As it prepares to close a new round of funding, Linkett has set the ambitious goal of tripling the number of its enterprise clients in 2016.

Waterloo- and Toronto-based Linkett is growth-stage company that helps marketers to assess and improve the performance of TV monitor-based ads within retail outlets. It uses heat and motion sensors to analyze traffic in front of monitors, and provides a communication link between video screens and consumers’ smartphones.

The company now has 15 enterprise clients, as well as several smaller and medium-sized companies. In an interview last week, CEO Douglas Lusted said the goal for 2016 is two raise the number of large corporate clients to 45.

“We’re just trying to grow the business as efficiently as possible,” said Lusted, having just returned from working with a client in Indiana. “We’re looking to triple our customer base in the next year. Right now its divided 50 percent to 50 percent between Canada and the U.S., but in the next two years we want to focus more on the U.S.”

BitHound Plans to Close Round in 2015

To help achieve this growth, Lusted, 22, said the company is now nearing the close of a funding round and has signed term sheets with some investors. He declined to reveal the details of this round, and of the company’s previous funding, which included investments from BDC Capital and Toronto-based XDL Capital Group.

Though he was equally coy about Linkett’s sales, he said the company’s revenue bookings have increased by 10 times in each of the last three years.  Linkett now has six employees and plans to increase staff, especially in sales and marketing, once its funding round closes.

The company’s product enhances the performance of what’s known as out-of-home advertising, especially video displays within retail locations. Linkett offers an integrated solution that uses heat and motion sensors to determine how long people linger in front of a monitor during which add. It also uses automated programs that let the consumer download a coupon from in-store TV monitor, and that can ping the client days later if they haven’t used the coupon.

All this interaction produces a range of data that allows the retailer or marketer to assess the most successful ads. The Linkett product features a dashboard linked to the cloud, so the user can easily see which ads are having the greatest impact with consumers. For example, Lusted said customers have seen one ad can have 400 percent more sales power than another, and assessing this is more effective than just throwing up an ad and hoping it works.

The market is becoming crowded with marketing analytics tools, but Lusted said Linkett has an advantage over it competitors. All of its interactions are anonymous and it uses no facial recognition software – a new craze in the space that come shoppers disapprove of due to privacy concerns.

At its foundation, he said the company is growing because of a culture of meeting clients and responding to what they say.

“There’s always room to improve but one of the most important things for us is listening to customers,” said Lusted. “Rather than worrying about what other players are in the market are doing, we try to focus on what our customers want. My entire day is spent with clients and figuring out what they really want.”