YouAppi Unveils Major Upgrades to Its 360 Platform, Used by Nearly 500 of the World’s Most Prominent Global Brands

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August 1, 2018

RhythmOne Guarantees Advanced TV Audience Delivery to Maximize Targeted Reach and Campaign Performance

Solution Leverages Comscore Cross-Platform Campaign Measurement to Enable Marketers to Pay Only for Impressions Delivered In-Demo

RhythmOne plc , a global advertising technology company, announced that it will offer United States-based clients guaranteed in-demo delivery of advanced TV campaigns. This unique offering provides clients with campaign-level audience measurement while accessing RhythmOne’s premium network of app publishers within its advanced TV marketplace, including connected TV, TV everywhere, and interactive TV. The RhythmOne Advanced TV Audience Guarantee solution analyzes and optimizes campaign exposure data against comScore cross-platform measurement, which provides insight into campaign reach across TV, over-the-top (OTT), desktop, and mobile platforms for a complete view of campaign delivery.

“The future of TV advertising in today’s digital world is connected,” said Todd Johnson, Vice President of Emerging Technology, RhythmOne. “Advanced TV is now an integral component of linear TV and digital ad campaigns to maximize reach and boost campaign performance. While person-level measurement has historically been a challenge for the TV industry, we’re proud to introduce a solution that addresses this critical issue. Our Advanced TV Audience Guarantee assures marketers that they are only paying for the impressions that reach their desired targets.”

Also Read: dataxu Reports Massive 40x YoY Increase in TV

According to comScore’s most recent “State of OTT” report, the OTT market is steadily growing, with 8.8 million more OTT viewing households coming online over the past year – an increase of 17% year-over-year (YOY). Time spent streaming is also up 28% YOY, with households averaging 54 hours per month of streaming.

This increase in OTT households and streaming has likely fueled the growth of advanced TV advertising and digital video monetization overall. According to eMarketer’s latest projections, US digital video ad spending will climb to $29.6 billion by 2022 – an increase of 65% compared to 2018’s spending projection ($17.9 billion).

“As a leader in the measurement space, comScore has proudly developed a new model to accommodate the complexities of cross-platform advertising – especially for high-growth media like OTT advertising,” said Felix Hansen, Vice President of Product at comScore. “We are pleased to serve as the source of truth for cross-platform campaigns – and work with companies like RhythmOne – to help marketers more effectively measure their total audience and maximize their campaign efforts.”

Also Read: comScore Announces Campaign Ratings to Solve Cross-Platform Video Ad Measurement Challenge

The RhythmOne Advanced TV Audience Guarantee offers marketers and media buyers the following benefits:

In-target audience delivery at scale. RhythmOne helps brands connect with intended ages and genders. The platform optimizes impression delivery to target digital TV audiences across its controlled and partnered supply.
Reach and frequency insights. Metrics include how many unique individuals a brand has reached and how often within a campaign.
Person-level viewership in households. Measurement accounts for all viewers in a room with co-viewing calibration from comScore, delivering a complete view of the total audience exposed to a brand’s video.

RhythmOne acquired advanced TV and digital video pioneer YuMe earlier this year. This new offering adds to RhythmOne’s robust set of advanced TV measurement solutions, including Nielsen Audience Composition, Placed In-Store Attribution, comScore Tune-In, and Nielsen Catalina Closed Loop ROI Measurement.

RhythmOne guarantees delivery as measured against comScore’s cross-platform measurement, optimizing impression delivery on a weekly basis in order to fulfill purchased impressions before the end of campaign flight. To fulfill guarantees, RhythmOne will apply [Delivered Audience Impression composition %] x [RhythmOne count OR CTV certified ad server impression count] to determine billable in-demo impression count. While we do not anticipate that a guarantee will not be met, should final billable in-demo impression count calculation demonstrate that we have not met the guaranteed in-demo impression count during the pre-determined campaign flight period, RhythmOne will not bill for the under-delivered impressions.

Spiceworks Introduces New Intent-Based Targeting Capabilities to Help Technology Brands Reach In-Market Businesses at the Right Time

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August 1, 2018

Spiceworks Introduces New Intent-Based Targeting Capabilities to Help Technology Brands Reach In-Market Businesses at the Right Time

New Capabilities Leverage First-Party Intent Data to Improve How Businesses Buy and Sell Technology Solutions

Spiceworks introduced new intent-based targeting capabilities that leverage unique, first-party insights to empower B2B technology brands to identify and engage potential customers more efficiently. The new capabilities help technology brands reach in-market businesses — and the buyers within them — at the right time, providing a better, more relevant experience for IT buyers seeking connections to the brands that can help them when they need it most. With intent-based targeting, Spiceworks is connecting technology buyers and sellers in a way that reduces friction in the technology buying process and improves the experience for both parties.

B2B technology brands attempting to reach in-market buyers have been constrained by two historical approaches — determining intent through content and editorial consumption and through the combining of data sets from multiple third-party providers. However, given the complexity of the IT buying process and the number of decision makers involved, these approaches don’t leverage or fully account for new resources technology buyers rely on, their real-time behaviors, public conversations they have with peers and technology brands, existing brand preferences and solutions deployed, or the tools they use to do their jobs day in, day out.

Also Read: Spiceworks Study Reveals Employees Spend 26 Days Per Year on Websites Unrelated to Their Job

“An approach to intent-based targeting that relies on content consumption or an amalgamation of third-party data sets is limiting for the brand, but more importantly, cannot fundamentally improve the experience for the IT buyer,” said Manish Dixit, senior vice president of products and engineering at Spiceworks. “Our approach marries first-party data that’s unique to Spiceworks, new machine learning capabilities, and our decade-plus relationship with IT buyers to reimagine intent-based targeting in a way that’s great for the IT buyer and the brand they’re buying from.”

Spiceworks Generates Billions of Intent Signals Each Month

Interactions within the Spiceworks marketplace including community discussions, technology how-tos, learning modules, product reviews, over 15 IT management tools, and other properties generate billions of intent signals every month and provide a more complete picture of business’ needs. These insights are then used to connect technology buyers and sellers as they’re searching for the information they need to make a purchase decision.

