botique.ai Sets in Motion Its AI-Driven Chatbot Platform for Customer Experience Management

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October 4, 2018

Leaders from Microsoft Search Advertising, Bing, and Cortana to Speak at Yext's ONWARD18 Conference

David Pann, Christi Olson, and Ed Doran Will Share Insights with ONWARD18 Attendees

Yext, Inc., the leader in Digital Knowledge Management (DKM), announced that David Pann, General Manager, Microsoft Search Advertising, Christi Olson, Chief Evangelist, Search for Bing, and Dr. Ed Doran, Co-Founder of Cortana and Director of Program Management for MSR Artificial Intelligence at Microsoft, will speak at Yext’s ONWARD18 annual conference Oct. 23-25, 2018 at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City.

Also Read: Yext Summer ’18 Product Release Now Available for General Access

“Microsoft is at the forefront of the most transformative innovations in intelligent technology today, from AI-powered search to the growth of voice,” said Howard Lerman, Founder and CEO of Yext. “We’re excited to have three experts from Microsoft joining us at ONWARD18 to educate and inspire our guests with their insights on the rise of intelligence.”

Also Read: Yext For Events Arrives to Transform the Way Businesses Connect to Customers

Speakers from Microsoft will join three ONWARD18 sessions:

Pann will sit down with Wendi Sturgis, Chief Client Officer at Yext, for a fireside chat. As General Manager, Microsoft Search Advertising, Pann manages all global marketing functions for Bing Ads, including advertiser insights and analysis, business and product strategy, and technology partnerships.
Olson will join a panel discussion called AI & Digital Knowledge Managementon the rapid rise of AI and the impact of these interconnected topics on real-world business outcomes.
Doran will join a panel called Voice: A Look Ahead, on the exploding popularity of voice assistants, their impact on the future of marketing, and whether we’re headed for a “voice-first” future.

Yext, Inc. is the leading Digital Knowledge Management (DKM) platform. Yext’s mission is to give companies control over their brand experiences across the digital universe of maps, apps, search engines, voice assistants, and other intelligent services that drive consumer discovery, decision, and action. Today, thousands of businesses including brands like Taco Bell, Rite Aid, and Steward Health Care use the Yext Knowledge Engine to manage their digital knowledge in order to boost brand engagement, drive foot traffic, and increase sales.

How to Turn Your Instagram Page into a Revenue Channel

By

Hugh Stephens

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October 4, 2018

In the era of social media, every marketer understands the brand value of a strong online presence, particularly on the most popular platforms such as Instagram. From what began as a simple photo-sharing platform, Instagram has developed into an essential tool for businesses, especially B2C.

Consider the value proposition of Instagram — a highly visual platform, with millions of highly engaged users, in large, thanks to the thousands of influencers with mass appeal and the ability of brands and individuals to influence consumer buying behavior. Instagram isn’t just a place for friends to share snaps, it’s also a powerful business tool. Instagram know this, which is why we see the continued addition of new features designed to help brands better connect and leverage the attention of their audiences.

For the savvy marketer, Instagram should be seen as an ideal environment that can be leveraged to drive profit and bolster the bottom line, rather than used as a simple social media platform. This is particularly relevant for businesses in retail and e-commerce, where Instagram has launched a number of new features, specifically for brands.

Here are 3 tactics marketers can use to turn their Instagram profile from a passive platform to a revenue channel:

Plan your Brand Aesthetic and Identity Ahead of Time

The most successful Instagram profiles have a few key characteristics in common, the most obvious being aesthetic and brand identity. Rather than uploading a messy bunch of unrelated images, consider posting in line with a central theme that embodies and communicates the values of your company’s brand. This theme should extend to your color scheme, type of picture content, hashtags and captions.

Tools, including Schedugram, that help to visualize your grid as well as create, analyze and schedule content collaboratively, can be valuable in planning your feed before publishing it. Making sure you can easily collaborate with contributors in one place (from agencies and partner brands to designers, copywriters and other departments) will help you make sure you can post regularly in a consistent style.

Instagram recently reported it now has 1 billion monthly active users. That’s more than triple the population of the entire US, which means a huge audience to market to. However, as marketers, we know posts (particularly sponsored ones) even when viewed millions of times, are useless if the content is not relevant or engaging. In addition to your brand aesthetic, invest in developing a brand narrative that resonates with your core consumer base and attracts more like-minded followers. An engaged following is a secret weapon in the social realm. Take for instance, Kylie Jenner. Arguably the queen of Instagram, her super-engaged audience enabled her to turn her lip-kit side hustle into a cosmetics empire, thanks to a mix of clever Instagram management, hype, leverage of her ‘traditional’ brand and stunning channel-specific content.

Leverage Business Tools

Aside from core marketing features, we’re all familiar with at this point, like the ability to sponsor posts and view analytics, Instagram now offers a range of features that cement the platform’s standing as both a social media platform and an e-commerce portal. If you’ve got over 10,000 followers, make the most of the product tagging on posts (the only way people can easily “click through” to your site from a regular post) and swipe-up links in video or image stories.

The best Instagram management tools will have these features built in, so you can schedule your posts ahead of time and ensure your products are amplified as soon as they hit your audience’s feed.

Instagram’s e-commerce capabilities, however, extend further than built-in features. Since opening their API for developers, other tech providers have built clever integrations to enhance the value marketers can extract from the platform. Tools such as Shopify’s integration for Instagram for Business is one way marketers can provide a seamless shopping experience for customers, as well as a profitable channel for businesses. Shopify’s marketplace of other app integrations makes it simple for customers to browse and buy, without ever having to leave your Instagram page.

Be More Social

Too many brands make the mistake of using social media as a one-way conversation tool and only use it to talk about themselves. The best performing brands understand platforms such as Instagram operate as a community and know that to genuinely engage with followers, they need to behave as a member, rather than a faceless corporation.

One brand doing an exceptionally good job at this is FashionNova. Often, the online fashion retailer will comment on posts, show love to partners and celebrities and engage in creative collaborations, which has helped contribute to their milestone 10 million followers.

Other clever ways to engage with your followers include leveraging tools such as Instagram story polls to give followers a voice, re-posting fun, relevant content (such as customer appreciation posts, celebrity/influencer inspiration posts and viral content your followers would relate to) or running giveaways that encourage followers to start conversations with friends about your brand.

Everyone loves a #goals post! Not only will this kind of conversation-prompting activity boost your follower numbers, but it will also help to build credibility, making it more likely for people to trust making a purchase from your channel. In 2018, it’s no longer acceptable to have a robotic and standoffish brand that only broadcasts but never engages on social media.

The evolution of Instagram continues to provide opportunities for performance-driven marketers to make the most of this highly engaged community and use it to contribute to business profit. By investing in the right tools to unlock Instagram’s potential, as well as keeping up to date with the latest features, marketers have a branding goldmine at their fingertips, with the potential to turn traditional revenue models on their heads.

