologies

Vanessa Suarez

Engineering

Candid / Columbia U

Audrey DeBruine

Engineering

SF Chronicle / Northwestern U

David Ash

Engineering

AT&T / FOX Entertainment

Gabrielle Simard-Moore

Engineering

Caktus Group / DjangoGirls Coach / BS Environmental Geochemistry

Kwaku Ofori-Atta

Engineering

Goldman Sachs / U. Chicago

Michael Baumer

Data Science

Unknot / Stanford PhD

Snigdha Kanuparthy

Data Science

SMART Technologies / Georgia Institute of Technology

Daniel Fan

Data Science

U. Auckland / SUNY Binghampton PhD (CS, ABD) / Advanced Learning Limited

Hang Su

Data Science

Chartbeat / New York Times / Columbia U