Spiceworks’ intent-based targeting capabilities help technology brands reach in-market businesses across 14 technology categories including hardware, software, cloud, security, networking, and more. Additionally, Spiceworks can identify purchase intent for a specific brand within each technology category and enable business technology buyers to opt-in to content from the brands they’re considering. Intent targeting can be activated via Spiceworks’ suite of advertising solutions including email, content syndication, display, and audience extension.

Integral Ad Science and FreeWheel Partner to Provide Publishers with a Global Solution to Measure Premium Video Inventory Against Viewability, Brand Safety and Fraud

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August 1, 2018

Integral Ad Science and FreeWheel Partner for Premium Video Inventory

Publishers using FreeWheel‘s video monetization platform now have a simple solution for verifying and protecting their digital video inventory. Integral Ad Science (IAS) announces a partnership with FreeWheel’s ad management platform that allows publishers to measure the quality of their digital video for viewability, brand safety, and fraud. The solution is globally available across Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) and Video Player Ad Interface Definition (VPAID) inventory across desktop and mobile web.

“We are excited to expand our publisher digital video coverage with FreeWheel,” said David Hahn, Chief Strategy Officer, IAS. “The industry needs a trusted verification partner that supports the buy- and sell-side, and can help all players in the ecosystem confidently and efficiently analyze the quality of media. Together, with FreeWheel we are proud to continue to drive this charge.”

The partnership allows publishers to easily communicate the quality of their inventory and build confidence with marketers that their video content will be placed in viewable, fraud-free environments. It also helps publishers to be transparent and provide their advertisers with a brand-safe experience.

Also Read: Nielsen And FreeWheel To Expand Measurement Across Over-The-Top And Set-Top Box Video On Demand Inventory

“Creating global solutions and standards for digital video is a critical component for the health of the entire TV ecosystem,” said James Rooke, General Manager, FreeWheel Publishers. “The integration of FreeWheel and IAS measurement capabilities will bolster the buy-side’s confidence in the integrity of the inventory they’re purchasing, and allow publishers to pursue more informed monetization strategies.”

The solution was first tested and deployed in France across leading publishers TF1 Publicité and France TV Publicité, and is now available globally.

“Our objective is not only to offer a 100% brand-safe environment for advertisers, but also to offer the highest viewability for their ads. Viewability and video completion are the leading metrics of measuring ad effectiveness. That is why it was necessary for TF1 Publicité to be able to optimize these metrics on a daily basis,” said Philippe Boscher, Head of Digital Marketing, Data & Research, TF1. “Now, with this solution we are able to deliver better informed campaigns to our clients, direct from our ad server, which makes all the difference.”

“For France TV Publicité, the direct integration between IAS and FreeWheel is an opportunity for us to even more efficiently optimize our clients’ digital campaigns. We are fully committed to ensuring media quality in digital advertising which relies particularly on ad-effectiveness measurements such as viewability and brand safety,” said Barbara Steinert Dumery, Vice-President for Marketing, Research and Operations at France Télévisions Publicité.

Publishers can now use this solution to better understand their media quality and align their inventory with client goals and campaign strategies furthering the initiative for better transparency between the buy- and sell-side of the industry.

LiveRamp to Power People-Based TV Campaigns for Adobe with IdentityLink

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August 1, 2018

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Partnership Enables Advertisers to Activate Data At Scale for TV Advertising Using Adobe Advertising Cloud or Adobe Audience Manager

LiveRamp^®, an Acxiom^® company and leading provider of omnichannel identity resolution, today announced that Adobe is integrating LiveRamp’s IdentityLink™ for TV solution across Adobe Advertising Cloud and Adobe Audience Manager. This enables advertisers to engage in addressable TV advertising using the same first- or third-party audiences they already deploy through Adobe, while unlocking household-level insight. The partnership enhances people-based marketing and measurement capabilities for Adobe Advertising Cloud and Audience Manager customers and complements Adobe’s existing TV capabilities.

“The TV landscape is at a watershed moment, created by the convergence of digital and the cord-cutter or cord-never generation. To stay relevant as the industry evolves, digital and TV must work together to create seamlessly-executed omnichannel marketing”

According to Adobe Digital Insights’ Advertising Report, the majority (74 percent) of Americans believe the TV ads they see aren’t relevant to them. Despite progress to extend automation and data-driven buying to TV, most TV buys are still executed manually with targeting and measurement limited to age, gender, frequency and reach. Adobe took steps to solve for these challenges with the introduction of Adobe Advertising Cloud TV last year, and the new partnership with LiveRamp expands those targeting capabilities; it’s now easier than ever for marketers to extend their digital campaigns into the addressable TV ecosystem.

“Since announcing IdentityLink for TV in March, we have continued to prioritize the transformation of the $224B television industry, helping brands, agencies, programmers and technology platforms execute people-based marketing at scale,” said Allison Metcalfe, general manager of TV at LiveRamp. “Our partnership with Adobe fortifies that approach, and helps ensure consumers are tuning in – not tuning out – to meaningful messages and experiences with brands they know and love.”

Adobe Advertising Cloud provides buyers with unique access to inventory, enabling advanced targeting and measurement for billions of ad impressions monthly – from the full footprint of 100+ networks on linear TV, to top broadcasters offering on-demand access to full TV episodes and live sports. Adobe Audience Manager users can now easily use first-party data – CRM files, customer lists, offline sales or loyalty program data – or ethically sourced third-party data from the IdentityLink Data Store to execute advanced TV targeting and measurement. Once an audience is imported to LiveRamp from Adobe, it is anonymized and matched to addressable TV subscribers and can be activated at scale across addressable TV, national linear TV, video-on-demand (VOD), over-the-top video (OTT) and connected TV.

“The TV landscape is at a watershed moment, created by the convergence of digital and the cord-cutter or cord-never generation. To stay relevant as the industry evolves, digital and TV must work together to create seamlessly-executed omnichannel marketing,” said Todd Gordon, Director, Programmatic TV at Adobe. “We are excited to work with LiveRamp to bring omnichannel people-based marketing to our customers, so they can deliver personalized marketing experiences that inform and inspire consumers.”

Gro CRM Joins New Stripe Partner Program to Bring More Commerce Online and Increase the GDP of the Internet

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August 1, 2018

Gro CRM’s Mac CRM platform for small business helps merchants accept payments and process credit cards with complete ease.