Engagement Labs Issues Statement in Response to the Forrester Wave Social Listening Report

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October 4, 2018

Engagement Labs Issues Statement in Response to the Forrester Wave Social Listening Report

New Forrester Wave Social Listening Report Makes Business Case for Engagement Labs’ TotalSocial

Engagement Labs Inc. releases its response to the Forrester Wave “Q3 2018 Global Social Listening Platforms” report that assesses the state of the social listening space and evaluates social media listening platforms. The highly regarded biannual report identified major deficiencies in the industry that one industry reporter says are addressed by Engagement Labs’ innovative TotalSocial solution.

Reporter Barry Levine of MarTech Series summarized the Forrester Wave Report and cited Engagement Labs as offering a “more accurate Big Picture,” relative to the social media listening platforms.

The Forrester Wave Report criticized social media listening platforms for not using social intelligence to full potential, for offerings looking too much alike, and for needing to differentiate with stronger strategy tools. “In our 2016 Forrester Wave evaluation of social listening platforms, we acknowledged that the technology had great potential, but its heyday was still to come. We’re still holding our breath in 2018.”

Also Read: Movable Ink Extends Visual Experiences Across Email, Web, and Display

As part of the Report, Forrester reviewed all 10 leading Social Listening Platforms along and conducted with interviews with companies, concluding the industry “still primarily owns and uses social data in a silo” and said the “next frontier” is to “differentiate with strategy.” Among other suggestions, the report says the platforms need to combine online social data with other business intelligence and provide consulting and professional services.

Engagement Labs’ TotalSocial platform is differentiated from listening platforms because it combines offline consumer conversations with those collected online, and links all conversations to business results, and offers diagnostics and a marketing playbook, all of which together provide marketers with a stronger foundation for strategy development.

Also Read: Peer39 by Sizmek Unveils AI-driven Pre-bid and Post-buy Reporting, Advances Fraud Detection and Filtration

“We are proud of the fact that our TotalSocial platform takes social intelligence to an entirely new level by covering the entire social ecosystem—online and offline—and by using predictive analytics to show marketers how they can use a social strategy to improve business performance,” said Ed Keller, CEO of Engagement Labs. “Our platform delivers exactly what Forrester says is lacking in the listening industry, and that’s why leading marketers are signing up with us this year.”

“Engagement Labs is already delivering on the innovation called for by the analysts at Forrester. Our platform is the silo-busting integrator of online and offline consumer conversations, helping make social data a key contributor to marketing strategy on behalf of our clients,” said Engagement Labs President and Chief Revenue Officer, Steven Brown.

Recommended Read: Advangelists, LLC Brings an Adtech Oracle to Life

Independent Research Firm Finds the Salsify Product Experience Management Platform Delivers More Than 300% ROI Over Three Years

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October 4, 2018

Also Read: Atento Reinforces Its Growth Strategy in the South America Region and Appoints Óscar Velásquez Managing Director of Atento Colombia and Miguel José López LatAm Financial Services Director

Independent Research Firm Finds the Salsify Product Experience Management Platform Delivers More Than 300% ROI Over Three Years

Commissioned Study Highlights Salsify’s Role in Increasing Sales and Profit, While Creating Operational Efficiencies and Cutting Costs

Salsify, the world’s leading product experience management (PXM) platform, announced the results of a September 2018 commissioned economic impact study conducted by Forrester Consulting which demonstrates that a composite organization using its platform experienced $6 million in economic benefits and a return on investment (ROI) of 339 percent over three years. The Total Economic Impact (TEI) Of Salsify found that the composite organization achieved payback in seven months.

“In my view, Forrester’s study demonstrates what we hear from customers every day – quality, optimized content customized to retailers – delivered quickly and with consumers in mind – has the ability to boost revenue and help seize market share,” says Jason Purcell, CEO of Salsify. “A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for online product content. Brands use our platform to constantly iterate and deliver exceptional customer experiences which gives them a competitive advantage.”

Forrester conducted in-depth interviews with Salsify customers across a number of industries, including CPG, furniture and adhesives, to determine the value Salsify’s product experience management platform delivers to customers. Forrester then aggregated customer data and constructed a composite company to calculate the quantifiable and unquantified benefits of the Salsify offering. The composite organization Forrester synthesized from the Salsify customer interviews is a $25 billion consumer products company with worldwide operations that maintains large amounts of content for 5,000 SKUs and has 100 commerce partners. Forrester estimated the composite organization would realize the following financial gains from using Salsify PXM:

$4.9 million in incremental gross margin
$994.2 thousand reduction in product content management labor
$91.5 thousand agency cost reduction

Also Read: Capgemini Se : Capgemini Expands Its Digital Marketing Consulting Expertise with the Acquisition of June 21 in France

Customers that contributed to the study pointed to Salsify’s ability to store and optimize product content, and streamline its delivery to a large number of retailers, as improving operational excellence and lowering costs. Salsify PXM lets brands deliver compelling shopping experiences across every digital touchpoint by combining product information management (PIM), advanced syndication, and actionable ecommerce analytics into one powerful platform. It acts as a highly flexible product information repository and content activation engine, with the ability to crawl, integrate, and store all of the metrics and signals about online consumer experience related to products and brands. The platform gets great product content to the places brands need it, with underlying syndication and analytics capabilities that enable constant iteration to address market trends.

The Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester to help companies demonstrate and realize the tangible value of IT initiatives to both senior management and other key business stakeholders.

TechBytes with Manny Medina, CEO, Outreach

By

Viraj T

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October 4, 2018

Manny Medina
CEO, Outreach

We are engaging with industry leaders in order to obtain first-hand information about Salesforce’s Annual Extravaganza. As Dreamforce’18 concludes, we reached out to attendees to understand the core tenets of this event. As a part of an ongoing series, we spoke to Manny Medina, CEO, Outreach to understand the latest trends in Sales Enablement and what drew him to the event.

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Who are you keen to meet and huddle at the event?

Our focus at Dreamforce was meeting with our incredible customers as well as the prospects currently in negotiations with us, so we could learn about their unique businesses and how we can better serve them and help them bring their innovations to market.

Personally, it was incredible to meet with the entire team at Drift, an exciting company we recently partnered with. I was also very happy to huddle with HashiCorp, an open source solution and infrastructure automation platform doing big things.

Which sections at the event would you be keen to attend?

For me, personally, many of the events organized near and around Dreamforce are the most valuable. I was excited to attend the Sales Enablement Soirée and Ops Stars – both gave me the opportunity to engage with the folks from enablement and ops who help support sales teams.

Which marketing and sales automation technologies are you most excited about?

I’m mostly excited that there were so many more Sales Engagement platforms on the floor this year, especially after G2Crowd recognized the category and Outreach as a leader in the space. It’s great to see more vendors throwing their hats into the ring. The competition elevates our game and pushes us to continue innovating.

What is the key reason that Outreach is attending Dreamforce 2018?

To meet with prospects and customers, and to participate in our partners’ events, especially the Sales Hacker Lounge, Sales Enablement Soiree and Op-Stars. We have been working to educate the sales industry on the importance of Sales Engagement, and it’s been amazing to see the response during Dreamforce.

How have Sales Intelligence journeys evolved with the maturity of data management and intelligent analytics?

They have evolved together. The leading innovators in the space are incorporating intelligence data in their platforms to provide users with the most accurate information to make better decisions.

