In the competitive world of digital commerce, customer acquisition is one of the biggest challenges for small and mid-sized brands. Acquiring customers is only one part of the challenge; the other issue is retaining them and ensuring they come back for more.
This calls for innovative solutions and tools, and that’s what promises to provide.
The Gurugram-based marketing automation platform was started last year by former colleagues Umair Mohammed, Atyab Mohammed, Shamail Tayyab, and Pratik Anand. It seeks to help small ecommerce brands and businesses boost their engagement with users, help them acquire loyal customers, and address high customer acquisition costs.
“We recognised the need for innovative tools to address specific pain points. Our mission is to enhance user acquisition and buying intent while democratising data, enabling small businesses to make informed decisions,” says Umair Mohammed, Co-founder & CEO, Nitro Commerce.
The genesis
Years of research and hands-on experience helped the founders of Nitro Commerce realise that many ecommerce brands, especially in India, struggle with rising customer acquisition costs and inefficient conversion strategies. Existing marketing solutions are too expensive, too complex, or not suited to the specific needs of the Indian market.
“The digital landscape has changed dramatically, with stricter privacy regulations and the decline of cookie-based tracking. We knew there was a need for something more compliant and more effective,” says Mohammed.
Nitro Commerce provides a suite of tech-driven SaaS solutions aimed at ecommerce and direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, focusing on privacy compliance, affiliate marketing, and AI-enhanced customer engagement. These solutions help brands attract the right kind of consumers and convert them into loyal customers.
The seeds of Nitro Commerce were planted during the founders’ time at Wigzo, a tech startup focused on customer engagement and retention, which was acquired by Shiprocket. During their tenure here, they identified critical gaps in the market, particularly in user acquisition and product discovery.
“We saw how much effort brands put into bringing new users to their websites. But without effective tools to convert those visitors into customers, much of that effort was wasted. Nitro Commerce was created to fill this gap,” says Mohammed.
(L-R) Mohammed Atyab (COO & Co-founder), Umair Mohammed (CEO & Co-founder), Shamail Tayyab (CTO & Co-founder) & Prateek Anand (CBO & Co-founder)
Solutions for a complex problem
Nitro Commerce offers three solutions: Nitro X, Nitro Collab, and Nitro Store.
Nitro X is a cookieless identification and consent management tool that enables brands to track and engage with users without relying on third-party cookies.
The tool uses device fingerprinting, first-party data, and consent-based identifiers to gather insights while complying with privacy regulations such as the Data Protection and Digital Privacy Act (DPDA). Its consent management system has pre-filled capture templates that streamline user interaction.
“We’ve built Nitro X to future-proof businesses. With privacy regulations like the DPDA coming into play, it’s more important than ever to have compliant, cookieless technology in place,” says Mohammed.
Nitro X, which focuses on behavioural insights, analyses around 30 signals from users such as page views, repeat visits, engagement with ads, click patterns, and scroll depth, to identify high-intent buyers. This enables brands to run targeted engagement campaigns and helps convert anonymous users into loyal customers.
For instance, let’s assume a user often visits a fashion website, browses products, and adds items to their cart without completing the purchase. Nitro X can recognise this high-intent behaviour and launch a targeted campaign with personalised email reminders about the abandoned cart, tailored offers and discounts, and similar products that resonate with user interests.
The solution supports platforms such as Truecaller, Taboola, Criteo, and Hotstar for seamless targeting.
“We see privacy as an opportunity, not a limitation. Our patent-pending Nitro X technology allows brands to respect user data while still engaging with them in meaningful ways. This builds trust, which is crucial for long-term customer relationships,” Mohammed explains.
Nitro’s other solution ‘Nitro Collab’ is an affiliate marketing tool that allows D2C brands to drive growth through strategic partnerships and influencer collaborations.
“Nitro Collab makes it easier for brands to tap into new audiences through strategic collaborations,” explains Mohammed.
Nitro Store is a web interface that enhances user experience during navigation and checkout. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to recommend products based on user behaviour.
All these solutions are geared towards optimising user experience and encouraging/nudging them to buy, thus converting visitors to customers.
Focusing efforts on promising customers who are likely to purchase leads to better conversion— as opposed to generic efforts aimed at all customer segments—and helps brands reduce customer acquisition costs, Mohammed points out. This also helps boost sales and build customer loyalty in the long run, he adds.
He cites an example to elucidate this. A skincare brand notices that users who engage with its Instagram posts tend to buy its products. Hence, it can focus its marketing efforts on social media ads to achieve better results while spending less overall.
Revenue model and growth
Nitro Commerce has a diversified revenue model to cater to client needs: a subscription model with monthly and annual plans; percentage commission based on clients’ ad spending and campaign performance; and a revenue share model that is tied to the incremental revenue generated by clients.
The startup says it achieved $1 million ARR within just eight months of launching. It claims to assist brands in achieving growth rates of 11X-12X.
Talking about the challenges, Mohammed says recruiting the right tech talent and keeping up with the rapid changes in data privacy regulations have been some of the hurdles faced by the team.
The startup works with over 250 brands in India, including , , and .
“For many of these clients, we’ve seen a sales increase of over 10% in just one quarter. It’s not just about driving traffic, it’s about driving the right traffic,” states Mohammed.
Nitro competes with companies such as , and in the customer engagement space.
Commenting on how Nitro stands out, Mohammed says, “Our headless approach allows brands to design their front-end experience while leveraging back-end functionalities, enabling personalisation and flexibility that empowers brands to engage with customers, drive loyalty, and boost sales.”
Going forward, Nitro Commerce—which is currently bootstrapped—plans to raise capital to scale its technology and operations. The company also plans to enter the United States where demand for data-driven, personalised ecommerce solutions is high.