Gro CRM, the award-winning friendly and intelligent Mac CRM software platform for small business which includes integrated contact management, customer relationship management and enterprise resource management made exclusively for Apple users and their devices, today announced that it has joined the new Stripe Partner Program as a Verified Partner. With only 3% of GDP online, the goal of the program is to increase internet commerce by helping companies start, run, and scale their businesses.

Stripe is a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet. Millions of businesses of every size use Stripe today to accept online payments and run complex global operations. More than half of Stripe users double their monthly payments volume after two years.

“We’re thrilled to be one of the first to join Stripe’s Partner Program,” said Sophia Maes, Senior Vice President of Sales at Gro CRM. “Our mutual customers benefit from the combination of Gro CRM’s friendly Apple based Mac CRM and Stripe’s seamless payments platform. We’re excited to support the program’s long-term mission of bringing more commerce online and growing the GDP of the internet.”

Stripe Verified Partners undertake a rigorous security and verification process, so that users can be confident in the quality of the partner’s integration with Stripe, as well as more easily find new partners. Verified Partners receive enhanced benefits, including access to millions of Stripe users through a listing on the “Works with Stripe” gallery, exclusive invites to product betas, dedicated partner support, and more.

“Partners have integrated with Stripe for years — more than half of our fastest-growing users take advantage of one or more Stripe extensions,” said Claire Hughes Johnson, Stripe COO. “But as Stripe is increasingly getting pulled up-market, our users have asked for an easier way to discover new partners and new applications. That’s why we’re excited Gro CRM is joining forces with us today to provide a better overall experience for the millions of businesses scaling on Stripe.”

Brainshark Named Among ‘Best Sales Enablement Solutions for Building Better Sales Brains’ in New Analyst Report

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August 1, 2018

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Amalgam Insights’ First-of-its-Kind Research – Which Evaluates Sales Readiness Offerings from a Brain Science Perspective – Recognizes Brainshark’s Solutions for Creating an Always-Ready Sales Force

Brainshark, Inc., delivering SaaS-based sales enablement and readiness solutions, today announced it is a featured solution provider in the newly published “Vendor SmartList^TM: 2018’s Best Sales Enablement Solutions for Building Better Sales Brains” report – authored by leading technology research firm Amalgam Insights. The report – the first to evaluate sales enablement solutions from a brain science perspective – identifies “the top solutions to help sales VPs and sales managers to better train their teams across the multiple areas that salespeople must master.”

According to the report: “The best sales enablement and training solutions are aligned with the learning science – the marriage of psychology and brain science – and optimally engage the ‘what,’ ‘how’ and ‘feel’ systems in the brain.” Mapping critical sales training aspects and processes to these three distinct learning systems, the report evaluates how well solutions solve various sales readiness challenges: including stimulating learning, sustaining knowledge, and promoting development of key skills and aptitudes.

Amalgam Insights Research Fellow Todd Maddox, Ph.D., the report author and an expert in quantitative and cognitive psychology, human learning and memory, and training optimization, commented: “Brainshark makes it easy to create engaging and memorable content to power sales readiness. Combine this with AI-powered scoring and analysis for video coaching, and you have a platform that effectively engages the relevant learning systems and trains better sales brains.”

Brainshark’s award-winning sales readiness solutions prepare salespeople where, when and how they work. The company’s training and coaching offerings effectively address and engage the brain’s learning systems, as defined in the report:

Cognitive skills learning system (knowing facts; “the what” system): The report cited the ease of creating and delivering memorable sales training content through Brainshark – accessible 24×7 on the devices and systems reps use every day, and creating an “always-ready sales force.” Sales organizations can deliver formal and informal training through Brainshark’s on-demand learning environment, as well as push out bite-sized, just-in-time learning videos for anytime, anywhere consumption and refreshers.
Behavioral skills learning system (learning behaviors; “the how” system): Brainshark’s video-based sales coaching solution is a coaching, practice and assessment environment – enabling reps to submit videos (practicing a pitch, etc.) for review, and master key messages and aptitudes. According to the report, Brainshark’s new Machine Analysis engine – an add-on, artificial intelligence (AI)-based solution that provides automated insights and scoring – primes participants for positive behavioral change.
Emotional learning system (reading people/situations; “the feel” system): Through its multipronged sales readiness approach, products and services, Brainshark embraces that sales training is unique because sales situations are always changing. The report notes: “Brainshark helps learners react quickly to readiness needs during onboarding, as new products are launched, when new markets open up and when rolling out new sales methodologies.”

“The information sellers need, and the level at which they need it, is unique for most sales organizations – and that information is always changing,” said Brendan Cournoyer, Brainshark’s vice president of marketing. “The million-dollar question is: ‘How do you get your sales force to a state of perpetual readiness?’ Brainshark provides an all-encompassing solution for creating high-impact learning content, imparting knowledge effectively and making it stick, so companies can address every aspect of sales readiness – from foundational onboarding, to continuous learning, sales transformations and reactive learning needs.”

LeanData and Sales Hacker Unveil Inaugural Survey: The State of Revenue Operations

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July 31, 2018

LeanData and Sales Hacker Unveil Inaugural Survey: The State of Revenue Operations

Approximately 1,000 Sales and Marketing Executives View Revenue as a Shared Responsibility for Predictable Go-To-Market Execution

LeanData, the leader in Lead-to-Account Matching, Routing, and Marketing Attribution solutions, along with Sales Hacker, the leading resource for sales innovation, acceleration, and the future of sales, announced today the launch of their joint research study, The State of Revenue Operations: A Survey of B2B Sales and Marketing Professionals. Nearly 1,000 B2B sales and marketing professionals and decision-makers shared their perspectives on the ever-growing trend of Revenue Operations.

Revenue is the lifeblood of companies, which means it is natural for companies to obsess over finding new strategies to accelerate growth continually. Over the years, enterprises tested and tried a plethora of approaches in hopes of finding a silver bullet for generating revenue, including the rise of the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) position. The role of the CRO, which focuses solely on leading strategies around revenue generation, continues to be adopted by enterprises. Now, conversations around the concept of revenue ops intensify as B2B enterprises compete for customers and dollars. As the adoption rate for CROs continues to grow, the probability of revenue operations becoming a staple business strategy among B2B organizations becomes increasingly likely. The question on B2B sales and marketing professionals’ minds is, will revenue operations crack the code to efficient and predictable go-to-market (GTM) execution and revenue generation?