Would you provide us your take on turning AI-driven and enabled by 2020?

AI is turning out to be an amplifier for existing activity, not a replacement for human intelligence. Sales platforms, in particular, are adopting AI to suggest the best next step based on prior data, and save time for reps. It streamlines every sales action and focuses human effort on what really demands it, freeing up time for people to connect with people.

Tell us one thing that you thoroughly enjoy at Dreamforce?

The energy, and the fact that all of these amazing technologies, companies, and missions are gathered in one place. It’s a place to learn and be educated on the advances in the space. And it’s always good to get in front of companies that may not have heard of your product, but who are dealing with the problems you solve.

An inspiring quote from past editions of Dreamforce that you have ever heard?

“Data is the real currency for your company,” – Satya Nadella

Thanks for chatting with us, Manny.

Stay tuned for more insights on marketing technologies. To participate in our Tech Bytes program, email us at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com

Goat Yoga And Community Outreach: Building Your Business By Sponsoring Events

By

Admin

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October 4, 2018

Almost 90% of consumers think that businesses should invest in a cause that matters to their community, from a local charity to an international humanitarian effort. Consumers shop with their hearts, so to speak, supporting or rejecting businesses based on the positions they advocate. It may be shocking, but 87% of consumers buy based on values, whereas 76% boycott based on values. Brand loyalty is hard to come by these days, but one of the most effective ways to reach customers is to support the issues customers care about in an effort to build trust and a sense of community. On a local level, this means supporting community growth, stimulating local economies, and giving back through sponsorship of local events.

Corporate sponsorship, loosely defined as “a form of advertising in which companies pay to be associated with certain events,” can take many forms. This could mean anything from sponsoring a Little League game, partnering with a 5k charity run/walk, or hosting in-house events. Even entire festivals are sometimes backed by brands, such as the Annual Duck Tape Festival in the town of Avon, Ohio, sponsored by Budweiser, among others. One of the world’s most popular beer brands, Budweiser, has been part of this unique event for over a decade, featuring attractions such as a duck tape parade, a duck tape fashion show, and weekend-long family fun events that garner national attention. Though not every business can quite reach this scale of event sponsorship, there are opportunities for virtually every size and variety of business if you know where to look.

According to the 2017 BrandMuscle Effectiveness Index for the most effective local marketing channels, hosting events, participating in events with booths, and sponsorship rank very highly, and yet few businesses see the value. They instead rely only on social media and digital ads to get the job done. Between 2016 and 2017, companies that used event marketing strategies within their communities saw a -22% decrease in leads on an average, but a +14% increase in sales.

71% of local businesses are satisfied with the results of community sponsorship. Establishing a presence in the community leads to features in local newspapers, blogs, community calendars, local publications, and even industry newsletters. Non-profit organizations are always looking for extra partners as the corporate dollars behind these sponsorships can increase production value, visibility among the community, and opportunities to grow. Altogether corporations give more than $17 billion to nonprofits every year in charitable donations, but 70% of these nonprofits have a hard time demonstrating the real impact of these gifts. Instead, smart business leaders look for options that involve collaboration and group efforts instead of mindlessly dumping dollars into nonprofits.

Corporate sponsorship is one of the most effective marketing channels available to most businesses, but few have tried it. What’s holding you back? This infographic details the unique benefits of local event sponsorship, how it boosts visibility, grows businesses, and generates brand loyalty through action, rather than just words.

Why You Should Keep an Eye on Marketing Reporting Platforms in 2019

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October 4, 2018

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Why You Should Keep an Eye on Marketing Reporting Platforms in 2019

TapClicks CEO and Co-Founder Speaks at Length About the Company’s Latest Funding Round, Product Roadmap for the Future and the Use of AI And Machine Learning in Marketing Reporting Platform

Data visualization and marketing reporting tools go hand-in-hand. Every marketer wants to look at data and toll up every campaign information in a single dashboard. Customized marketing reporting powered by data science and AI/ML helps create impactful reports and save a huge amount of time, money and effort. Backed by a recent $10 million funding, TapClicks is on the verge of delivering an even more powerful Marketing Reporting dashboard and Marketing Intelligence platform in the coming months.

To know more about the product roadmap and insights into AI/ML creating more opportunities in the CRM space, we sat down with the MarTech company’s CEO and co-founder, Babak Hedayati.

A Unified Marketing Reporting Platform Enables Companies to Spend Less and Get More Done While Focusing on Core Competencies

I am the co-founder, CEO and the Chairman of TapClicks. TapClicks serves media companies, digital marketing agencies, and brands with smart solutions for data and operations management resulting in high-performance results. The scalable data ingestion, reporting, analytics, workflow solution is on a unified platform that enables companies to spend less and gets more done while focusing on core competencies.

We are differentiated from other point tools or stitched together solutions by delivering scalable, easy to use and deploy solutions with a unified UI/UX. TapClicks’ solution is a case where the whole product delivers value far beyond the sum of its parts.

Major Contributing Factors That Attributed to the Securing of TapClicks’ Latest Funding Round

The contributing factors start with a large satisfied customer base that continues to use our products as well as the newest functionality we offer. The business is real, not hype, and is growing rapidly. Add to this a world-class team with the most seasoned talent in the industry and you get a company like TapClicks that many investors want to be a part of.

CRM solutions such as Salesforce and Oracle started with sales and customer service and then expanded to email automation and marketing BI through acquisitions (e.g. Datorama and Eloqua).

We’ve found success by disrupting the marketplace, providing 180 pre-connected marketing sources and a unified, scalable marketing intelligence and workflow platform. Additionally, there has been a significant increase in investor interest in MarTech, as exemplified by Salesforce’s $850 million acquisition of Datorama (CRM) and Adobe’s acquisition of Marketo.

Recommended: Dreamforce Interview with Jon Miller, CEO and Co-Founder at Engagio

Concrete Plans Shaping Up to Further Build on the Reputation as Powerful Automated Reports and Visualizations Platform

TapClicks will enhance its powerful automated reporting and visualization platform with AI and machine learning-based insights and intelligence that users can then act on using our Orders and Workflow features. Specifically, we plan to enhance doing these —

(a) Forecasting, i.e. enabling agencies to accurately forecast performance uplifts and optimized pricing for different client segments;

(b) Agency Benchmarking, i.e. helping agencies understand how their vertical and channel practices benchmark against other agencies;

(c) Attribution, i.e. analyzing cross-channel leads (e.g. website, social, phone) and performing ROI analysis for each channel and an incremental effect of each campaign;

(d) Recommendation Engine, i.e. recommending more efficient channels (e.g. for single client across multiple channels) and improved strategies from an agency’s other clients in the same industry segment; and

(d) Optimization Engine, i.e. auto-optimizing the channel mix for a particular client based on the best channel mix for their industry, and auto-optimizing campaigns within a single channel (keywords, placement, timing, targeting).

The Role of AI/ML, Analytics and Real-Time Data Visualization Benchmarks at TapClicks

Our platform has a strong AI/ML foundation with our Smart Connector, which that unifies data across any marketing, advertising, CRM or agency/publisher system, Smart Scoring, which enables auto scoring of campaigns based on performance and Smart Alerts, which help campaign managers optimize campaigns.