“Today’s B2B organizations are under constant pressure to continuously innovate on their GTM strategies to scale revenue and grow market share. In order to be successful, I firmly believe that Operations, through its management of data and processes, must have a seat at the executive leadership table,” said Evan Liang, Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, LeanData. “The goal of revenue ops is to unify and increase revenue generation through the use of data and technology in order to create a seamless revenue engine. That is the promise of revenue operations, but the question remains, is this the right business strategy to elevate sales, marketing, and customers operations to its proper place within revenue generation teams?”

Nearly 1,000 sales, marketing professionals, and executives provided their insights on how their respective companies perceive, adopt and implement a revenue operations model:

Defining Revenue Operations: Today, there is not a single definition of revenue operations that B2B sales and marketing professionals can unanimously agree on. Typically, revenue ops encompass various departments within an enterprise. According to the State of Revenue Operations survey, over 45% of respondents consider revenue operations to be a unified coalition between sales, marketing, and customer success teams. Furthermore, nearly 25% of respondents would add operations teams to the group.
Building a Revenue Operations Team: Despite the growing number of conversations, the majority of B2B organizations are not rushing to adopt revenue ops. In fact, nearly 60% of respondents said their companies do not have a revenue operations team. For many B2B enterprises, there are numerous challenges to create a revenue ops team, including a lack of institutional knowledge on how to build a revenue operations team (approximately 32%), and failure to create the right team structure (almost 21%). Despite the challenges, the survey uncovered a small but growing group of B2B enterprises who have or creating their own revenue ops teams. An estimated 21% of respondents said their respective companies had built a revenue ops team, while over 15% said their companies were in the process of building revenue ops teams.
The Catalyst for Change to Revenue Operations Model: For many B2B organizations, there are specific reasons to shift to a revenue ops model, in fact over 50% of survey respondents said that there are many specific business reasons for implementing the revenue ops strategy into their organization. Account-Based Marketing (ABM) was named as one of the business strategies that has encouraged companies to apply a revenue ops model. “The advent of ABM (which involves marketing and sales working closely together) and the increasing importance of net retention (which requires close coordination between sales, marketing, and customer success) has made a true revenue ops function critical to success”, said Andrew Mowat, Vice President, Growth Operations, Culture Amp. Furthermore, nearly 20% of respondents believe that the complexity of data and technology stacks is a primary reason for embracing the revenue operations model.
Who Owns the Revenue Metrics and KPIs: A significant point of contention in conversations around revenue operations is which team is responsible for owning the revenue metrics and KPIs. According to the survey, there is a wide range of opinions on the topic: 45% of respondents believed that sales, marketing, and customer success should share the responsibility of owning revenue metrics and KPIs. LeanData’s Chief Marketing Officer, Karen Steele offers the following perspective, “to drive revenue more efficiently and to optimize internal processes, businesses are seeking dedicated revenue ops teams that own their respective revenue ops KPIs. It’s not just a siloed sales or marketing exercise anymore. Driving revenue is a hybrid responsibility.” On the other hand, over 30% of respondents said that operations should be the owner of revenue metrics and KPIs versus sales (nearly 24%) and marketing teams (11.6%).

“Revenue Operations is more than a trend, it is a movement of B2B organizations eliminating the silos between sales, marketing, and operations teams to drive growth,” said Max Altschuler, Chief Executive Officer, Sales Hacker. “Although the trend is still in its infancy, we see high-growth companies experiment, even implement a revenue operations model and are starting to experience the benefits. Over the next several years, we can expect to see revenue ops become a critical business strategy for B2B enterprises.”

Data Innovators Coming to San Francisco for JOIN 2018

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July 31, 2018

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Data Innovators Coming to San Francisco for JOIN 2018

Looker Announces Annual Data Conference as the Company Reaches 550 Employees and 1,600 Customers with 70% YoY Revenue Growth

Looker, a leading data platform company, announced JOIN 2018, the three-day conference dedicated to learning from and collaborating with some of the brightest minds in data who are driving the smarter use of data across every industry.

“Every year we see new, groundbreaking advancements in data and analytics technology that are having fundamental, positive impacts on businesses and organizations around the world,” said Frank Bien, CEO of Looker, CEO of Looker. “Today, we’re seeing our customers change the way they work by weaving data into new business applications that go far beyond business intelligence and analytics. JOIN is an educational platform that celebrates these innovations and fosters the exchange of new ideas. We’re looking forward to another compelling conference that brings the data-minded community together.”

Also Read: PicsArt Hires COO to Lead Exponential Growth of Next-Generation Social Media Editing Platform

Educational tracks span everything from technical workshops on data best practices, workflow customizations, security and data ethics to AI, machine learning, departmental ROI optimization, and dashboarding. Speakers from companies such as Turner Broadcasting System, Heroku (a Salesforce Company), Stack Overflow, Coursera, WeWork and 451 will be on hand delivering sessions on how they use data to drive their businesses every day.

JOIN 2018 is supported by some of the most data-focused companies in the world, including Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Snowflake, Segment, Fivetran, Big Squid, DataRobot, panoply.io and many others.

JOIN 2018 kicks off October 9^th at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

Looker Maintains Solid Growth and Market Adoption

Over the last year, Looker grew revenue 70% year-over-year and increased its customer base now reaching over 1,600 companies, including new customers Cisco Systems, Trivago, Sunrun, and Marks & Spencer. The company also grew to 550 employees and maintained industry-leading margins, while delivering 14 consecutive quarters of negative churn and 21 straight quarters of beating its revenue plan.

During that same time, Looker was named a ‘Strong Performer’ and received the highest score for ‘Strategy’ in a Forrester Wave, made its first appearance in a Gartner Magic Quadrant, was named an Overall Leader from G2 Crowd, and was the Highest Rated Vendor in the May 2018 Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms Market.

Looker also expanded its leadership team adding Tricia Timm as General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and leader of its Diversity and Inclusion Program.