We have instant-on API-based near-real-time data unification and a visually-compelling analytics platform that enables agencies to impress clients. We also deliver the deepest and broadest set of marketing KPIs in the industry with access to 200+ instant-on data sources and 30,000+ metrics.

The Benefits of CRM Solutions That Integrate with Other Leading Marketing Technology Platforms

There is innate value in the integration between CRM solutions and marketing technology platforms, in terms of an end-to-end process of connecting prospects (or future customers) through their life-cycle to converted customers and passionate advocates.

CRM solutions such as Salesforce and Oracle started with sales and customer service and then expanded to email automation and marketing BI through acquisitions (e.g. Datorama and Eloqua).

At the same time, marketing technology platforms such as HubSpot started with marketing automation technology have expanded into the CRM space.

TapClicks is unique. We provide a unified marketing platform across 180+ channel sources, including (but not limited to) Email Automation, Paid Advertising, Search, Display, Programmatic, Social, Video and Call Tracking, among others.

Predictions on the State of Marketing Reporting and Intelligence Dashboards in 2018-2022

Considering the scalability, ease of use, broad adoption, and world-class capabilities of TapClicks’ solution, we expect that 80 percent of the companies with real marketing reporting needs will be using TapClicks.

Intelligent dashboards are a refined marketing challenge.

We expect to see similar results with regards to Marketing intelligence solutions for media and digital agencies with other leaders such as Tableau, Google, and Salesforce achieving deeper penetration while brands with TapClicks take a good portion of the mid-range market.

Thank you, Babak, for sharing your funding story with our readers!

AI-Driven Marketing Planning Solution InfiniGrow Launches to Solve Key Marketer Challenge – Optimizing Channel Budget Allocation to Achieve Goals and Maximize Performance

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October 4, 2018

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AI-Driven Marketing Planning Solution Infinigrow Launches to Solve Key Marketer Challenge – Optimizing Channel Budget Allocation to Achieve Goals and Maximize Performance

Companies like ContentSquare Are Uncovering Better Performing Channels and Gaining Insights and Optimization Suggestions to Improve Marketing Planning and Budget Allocation Without Hiring Data Scientists Thanks to Infinigrow’s AI-Based Marketing Planning Platform

The growing number of marketing channels and the ensuing trove of data has resulted in marketing teams spending most of their time trying to understand and act on their data to improve marketing performance and KPIs.

Despite the data, John Wanamaker’s 100 year old statement about not knowing which half of his marketing budget was being wasted is truer now than ever. Marketers, with all of their tools, technology and data to manage multiple marketing channels, are afraid to admit it. But marketers today aren’t just looking to ‘explain’ their historical data, they also need to use the data to improve their future plans.

To address the pains of modern marketers, InfiniGrow is launching the company’s Marketing Planning Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, which enables marketing teams to optimally plan and allocate their budget across online and offline channels in order to achieve organizational KPIs and maximize marketing performance.

Also Read: Research: What Will Be the Greatest Digital Marketing Challenges for Technology Resellers In 2019?

After onboarding and synching all relevant company data in under an hour, InfiniGrow enables marketers to effectively plan their marketing activities by tracking all touchpoints across customer journeys, and integrating performance and cost data. The solution provides marketing teams with the full picture of how past activities impacted organizational KPIs, and provides recommendations on how to more effectively allocate budgets to improve performance in the future.

Specifically, InfiniGrow gives marketing teams the ability to monitor and plan their channel performance, in real-time, based on data from previous campaigns and activities and current market data while tracking planned vs. actual performance without the help of a data scientists or analysts. Marketers can define constraints (such as already committed retainers, blocked channels, etc.) and then review and select among the AI engine-generated recommendations for unknown variables. By providing a real-time view of channel performance and offering AI-driven recommendations for channel budget optimization, InfiniGrow enables marketing teams to save time and improve performance.

For example, a CMO or Director of Marketing ready to update her budgets across channels can select ‘new scenario’ in InfiniGrow’s planning module and receive recommendations from InfiniGrow’s AI engine in line with their company KPIs. The marketer can then follow some or all of InfiniGrow’s recommendations OR define their own budget updates based on InfiniGrow’s forecasts for each scenario and action, and optimize it on an ongoing basis with new recommendations when new data is processed.

InfiniGrow’s technology was developed to provide marketers with the best recommendations at the moment according to market data and actual performance to date. The company’s machine learning algorithms leverage advanced attribution methodologies to calculate investment effectiveness and iteratively improve the AI predictions. InfiniGrow’s AI-engine analyzes the data and creates projections for each action, suggestion and scenario, and provides relevant suggestions for each user, at any given moment.

Also Read: LinkedIn Is Changing How Sponsored Content Appears on Its Platform

The goal of InfiniGrow’s AI technology is to make sure the marketer will achieve their defined KPIs and maximize performance based on those KPIs. Marketers working with InfiniGrow uncovered previously unexplored channels recommended by InfiniGrow’s AI engine and reallocated their budgets to improve their marketing ROI.

“Now that we all need to do more with less, and provide a high return on investment for every dollar spent, one of the main challenges CMOs face is marketing budget allocation and optimization. InfiniGrow’s solution enables marketing teams to easily and smartly allocate budget using AI-driven recommendations, and to maximize performance thanks to an optimized marketing plan,” said Efrat Ravid, Chief Marketing and Strategy, Americas at ContentSquare, a digital experience insights platform, and an InfiniGrow advisory board member. “Marketers today wear many hats — they are held accountable for performance and ROI, but are also responsible for leading a company’s creative and communications strategies. They have to be a data scientist, tech guru and financial wizard, and InfiniGrow can help solve this conundrum, and help close the CMO – CFO – CIO gap.”

“I launched InfiniGrow because, as a marketer, I always felt like trying to accurately allocate my marketing budget across the right channels to maximize ROI was a critical task that took too much time and involved lots of guesswork,” said Daniel Meler, CEO and co-founder, InfiniGrow. “With the hyper dynamic nature of marketing and the sharp increase in marketing channels, marketing teams understand that the ability to invest their time and resources, in the channels that advance organizational success, is critical to their own success. InfiniGrow easily enables them to do just that.”

Dreamforce Interview with Tyler Lessard, VP, Marketing, Vidyard

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October 4, 2018

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[vc_wp_text]“When it comes to video, intent data can manifest itself in triggering specific workflows, most relevant that individual, that deliver the right video at the right time.”[/vc_wp_text]

[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/tylerlessard?lang=en” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerlessard/”]

What is the most exciting aspect of leading the thought-train in Video Marketing technology?

For many businesses, the adoption of video isn’t just about achieving incremental gains. It’s about transforming how they communicate with customers, how they tell their brand story, and how they deliver truly personalized experiences that matter. It’s so exciting to be involved in a market that is having such a significant impact on today’s businesses and fundamentally changing how they engage their audiences.

What’s the biggest attraction for you at Dreamforce 2018?

The pace of change in marketing, sales and customer experience technology continues to accelerate, and Dreamforce is the perfect place to soak it all in and gain a better understanding of the macro trends in the market. I’m looking forward to the major keynotes and a slew of announcements that accompany them to ensure I’m staying one step ahead of the market.

Who are you keen to meet and huddle at the event? Which sections at the event would you be keen to attend?

I always look to connect with the Salesforce team themselves to see what’s new and to absorb best-in-class examples from their leading clients. I also look forward to getting lost in the exhibit hall amongst the sea of partners and vendors where your imagination can run wild.

What makes Instagram videos a viable marketplace for brands? How do you look at this avenue for B2B growth?

It’s all about finding your audiences where they are, with the types of experiences they want to engage with. Instagram video is all about that! Today it’s primarily a channel for B2C and commerce brands to connect with consumers and stimulate demand, but there is absolutely a burgeoning opportunity for B2B brands. But for B2B, it won’t be about driving in-channel transaction, it will be all about audience engagement, storytelling, and maintaining brand relevance with your target markets.

Do you think there is a lot that needs to be done on integrating Video technologies with customer intelligence and analytics?

For most businesses, there is a huge gap between their video content and their analytics platforms. Most lack the ability to connect engagement time with downstream conversions and are left with relying on view counts as a measure of impact. Brands need to adopt modern tools to help them tie video engagement to downstream transactions to truly understand which pieces of content are genuinely driving purchase intent.

What advice would you give to CMOs looking to invest in video tools now?

Don’t get trapped into thinking video is an island unto itself, or that it’s only for brand or social. Video has a growing role to play across all channels and programs, offering a better way to tell your story, educate buyers, generate demand and build greater trust with audiences. But equally important is the fact that video does not need to be expensive or complicated. A great script can make an incredible video whether it’s filmed in a high-end studio or on the iPhone in your pocket.

What message do you have for your fellow CMOs in the industry when it comes to working with Intent Data for video personalization?

Intent data can be a powerful input to personalize any piece of marketing! When it comes to video, this can manifest itself in triggering specific workflows, most relevant that individual, that deliver the right video at the right time. But it can also mean personalizing the video content itself by weaving the names or images or products or services they would most likely be interested in, into the video itself in a dynamic way. The possibilities are only just emerging and it’s very exciting to see.

How do you utilize Marketing Attribution technologies to justify the ROI on video marketing?

When looking at the ROI of video, you always need to think about the real goal and be able to measure back against that. While some videos are purely meant for brand awareness and views, most are produced with the goal of generating new leads or accelerate a sales cycle. With tools like Vidyard and Salesforce, video views can be associated with individual leads and accounts, giving you the ability to report back on how they are actually influencing pipeline and revenue – not just awareness.

Would you provide us your take on turning AI-driven and enabled videos by 2020?

AI is starting to play a role in helping businesses present the right video to the right individual at the right time. The next big wave will be using AI data to dynamically personalize or customize video content to make it as relevant and engaging as possible. We’re starting to see the technology emerge to do this today, and we expect to see more practical examples in the market by 2020.

An inspiring quote from past editions of Dreamforce that you have ever heard:

What makes you different? To stand out from the crowd and win business, you have to be different. (Tiffani Bova, Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist @ Salesforce)

Thank you, Tyler! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Tyler” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46d712-3b68db8f-23cb4295-2ad5″]

Tyler is an engaging, dynamic and entertaining thought leader in the areas of B2B marketing, content marketing, video marketing and video selling. As VP of Marketing at Vidyard, he’s spent more than 5 years immersed in the world of B2B video, helping to define and share the latest best practices and industry trends for creating remarkable customer experiences with video across all aspects of marketing and sales. He is a frequent speaker and author on a diverse range of topics including video marketing, video production, video selling, personalization, account-based marketing, modern demand generation practices and how to blend art and science to create stand-out experiences at scale.

Tyler speaks at more than 20 conferences and tradeshows annually, hosts hands-on customer workshops, produces the Chalk Talks video series, and is a frequent host and guest on various marketing podcasts including Content Pros. His presentation style is both educational and entertaining, often weaving interactive conversations and “magic tricks” into his delivery to draw in his audience.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Vidyard” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46d712-3b68db8f-23cb4295-2ad5″]

Vidyard

Vidyard is the video platform for business that helps organizations drive more revenue through the use of online video. Going beyond video hosting and management, Vidyard helps businesses drive greater engagement in their video content, track the viewing activities of each individual viewer, and turn those views into action. Global leaders such as Honeywell, LinkedIn, Citibank and Sharp rely on Vidyard to power their video content strategies and turn viewers into customers.

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[mnky_heading title=”MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmartechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com%2Fcategory%2Fmts-insights%2Finterviews%2F|||”]

The MTS Martech Interview Series is a fun Q&A style chat which we really enjoy doing with martech leaders. With inspiration from Lifehacker’s How I work interviews, the MarTech Series Interviews follows a two part format On Marketing Technology, and This Is How I Work. The format was chosen because when we decided to start an interview series with the biggest and brightest minds in martech – we wanted to get insight into two areas … one – their ideas on marketing tech and two – insights into the philosophy and methods that make these leaders tick.

Liferay Acquires Controlling Interest in Triblio and Invests in Next Generation Customer Engagement

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October 4, 2018

Also Read: Finxact Announces the Finxact Adapter for Salesforce on Salesforce AppExchange, Bringing Powerful Customer-Centric Features to Banking Products and Services

Liferay Acquires Controlling Interest in Triblio and Invests in Next Generation Customer Engagement

Investment Enables Liferay to Build on Digital Experience Software Capabilities and Triblio to Expand ABM Functionality to New Markets

Liferay, Inc., which makes software that helps companies create digital experiences on web, mobile and connected devices, announced that it has acquired controlling interest in Triblio and committed to an ongoing strategic investment in growing Triblio’s Account-Based Marketing (ABM) business. The investment allows Liferay to explore opportunities for the DXP audience to further enhance and personalize the customer journey with account-specific content and messaging. In turn, Triblio will continue to focus on delivering long-term customer value and product innovation.

“Triblio represents the next generation of B2B marketing cloud and we are fully committed to investing in the platform and growing Triblio’s ABM business,” said Liferay CEO Bryan Cheung. “Existing Liferay DXP customers will reap the benefits of this investment over time as we continue to help organizations build long-term relationships and deliver value to customers across their lifecycle.”

Also Read: Zendesk Releases Benchmark Guide for Enterprise Reports

Triblio will continue to operate as an independent entity led by CEO Andre Yee. Andre co-founded Triblio after serving as Senior Vice President of Product Development at marketing automation software provider Eloqua. Triblio is a leading ABM cloud provider with over 100 customers and triple digit annual year over year growth. The platform offers account-based advertising, web personalization, sales orchestration, account scoring and analytics, all powered by its unique AI-based purchase intent engine.

“We are excited to receive Liferay’s investment,” said Andre Yee, CEO of Triblio. “With their strategic commitment, we intend to extend our market reach and invest significantly in our customer success and product development teams.”

Together, Liferay and Triblio are dedicated to bringing improved customer engagement and content targeting capabilities to enterprises. In addition, the two companies share a deep commitment to customer success and in giving back to the wider community.