Sizmek DSP Brings in Contemporary AI/Machine Learning Technology for Better Programmatic Control and Efficiency

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Sudipto Ghosh

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July 31, 2018

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Sizmek DSP Relaunched with Contemporary AI/Machine Learning Technology for Better Programmatic Control and Efficiency

AI-Enabled Sizmek DSP Provides Agencies and Brands with Improved Insights and Total Transparency to Optimize Campaigns in Real-Time

Today, Sizmek has announced a completely overhauled industry-leading DSP. The new DSP presents an evolved user experience, providing clients with new screens and workflows for added transparency, control, and efficiency when managing budgets and programmatic spend. These enhancements ensure agencies have greater insight into their advertising campaigns, enabling them to identify and optimize media strategies, gaining a clearer picture on what’s working, what’s not, and how to best take action in real-time.

At the time of this announcement, Dr. Mark Grether, CEO of Sizmek, said, “We heard our clients’ feedback, and worked with them hand-in-hand to design the new DSP. Agencies want more control and efficiency, and demand the offerings from technology partners strengthen their overall value proposition.”

Dr. Mark added, “More than that, we often hear the misconception in our industry that AI can replace people. Our DSP and products are all about enabling our clients to make smarter decisions and differentiate themselves in the market. Our success is rooted in how we bring data, creative and media together—all powered by AI. The Sizmek DSP incorporates all of those offerings into one platform.”

Buyers experience improved usability and perspective with fewer clicks and reduced time-to-value, saving countless hours of tedious work and better optimizing their time.

Sizmek DSP Enables Buyer-Side to Retain Full Control over Campaign Execution and When to Use AI

The new DSP is powered by Sizmek’s industry-leading AI, providing agencies with an intuitive recommendation and optimization engine that improves the performance of media. In the past, advertisers and agencies did not trust the black box approach that AI and machine learning seemed to be based on and were wary of losing control over the decision making process.

The DSP provides:

An evolved user experience, giving clients new screens and workflows for added transparency, control, and efficiency when managing budgets and programmatic spend.
Improved usability and perspective with fewer clicks and reduced time-to-value, saving countless hours of tedious work and better optimizing their time.
Buyers retain full control over campaign execution and when to use AI. The DSP designs data for discovery and provides transparency into key learnings with data-visualization reports that show how attributes contributed to campaign success over time.

However, Sizmek ensures buyers retain full control over campaign execution and when to use AI (for instance whether to AI-optimize or manually allocate daily tactic budgets). The DSP designs data for discovery and provides transparency into key learnings with data-visualization reports that show how attributes contributed to campaign success over time.

Sizmek DSP and products are all about enabling the clients to make smarter decisions and differentiate themselves in the programmatic advertising market.

“The UI redesign was thoughtful, as all key features can be accessed quickly and let us edit and update specific items without additional clicks in sub-menus,” said Axel Jonuschies, Managing Partner, Global Trading – Programmatic at GroupM.

“The new UI gives us greater efficiencies, and reduces the frustration of a slow front-end; I’m sure it will be appreciated by all existing users of the Sizmek DSP.”

“Sizmek’s new DSP is the best I’ve seen—and I’ve seen most,” said Reeve Benaron, CEO and executive chairman of AudienceX.

Reeve added, “It ensures my teams have a better viewpoint and understanding of all our omnichannel campaigns. Ultimately we can better optimize our efforts to meet the needs and expectations of performance advertisers.”

Sizmek DSP Offers Clear Insight into Media, Delivery, Costs and Campaign Impact

Sizmek continues its tradition of transparency, as the enhanced DSP offers clear insight into media, delivery, costs and campaign impact. Agencies can make better-informed decisions about budgets and overall programmatic spend, strengthening their value as a brand partner by maximizing performance and minimizing human error.

Currently, Sizmek is the world’s largest independent buy-side advertising platform that creates impressions that inspire. In the digital world, creating impressions that inspire is vital to fostering relationships of trust with agencies and brand as well as building meaningful, long-lasting relationships with customers. Sizmek provides powerful, integrated solutions that enable data, creative, and media to work together for optimal campaign performance across the entire customer journey. Sizmek helps advertisers achieve these in real-time.

MTA Mythbusting: Reality Versus the Noise in the Marketplace

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Julie Fleischer

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July 31, 2018

Marketers are finally beginning to embrace multi-touch attribution (MTA) as a way to make in-flight optimization decisions in market, because they can learn which channels, platforms, publishers, formats, creatives, and audiences are influencing purchases, and how they all work together. MTA represents a major step forward for accountable marketing when it’s well understood, implemented correctly, and used in combination with other measurement methodologies like marketing mix modeling (MMM). In fact, CMOs across the world agree that customer experience, customer retention and growth, and customer analytics are crucial to support marketing outcomes over the next 18 months, according to Gartner. It is, therefore, no surprise that a study by the Data and Marketing Association (DMA) and the Winterberry Group concluded that two-thirds of US marketing professionals had increased their prioritization of marketing attribution in the past year.

But as valuable as MTA can be for marketers looking to improve their ROMI, many first-generation attribution solutions and general confusion in the marketplace have caused a series of myths to cloud the promise.

Here are six commonly misunderstood assertions about multi-touch attribution that every marketer should know about:

MTA fails to measure incremental impact

Some old school mix modelers have suggested that MTA is flawed because it is limited in scope and can’t take into account many of the key drivers influencing sales. They claim that MTA over-attributes marketing success to the channels/devices it reads and under-attributes the impact of everything else.

While that may be true for solutions that are limited in scope and explanatory power, best-in-class marketing analytics offerings take a unified approach, which brings together traditional non-addressable media, addressable media, and non-marketing drivers such as weather, economy, seasonality, competitor activity, etc.

This approach lets marketers measure the incremental impact of media. So not just the interaction between addressable channels, such as display, paid search, paid social but also channels like Out-of-Home (OOH), radio, print, TV, etc. If all advertisers look at is digital/addressable, at best all they can understand is their relative influence on each other. When considering “everything,” media, as well as non-media business drivers, advertisers can accurately determine the incremental impact that media has on their business. Marketers really need to think of this as business driver modeling and not just marketing mix analysis.

Also Read: Implementing Multi-Touch Attribution: 7 Best Practices

MTA fails at transparency and objectivity

Okay, this is fair with some media platforms that also provide their own measurement (and have a tendency to over-attribute their own influence and under-attribute other publishers). But for the most part, advertisers have objected to these offerings and demanded neutral measurement providers. Marketers want and need an objective view into their performance and value the ability to look across all customer touchpoints.