SendGrid Taps Carrie Palin as Chief Marketing Officer

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October 4, 2018

SendGrid Taps Carrie Palin as Chief Marketing Officer

Former Box CMO with 20+ Years Experience to Lead Marketing Function

SendGrid has announced that Carrie Palin has joined the company as Chief Marketing Officer.

At the time of this announcement, Sameer Dholakia, CEO, SendGrid, said, “Carrie brings incredible tech marketing leadership experience to SendGrid. She is deeply passionate about MarTech and its role in transforming the way marketers work and, importantly, she embodies our 4H culture of being Happy, Humble, Hungry and Honest to the highest degree.”

Sameer added, “Carrie has a strong background in knowing how to serve and reach developers along with an impressive track record of contributing to immense growth and scale at companies like Dell, IBM, and most recently, Box. I’m confident she is going to be an extraordinary addition to our team as we embark on our next chapter of scale and growth.”

Carrie joins SendGrid from Box where she was Senior Vice President and the company’s first Chief Marketing Officer. She brings deep knowledge to SendGrid of digital marketing and best practices for utilizing technology and data to drive customer engagement and business growth. Carrie helped Box transform and improve the way its marketing and sales teams operate, contributing to Box nearly doubling its revenue during her tenure.

Prior to Box, Carrie was the Vice President of Marketing for IBM’s Cloud Data Services and Analytics Software Division where she oversaw the team responsible for the growth of their SaaS offerings. Prior to her time at IBM, she spent over 15 years at Dell, where she led several marketing organizations, including the team responsible for the global demand generation strategy for its data center solutions and the team in charge of Dell’s server portfolio go-to-market strategy, including the portfolio launch of 12G solutions. Carrie sits on the executive advisory board for Marketo and holds a BS in Communications from Texas Christian University.

As Chief Marketing Officer, Carrie is responsible for elevating SendGrid’s brand, driving demand for its products and services and leading its overall Marketing operations. Carrie oversees corporate and product marketing, demand generation, corporate communications, and SendGrid’s community development team.

“SendGrid is at a pivotal period in its growth and I’m thrilled to join the team,” said Carrie Palin, CMO, SendGrid.

Carrie added, “I’m inspired by SendGrid’s unwavering mission and vision to build the world’s most trusted customer communication platform and I’m personally proud to be a part of a company that focuses deeply on its customers and employees.”

Currently, SendGrid is a leading digital communication platform, enabling businesses to engage with their customers via email reliably, effectively and at scale. A leader in email deliverability, SendGrid has processed over 45 billion emails each month for internet and mobile-based customers as well as more traditional enterprises.

Marketo is a Leader in the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management for Seventh Consecutive Year

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October 4, 2018

Marketo is a Leader in the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management for Seventh Consecutive Year

Leading Marketing Automation platform and a MarTech RADAR entrant, Marketo, Inc., has announced it has been named a Leader in the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management for the seventh consecutive year. The company was positioned furthest to the right on the completeness of vision axis in the entire Magic Quadrant.

Recommended: Bizible Unveils Bizible Discover

At the time of this announcement, Arun Anantharaman, Chief Product Officer, Marketo, said, “Marketo is thrilled to be named a Leader once again in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management.”

Arun added, “At Marketo, we are surgically focused on meeting the needs of the most progressive marketers in the world as they plan, engage, and measure performance in today’s increasingly complex digital landscape. To us, being positioned furthest on the completeness of vision axis and being designated as a Leader for the seventh year in a row is a testament to our world-class team of product engineers and marketing visionaries who are the architects behind the industry’s most powerful platform for marketers.”

Marketers continue to recognize Marketo’s investment for continuous innovation, including:

Marketo’s most recent acquisition of Bizible, a marketing attribution company, designed to empower marketers and allow organizations to seamlessly link revenue back to marketing investment.
Marketo’s Engagement Platform, a cloud platform for the modern marketer, providing customers with Inbound Marketing, Lead Management, Account-Based Marketing (ABM), Social Marketing, Event Management, and Marketing ROI Reporting and Analytics.
Marketo LaunchPoint^®, one of the first and largest ecosystems of MarTech, enables customers to plan, engage, and measure their marketing programs, and jointly manages the orchestration of their end-to-end marketing activities with its partners.

Marketo’s aggressive investment in its product strategy and vision to deliver the cloud operating system for the modern marketer builds on the long-standing foundation of its core Marketing Engagement Platform^TM leveraged by hundreds of thousands of marketers worldwide every day to power their business’s growth. Marketo’s delivery of new Account Based Marketing (ABM) and Artificial Intelligence capabilities is what makes it a standout product.

Oracle Eloqua Innovations Accelerate Lead Generation and Increase Conversion Rates

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October 3, 2018

Oracle Eloqua Innovations Accelerate Lead Generation and Increase Conversion Rates

New Content Creation, Sales Tools and Auditing Capabilities Help Marketers Increase Efficiency and Creativity

Recently, to help marketers accelerate lead generation and increase conversion rates, Oracle had announced a series of updates to Oracle Eloqua. The latest innovations within Oracle Eloqua help marketers communicate with their prospects and customers as efficiently and easily as possible by introducing new content creation, sales tools, and auditing capabilities.

“In order to drive sales and strengthen brand and customer loyalty, B2B marketers increasingly have to deliver irresistible, consistent and connected experiences to customers wherever they are and however they choose to engage,” said Pierre Custeau, VP, product management, Oracle Eloqua.

Pierre added, “To help our customers meet these increasing expectations, we are focused on delivering innovations within Eloqua that bring efficiency and creativity to the way marketers work. With the addition of powerful new content creation, sales tools and auditing capabilities, we are continuing to set the industry standard for marketing automation.”

Part of Oracle Marketing Cloud, Eloqua is a B2B marketing automation platform that helps marketing teams nurture prospects through email marketing and cross-channel marketing.

The new enhancements to Oracle Eloqua enable customers to:

Quickly and Efficiently Create Compelling and Creative Landing Pages

A new Eloqua Landing Page Editor enables marketers to build out-of-the-box landing pages without touching code and provides an enhanced guided experience with more interactive elements to further increase efficiency and spark creativity. With the new landing page editor, marketers can natively build responsive landing pages featuring image carousels with rotating images and add video backgrounds to create more engaging content without needing technical expertise or outside agency support.

Streamline and Optimize the Sales Process

New Eloqua Sales Tools for Microsoft Outlook enables sales teams to access rich buyer insights, relevant content and track emails sent to prospects without having to leave their email platform of choice. The new integration with Microsoft Outlook also provides a seamless and consistent experience for sales teams that work across a range of platforms and devices by enabling users to easily access Eloqua Engage and Eloqua Profiler.

Must Read: Interview with Jeff Ray, CEO, Brightcove

Enhance Security, Tracking and Auditing

A new comprehensive logging and auditing procedure for all major accounts and objects further enhances the security and tracking capabilities within Eloqua. The new auditing capabilities ensure any sensitive data within Eloqua is protected against unauthorized usage or retrieval and enable users to obtain insights about login history, detailed audit insights and enhanced audit reporting that includes the ability to export audit logs for up to 25 months in CSV and XLS format.

Oracle Marketing Cloud is part of Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Cloud Suite, an integrated suite of applications that empower organizations to take a smarter approach to customer experience management and business transformation initiatives. By providing a trusted business platform that connects data, experiences and outcomes, Oracle CX Cloud Suite helps customers reduce IT complexity, deliver innovative customer experiences, and achieve predictable and tangible business results.

Zendesk Releases Benchmark Guide for Enterprise Reports

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October 3, 2018

New research offers insights to help large companies improve the customer experience

Zendesk, released the Zendesk Benchmark Guide for Enterprise. The new research reports feature insights and best practices for two different types of large companies: Digital Natives that have been considered digital since their founding, and Digital Transformers, more traditional companies that are in the process of modernizing their approach to customer support.

The report details what sets companies with the most sophisticated customer support operations apart from their industry peers. For both Digital Natives and Digital Transformers, the companies with the best performing support teams share a commitment to scalability, consistency, innovation, and proactive customer service.

One surprising finding: a company’s age isn’t the primary factor linked to its approach to customer support. In fact, plenty of younger companies are still working to modernize their support operations, while several established companies have already mastered the digital landscape.

The high performers in both groups also view their support software as a platform, using apps, integrations and APIs to give agents the information they need to move quickly, maintaining consistency and context across channels.

For both Digital Natives and Digital Transformers, Zendesk Benchmark data shows the companies that face the most challenges are those that directly serve consumers. Traditional enterprise companies that are B2C have a higher volume of requests, lower customer satisfaction scores and the slowest reply times of all company types, implying a digital transformation is most urgently necessary for this group.

At the same time, Digital Native companies in the B2C category still face high customer expectations while handling a massive volume of requests. They see nearly eight times the volume of customer requests and have an average customer satisfaction score that is nearly 10 percentage points lower than companies serving other businesses or operating internally. While these large companies tend to take full advantage of their support software, they see a constant need to innovate and scale to keep up with changing customer expectations.

Digital Natives and Digital Transformers also differ in their self-service capabilities. Digital Native help centers have twice as many articles and a ratio of self-service content views to total ticket volume that is five times higher than that of more traditional enterprise companies. The takeaway for Digital Transformers is that investing more in self-service can lower costs, drive better customer satisfaction scores and improve agent efficiency.

“Today’s enterprise businesses face constant pressure to innovate, transform and perform – from disruptors who redefine industries, shareholders who demand better returns, and customers who expect faster and more personalised service. While technology is often at the core of keeping pace with these expectations, success ultimately boils down to ensuring customer experience is at the heart of your business strategy. This report helps give Singapore’s enterprise businesses a baseline for measuring and evaluating their performance on a global scale, and put customer experience back in the pilot’s seat to help propel their future success,” said Sandie Overtveld, vice president APAC, Zendesk.

“Regardless of where a company is in its journey, understanding what customers want and how to deliver is critical for businesses to succeed,” said Ted Smith, director, market insights at Zendesk. “The Zendesk Benchmark Guide for Enterprise can help companies see how they stack up against their peers and what they can do to position themselves better and create the best experiences for their customers.”

Finxact Announces the Finxact Adapter for Salesforce on Salesforce AppExchange, Bringing Powerful Customer-Centric Features to Banking Products and Services

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October 3, 2018

Finxact Is the First and Only Core Vendor to Leverage Salesforce Financial Services Cloud CRM

Finxact, a leading innovator in Core as a Service banking technology, today announced it has launched the Finxact Adapter for Salesforce on Salesforce AppExchange, empowering banks and other financial services companies to leverage Financial Services Cloud to connect into the Finxact Core and access bank accounts directly for creating better customer experiences in banking and other financial services.

Built on the Salesforce Platform, Finxact Adapter for Salesforce is currently available on the AppExchange at www.appexchange.com or directly through Finxact as part of its Ecosystem Partner Program.

Finxact is the first and only core banking software vendor to partner with Salesforce as a core provider to Salesforce’s Financial Services Cloud.

“Consumers have grown to appreciate companies that understand what they’re looking for, and then shape their communications to be on target. That’s why one-size-fits-all messages and products are undermining banks’ relationships with their customers,” said Frank Sanchez, CEO and founder of Finxact. “The Finxact Adapter for Salesforce enables banks to be data-driven and customer-centric when it comes to not only sales and marketing, but also innovation. If you know your customers better, you’ll be able to build better banking products for them.”

In addition to a powerful banking CRM, Salesforce Financial Service Cloud allows banks to create a central customer repository that can bridge the customer gap between Finxact’s modern Core as a Service, and a bank’s legacy core system.

“We are happy to welcome Finxact onto AppExchange, as they provide banks and financial services companies a way to modernize their systems and legacy operations,” said Mike Wolff, SVP, ISV Sales, Salesforce. “The exponential growth of AppExchange underscores the enormous opportunity the entire Salesforce ecosystem has in creating cutting-edge solutions and driving customer success.”

Banks can use the Finxact Adapter for Salesforce for back office or call center services. It also includes features to open and fund accounts; address customer account and transaction-related questions; perform basic account maintenance; originate one time or recurring payments both intra and interbank; post transactions; and to view account activity.

World’s Largest E-Commerce Panel Combines With Nielsen’s Powerful Data To Create The First Complete View Of The U.S. E-Commerce FMCG Landscape

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October 3, 2018

Exclusive Agreement with Rakuten Intelligence Expands Nielsen’s Omnichannel View

Nielsen and Rakuten Intelligence (formerly Slice Intelligence) announced that they have entered into an exclusive agreement that combines Nielsen’s online purchase data (ePOS) and rich product reference data with Rakuten Intelligence’s consumer sourced panel, the largest e-commerce panel in the world. Released through Nielsen, this combined solution will produce the first complete picture of today’s omnichannel retail landscape for the U.S. fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry, delivering a full view into online and offline market performance and shopper behavior. With this deal, Nielsen now holds the most comprehensive, multi-sourced e-commerce measurement solution for the U.S. market.

Together with Rakuten Intelligence’s best-in-class representative online shopper panel of 5.5 million consumers, Nielsen will gain insight into today’s online shopper and unparalleled visibility into nearly all merchants across all FMCG categories, channels and devices. Rakuten’s proprietary methodology captures and catalogues hard-to-measure buyer data collected directly from consumers. Using item-level purchase details, Rakuten Intelligence offers an in-depth examination of market volume and share, emerging trends, and changes in buyer behavior; revealing the most complete and timely data, across retailers.

Today, 90% of U.S. FMCG online sales is captured by Nielsen. Nielsen’s multi-sourced approach, enabled through a unifying data model, brings unmatched granularity and stability of data to the e-commerce measurement landscape. Working in tandem with Nielsen’s ePOS data and Rakuten Intelligence’s panel insights, Nielsen’s holistic digital shelf solution, available through Nielsen Connected Partner, Profitero, spans over 300 million products on 4,000 websites in over 40 countries every day, enabling companies to correlate online execution drivers with actual sales performance data captured through e-receipts and ePOS retail cooperation.