They demand neutral, trusted partners that they can work with to ensure that they are getting an unbiased view of their media and are able to scale their advertising programs beyond one digital platform provider. With neutrality comes transparency and objectivity.

MTA doesn’t measure at the customer level

The promise of MTA is understanding the impact of media at the customer level. Without this degree of granularity, MTA doesn’t work. While customer-level measurement is challenging – it is difficult to reconcile customer identity across devices, channels, platforms, browsers, etc. – some advanced measurement solutions available in the market today are able to join these disparate data sources into a single individual or household level view. It’s important to probe any potential provider about their view of identity and the scope of their graph. Strong MTA requires a broader aperture than merely a cross-device or cross-channel view.

Also Read: Five Inconvenient Truths of Multi-touch Attribution (MTA)

MTA has to be real-time to make a difference

The fallacy of real-time MTA is pernicious. The vision of real-time media allocation is attractive, but unrealistic. While there are certainly moments when it makes sense to quickly move money in or out of the market based on external factors, most advertising works on a slow build, cumulative basis. And even if a single ad were all it took for a consumer to buy; the purchase cycle is usually less than immediate. Worse, real-time attribution solutions are by definition last-touch, which is the antithesis of how advertising works (see above). By being able to better understand the whole journey, marketers will inevitably receive better outcomes, in the form of lower CPAs, higher ROI, etc.

Therefore, MTA can’t inform the media buy

Based on the argument above, the best MTA solution is not last-click and takes time to read. True. But for MTA to be truly valuable—even though decisioning isn’t real-time off of media exposure—marketers do expect to be able to make in-flight optimizations. By measuring both media attributes (e.g., campaign, site, placement, creative), as well as audience attributes, advertisers can use them both as direct inputs into the buying process. For example, advertisers can identify an audience that works well in their MTA results and create a look-alike model for that audience segment. They can then push that segment into their favorite programmatic platform. Obviously, this requires that the MTA platform be connected directly with the media platform so that this customer analytics feeds customer experience flywheel can be successful.

Also Read: Cross-Channel Attribution and How to Cut Through the Noise

MTA is static and hasn’t evolved as new forms of data emerged

New forms of data and new rates of granularity have made previously opaque patterns of consumption and behavior transparent. Data lakes allow unstructured data to be used for analytics and MTA can use long-term longitudinal data but isn’t hostage to them. We’ve seen a lot of progress, especially with the leading digital platforms like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Snap and Pinterest – they’ve opened up access to their data sets so that advertisers can get that accurate, holistic view. The best providers are always looking at new data they can address and how much of the media mix can be included in the model.

MTA isn’t the holy grail, to be sure. And bad MTA is worse than no MTA at all. But with the right provider, a strong and holistic identity graph, integration with MMM, and a direct connection back to your media platform, MTA provides actionable analytics and intelligence that strengthens marketing returns for all consumers, not just those already down the funnel. Don’t let the fallacies get in the way of your strategy. MTA myths have already been busted.

Also Read: Everything You Wanted to Know About Marketing Attribution

Evergage Named a Leader in Gartner’s First-Ever Magic Quadrant for Personalization Engines

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July 31, 2018

Evergage Named a Leader in Gartner’s First-Ever Magic Quadrant for Personalization Engines

Company Recognized for Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute

Evergage, The 1-to-1 Platform company, announced it has been named a Leader in Gartner’s first-ever “Magic Quadrant for Personalization Engines”. Placement in the Magic Quadrant recognizes completeness of vision and ability to execute.

According to the Gartner report, “Leaders are vendors that demonstrate a solid understanding of the product capabilities and commitment to customer success that buyers demand in the current market. This is coupled with an easily understandable and attractive pricing model that supports proof of value, incremental purchases and enterprise scale. In the modern personalization engine market, purchase decision makers demand easy-to-use and easy-to-buy products. They require that these products deliver clear business value and deliver results with limited technical expertise and without the requirement for upfront involvement from IT. In a rapidly evolving market with constant innovation, a Leader must also demonstrate that it is not focused only on current execution. It must have a robust roadmap for solidifying its position as a future market leader, thus protecting the investment of today’s buyers.”

Also Read: Allant Group Expands Partnership with Sprinklr to Deliver Optimized Marketing Execution Across Owned, Earned and Paid Media

Gartner defines personalization as “a process that creates a relevant, individualized interaction between two parties designed to enhance the experience of the recipient. It uses insight based on the recipient’s personal data, as well as behavioral data about the actions of similar individuals, to deliver an experience to meet specific needs and preferences.” The report notes: “Personalization engines apply context about individual users and their circumstances to select, tailor and deliver messaging such as content, offers and other interactions through digital channels in support of three use cases – marketing, digital commerce and customer experience. These personalized interactions can increase conversion, marketing effectiveness and customer satisfaction, thereby improving business results.”

Evergage CEO and Co-Founder Karl Wirth said: “Gartner’s recognition of Evergage as a Leader, we believe, validates our strong and innovative offerings, and reflects our customers’ feedback and dramatic successes. We also believe this first-ever Magic Quadrant underscores why personalization is a critically important and strategic priority for companies across industries – impacting customer experience, loyalty and revenues. As organizations seek to better understand and respond to their visitors and customers across digital channels, we feel they are turning to Evergage’s 1-to-1 personalization and customer data platform (CDP), and we’re proud to be deemed a Leader in the space.”

Evergage enables B2C and B2B marketers to deliver individualized experiences in real time across websites, email, web and mobile apps, and onsite search – all from an easy-to-use platform that marketers can operate without IT intervention. Working with companies including Citrix, Lenovo, Publishers Clearing House, Walmart Mexico and many more, Evergage powers personalized experiences for more than 3 billion people across the world.

Evergage was also recently named “Best E-Commerce Solution” in the SIIA CODiE Awards and a gold (highest-level) Stevie Award winner in The 2018 American Business Awards. Evergage’s full-length book, “One-to-One Personalization in the Age of Machine Learning,” was recently dubbed a “Marketing Achievement of the Year” in the 2018 PR World Awards.

The news also comes amidst new product milestones and momentum for Evergage, including the recent launch of Evergage SmartSurveys, for targeted customer surveys that can trigger in-the-moment personalization. This year, Evergage also expanded operations to Europe, continued to innovate with advanced email personalization and announced it had doubled fiscal year revenues for the third consecutive year.

Invoca Announces Enhanced Integrations with Google Marketing Platform and AMP Support

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Sudipto Ghosh

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July 31, 2018

Invoca Announces Enhanced Integrations with Google Marketing Platform and AMP Support

The Call Tracking & Analytics Platform’s Deeper Integrations with Google Make AI-Powered Call Intelligence Data More Valuable to Marketers

Leading call tracking software provider, Invoca has announced that it has launched enhanced integrations with Google Ads and Google Marketing Platform (formerly AdWords and DoubleClick, respectively). The company has also announced additional support for Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). The improved integrations with Google’s suite of ad tools allow users of Invoca’s AI-powered call analytics platform to improve campaign performance, optimize media across channels, enhance visibility and decision making, and boost organic search results.

Invoca’s improved integrations include:

Google Display and Video 360: Formerly known as DoubleClick Campaign Manager (and now part of Google Marketing Platform), Invoca’s improved integration with Google Display and Video 360 allows marketers to attribute conversions happening over the phone to digital display and video ads served by the world’s largest digital campaign management and ad server.

Google Ads Customer Match: With deepened integrations with Google Ads (formerly AdWords) and YouTube Advertising, marketers can improve ROI from their digital programs by suppressing, targeting, or creating lookalike audiences based on call conversions or non-conversions. This includes integration with YouTube TrueView for action, which gives marketers the ability to use call data to automate retargeting (and suppression) of customers on YouTube with direct response videos.

AMP Support: Invoca now offers full support for Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). Users can now drop an Invoca tag on AMP pages, enabling them to take full advantage of call intelligence data on AMP pages without sacrificing organic search result position.

“Google is not only dominating the US advertising market but has become an indispensable part of the martech stack,” said Nathan Ziv, VP of product management at Invoca.

Nathan added, “For call analytics to work for marketers, it absolutely has to work seamlessly with Google’s suite of products. Invoca’s unmatched depth of integration with Google maximizes the value of call intelligence data by making it available in the places that marketers care most about.”

Invoca’s full Google integration includes: Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Display and Video 360, Google AMP support, and Google Search Ads 360 (formerly known as DoubleClick Search), and Google Attribution 360 (formerly known as Adometry). Invoca also offers seamless integrations with products from Adobe Analytics, Facebook, Instagram, Salesforce Marketing and Sales Clouds, and more.

Invoca now offers the most robust integrations with Google of any call tracking and analytics solution. What separates its offering is the accuracy of the attribution data that marketers rely on to optimize their campaigns within Google’s platforms. Unlike other vendors that use inaccurate proxy metrics like call duration or spoken keywords to measure call conversions, Invoca employs its award-winning Signal AI technology to automatically predict the likelihood that a particular call outcome was met, like a purchase or an appointment set. This results in a much higher level of attribution accuracy that marketers can be confident in.

Invoca customers like Healthcare Success are already taking advantage of these improved integrations to maximize the value of data derived from phone conversations with their customers.

Garrick Gaffney, Digital Account Supervisor at Healthcare Success, said, “The depth of Invoca’s integrations with Google Marketing Platform has made it seamless for us to attribute conversions happening over the phone to our search, display, and mobile campaigns.”

Currently, Invoca helps marketers drive more revenue and a better customer experience by bringing call data and conversation insights into the digital customer journey. With Invoca’s call tracking & analytics platform, marketers finally have attribution and analytics to measure call outcomes and tie offline conversions back to digital spend.

With an ecosystem of over 30 technology partners, marketers can inject call intelligence into their existing technology stack, enabling them to orchestrate a seamless customer journey. Invoca is backed by Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners, Accel Partners, Upfront Ventures, Rincon Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures, and Stepstone.

Gartner Says Customer Experience Pyramid Drives Loyalty, Satisfaction and Advocacy

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July 31, 2018

New Research Shows Organizations How to Discover Innovative Customer Experiences that Build Stronger Relationships

Eighty one percent of customer experience (CX) leaders report they will compete mostly or entirely on CX, but less than half have established the rationale for why CX drives business outcomes, according to Gartner, Inc. The goal of CX is to meet and exceed customer expectations, but while 48 percent say their CX efforts exceed management’s expectations, just 22 percent of CX leaders report their CX efforts exceed customers’ expectations.

Less than half of #CX leaders have established the rationale for why #CX drives #business outcomes.

To address this challenge, Gartner unveiled the CX Pyramid, a new methodology to test organizations’ customer journeys and forge more powerful experiences that deliver greater customer loyalty and brand advocacy.

“The fact that so many organizations understand the importance of CX to the brand, but are unable to deliver outcomes that meet or exceed customer expectations is indicative of the growing need for fresh approaches to delivering more positive outcomes for customers,” said Augie Ray, research director at Gartner. “Leading brands in CX start with a strong foundation in customer satisfaction. Getting this right and understanding how to build upon it to drive positive financial and business outcomes is what sets the best brands apart from the rest.”

Also Read: Ada and Zendesk Unite to Improve Chatbot Experience for Customer Service

The Gartner CX Pyramid (see Figure 1) is a framework to understand what separates the most powerful customer experiences from the rest. Each level, from bottom to top, defines an incrementally stronger way to forge relationships between an organization’s brand and their customers based on the way CX leaders listen for, understand, act on and solve customer needs.

The pyramid helps to identify the most powerful CX based on criteria including: (a) how the experiences are triggered, (b) the amount of effort required of the customer, (c) the completeness of the solution, and (d) the emotion and change in perception created by the experience. The CX pyramid goes beyond just solving today’s problems for today’s customers, by focusing on five key stages:

Stage 1: Communication Level – Furnish customers with the information they can use via the right channel at the right time.
Stage 2: Responsive Level – Solve the customer’s problem quickly and efficiently – meaning, balance both business and customer goals, measures and strategies.
Stage 3: Commitment Level – Listen for, understand and resolve customers’ unique needs.
Stage 4: Proactive Level – Provide experiences that resolve needs before customers ask.
Stage 5: Evolution Level – Make customers feel better, safer or more powerful.

Through these various levels, the CX pyramid should serve as a filter to review customer touchpoints and experiences throughout the entire buy, own and advocate journey.