“At Rakuten Intelligence, it has always been our vision to provide essential e-commerce data and insights to clients and the greater ecosystem,” said Nick Stamos, CEO at Rakuten Intelligence.” Through our alliance with Nielsen, we are creating a new standard for e-commerce measurement for the FMCG industry. The data and breadth of solutions that Nielsen and Rakuten Intelligence can now provide FMCG clients will finally bring a 360 degree view of today’s consumer and opportunities for growth in today’s ‘brave new world’ of retail.”

“Nielsen has an unwavering commitment to driving growth for our clients, which means finding solutions to capture the fastest growing segments and measuring the places they care about the most,” said John Tavolieri, President, U.S. FMCG and Retail at Nielsen. “As the industry focuses in on the connected consumer, we are proud of the continued expansion of our e-commerce suite of solutions and excited to align with the best of breed e-panel provider in the market, Rakuten Intelligence. With Rakuten Intelligence, our unrivaled view of the online and offline landscape will bring much needed visibility into the omnichannel landscape. Using Nielsen’s federated data model to enable seamless data collaboration, we are bringing to life the most comprehensive, accurate and actionable e-commerce performance measurement and analytics platform in the world.”

Braze Raises $80 Million in Latest Funding Round, More Than Doubling Valuation to $850 Million

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October 3, 2018

Braze Raises $80 Million in Latest Funding Round, More Than Doubling Valuation to $850 Million

The Braze Human Approach to Customer Engagement Continues to Disrupt Legacy Cloud Players

Today, Braze (formerly Appboy), the leading global customer engagement platform that delivers personalized messaging experiences across push, email, apps, and more, announced an $80 million Series E round of funding led by Meritech Capital Partners, a venture capital company with investments in leading technology brands such as Facebook, MuleSoft, and Salesforce. This latest infusion of capital brings Braze to $130 million raised in just over a year and has more than doubled its valuation to $850 million from Series D in 2017.

With data, technology, and teams working together in unison, the Braze platform makes marketing more authentic, brands more human, and customers more satisfied with every experience.

At the time of this announcement, Bill Magnuson, Cofounder and CEO at Braze, said, “Coupled with ever-increasing customer expectations, the relentless advance of technology is creating an immense challenge for brands to maintain and strengthen their customer relationships over time.”

Bill added, “We’ve built Braze to be the backbone of customer engagement, helping brands combine our sophisticated technology with a fundamentally human approach that helps turn that challenge into (an) opportunity.”

“Meritech invests in fast-growing sector leaders offering new technology to large markets—and that is exactly what we see in Braze,” said Paul Madera, Cofounder of Meritech Capital Partners.

Paul added, “We rarely hear customers rave enthusiastically over technology, but that is exactly what we heard regarding Braze. Their customers are passionate about the differentiated solution to cloud-based marketing, and their remarkably effective platform surpasses a prior generation of tools that no longer work.”

Braze boasts over 500 digital-first and enterprise brand customers, including ABC News, AccuWeather, Delivery Hero, HBO, Lyft, Jet.com, KFC Australia, Microsoft, RedMart, The Skimm, and Venmo. Each month, Braze powers tens of billions of messages, delivered to over 1.5 billion monthly active users globally. In Q2 2018 alone, Braze processed 1 trillion engagement events, enabling brands to take immediate action on customer insights and create personalized, cross-channel messaging experiences.

“At RetailMeNot, we are constantly looking for innovative ways to build human connections with customers at scale,” said Marissa Tarleton, Chief Marketing Officer at RetailMeNot, Inc.

Marissa added, “To speak to human beings instead of targets or segments takes sophisticated technology in the hands of skilled, interdisciplinary teams. Our product, marketing, and engineering teams unanimously chose the Braze platform to help us solve this challenge.”

Since the beginning of 2017, Braze more than tripled its annual recurring revenue, increased monthly email volume by 600%, and opened a Singapore office marking its official entry into the APAC market. In this round, the company also received backing from Spark Capital, a venture capital firm invested in Oculus, Postmates, and Slack, as well as backing from Cross Creek.

“In an industry where consumer demands are evolving at an unprecedented rate, Braze is a critical component of the customer experience we’re able to deliver at Overstock,” said JP Knab, Chief Marketing Officer at Overstock.

JP added, “Data agility and advanced intelligence made possible by Braze allow(s) us to further unlock the power of data and drive personalized, coherent conversations with our customers at the right time.”

Currently, Braze (formerly Appboy) is a customer engagement platform that delivers messaging experiences across push, email, apps, and more. Braze is built specifically for today’s mobile-first world and tomorrow’s ambient computing future. Braze is set apart as the platform that allows for real-time and continuous data streaming, replacing decades-old databases that aren’t built for today’s on-demand always-connected customer.

Must Read: TechBytes with Paul Lindstrom, Head of Research and Analytics at …

Copper Unveils SMB Productivity Stack with Four Best-of-Breed Integrations

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October 3, 2018

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Copper adds Hubspot, Zendesk Quickbooks and Xero to new partner integration program aimed at connecting tools to the applications users need to be more productive and love their jobs

Copper, the Google-recommended CRM for today’s digital workplace, today announced four new integrations to help small and midsized businesses (SMBs) be more productive and get the same leverage from technology investments as mid- and large-sized organizations. The four new integration partners, HubSpot, Zendesk, QuickBooks and Xero provides Copper customers with an integrated application stack that can share relationship data from customers, partners, vendors, investments and more, directly within their Gmail extension, as well as in Copper.

Small businesses have been among the biggest beneficiaries of the move of business applications to cloud and mobile, as it has eliminated most of the need for extensive on-site IT support and infrastructure. However, businesses still spend billions of dollars annually on system integrations and business process automation, posing complex challenges to SMBs.

With pre-packaged integrations, Copper’s small business stack eliminates those barriers by providing lines of business within instant access to relationship data from CRM, accounts payable and receivable, customer service and support, and marketing automation applications within the productivity applications they are used to. The automatic data sync between the platforms will allow users to spend less time each day searching for the background information they need to have successful interactions with customers.

“With even the smallest companies becoming data-driven, the flow of information between applications becomes paramount to providing outstanding user experience,” said Jon Aniano, chief product officer of Copper.

Jon added, “Gone are the days of asking sales, marketing, finance or support professionals to log into 5-7 different applications to get the information they need, while not having access to relevant data outside of their line of business. Cooper’s mission is to build an application stack centered on user productivity, helping people across lines of businesses in relationship-driven organizations have the full picture.”

Copper Small Business Stack integrations include:

HubSpot: Connects users’ sales database to their marketing database. Sales and marketing teams are established to seamlessly share contacts, track deals and get deeper insight into every customer’s journey.
Zendesk: Provides a seamless integration between sales and service teams to collaborate and resolve customer issues faster. This integration enables support teams to deliver a personal customer service experience based on continuous data from the sales side.
QuickBooks: The integration provides Copper users with the ability to view past invoices and customer details from QuickBooks.
Xero: Integration directly connects users’ sales database to their finance database. It allows teams to work faster, pay invoices quicker and increase efficiency for the finance department.

Advangelists, LLC Brings an Adtech Oracle to Life

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October 3, 2018