CX leaders looking to drive more powerful, proactive and innovative solutions through the CX pyramid should follow three key steps:

Assess Your Capabilities – Ensure they’re capturing a thorough understanding of customer wants, needs and expectations, not just their perceptions of your existing initiatives.
Tailor Your Customer Journey Maps – Push experiences in the top of the CX pyramid at key touchpoints and drive customers deeper into the buy, own and advocate journey.
Measure Your More Innovative CX Efforts Differently – CX leaders must make sure to measure their more innovative customer experiences against adoption, perception and financial objectives.

Glue42 Extends Desktop User Experience via Open APIs

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July 31, 2018

Glue42 Extends Desktop User Experience via Open APIs

Firm Contributes Proposal to FINOS FDC3 App Directory Working Group to Further Enterprise Desktop App Standardization

Glue42, the company bringing an entirely new desktop experience to capital markets, retail banks, and insurance firms, announced that developers can now acquire and deploy individual Glue42 services to augment their existing interop frameworks or containers. This new capability was largely made possible because of the emergence of platform agnostic standards, especially the Financial Desktop Connectivity and Collaboration Consortium (FDC3), a program of the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS).

Glue42 extends desktop UX via open APIs. Contributes proposal to @FinosFoundation @FDC3_ App Directory Working Group to further enterprise desktop app standardization.

As a result, all Glue42 services will now be made available through Glue42 and through open APIs. These include app directory, advanced window management, notifications and multi-stack interop. The availability of these services will further streamline the user experience of fintech developers and their app consumers while delivering vital insight into users’ behavior, operational KPIs and compliance.

James Wooster, COO of Glue42, said, “Traders, wealth managers and knowledge workers in general have a large number of apps and not enough desktop real estate. It’s an all too common scenario in which users lose track of data and miss critical process steps.”

Wooster continued, “Currently, we are undertaking a global rollout of our next generation of fluid desktop with one of our clients. Users who were previously grappling with 25 plus applications are now presented with a fully integrated environment in which they appear to be using a single application. This will cut training effort, enable faster responses and improve business outcomes.”

Also Read: Facebook Introduces Five New Features in Ads Manager App

The decision to extend these services was a result of industry open source and standardization efforts. Chief among these was the standards work of the FINOS FDC3 collaboration which enables financial institutions to accelerate application development and deliver scalable applications across a wide range of technology stacks.

Glue42 CEO and member of the FINOS FDC3 App Directory Working Group, Leslie Spiro, recognized this opportunity to make a contribution, based on Glue42’s experience in supporting enterprise deployments that include hundreds of inhouse applications. His recommendation, which is under active discussion, has extended the Group’s discussions to ensure that large-scale, enterprise deployments using a variety of technologies can be supported on the FDC3 app directory servers.

Spiro said, “FDC3 is an excellent initiative and we look forward to continuing our work with them under the FINOS umbrella to ensure that the Group standards meet the needs of enterprises around the world. From our perspective, we are excited about the way in which FDC3 and FINOS give financial institutions more options regardless of their existing infrastructure or applications sets.”

Frank Tarsillo, co-chair of the FINOS FDC3 App Directory Working Group and a technologist heading architecture at IHS Markit, said, “As part of our effort to produce industry standards for app directories, we welcome the contribution of proposals that share the experience of companies and individuals in the community. FINOS provides a collaborative environment and neutral platform where constructive evaluation of these proposals can be discussed by all participants equally. As an active contributor, Glue42 recognizes both the importance of open collaboration and efforts to standardize interfaces that drive true value in our industry.”

In the next few months, Glue42 will make more services available via open APIs and plans to make further contributions to FINOS and its working groups.

Recommended Read: AGORA Images Closes 2 Million Euro Financing Round

Cisco’s Former CIO & SVP Of Operations Rebecca Jacoby Joins Apptio Board Of Directors

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July 31, 2018

Cisco's Former CIO & SVP Of Operations Rebecca Jacoby Joins Apptio Board Of Directors

An Early Advisor and Customer, Jacoby Brings Experience and Vision to Apptio as it Drives Global Adoption of Technology Business Management

Apptio, Inc., the business management system of record for hybrid IT, announced the appointment of Rebecca Jacoby to the company’s Board of Directors, effective 27 July 2018. Jacoby will also serve on the Board’s Audit Committee. Previously, Jacoby served as senior vice president of Operations at Cisco and held the position of CIO for the 12 years prior.

“Today, every company is a technology company fighting for competitive advantage and new revenue streams. Apptio is the key to navigating this transformation amidst the change brought about by digital, cloud and Agile,” said CEO Sunny Gupta.

Sunny added, “Rebecca is a strategic leader and technology visionary, as well as an early Apptio customer, deeply respected by CIOs around the world. Her expertise lies in the unique combination of operations and technology with a strong growth mindset – an invaluable addition to our Board.”

Also Read: Upstream Works and ZOOM International Announce Cisco Solution Partnership

Jacoby retired from Cisco in May after more than 22 years of service. As SVP of Operations, she led Cisco’s global operations, driving profitable growth and enabling operational excellence. She also oversaw various functions including IT, supply chain, security and trust, global procurement, and renewals. During her tenure as CIO, Jacoby guided Cisco to adopt an early version of Apptio and influenced the evolution of its SaaS applications. In 2009, Jacoby was appointed as a strategic advisor to the Apptio’s Board and was a founding member of the nonprofit TBM Council. Jacoby also serves on the Board of Directors for S&P Global, a publicly traded financial and analytics company.

“The most progressive and successful IT and finance leaders in the world are automating their investment decision-making process with Apptio’s SaaS applications. Armed with data and analytics, these leaders are establishing a solid foundation of transparency, driving multi-year planning to fund innovation, managing their transformation to the cloud and application modernization, and driving shareholder value,” said Jacoby. “This is why I adopted Apptio at Cisco. Now, as a member of the Board, I’m honored and excited to continue shaping the value of Apptio for companies of all sizes, industries, and geographies.”

Also Read: IZEA Appoints Francesca Cruz as Vice President SaaS Customer Success

In addition to Jacoby’s appointment, Ravi Mohan, Managing Director and Co-founder at Shasta Ventures, will be stepping down from his role on the Board of Directors. Ravi has served on the Board since 2010.

“Ravi has been an extraordinary Board Member, partner and advisor for our business over the past eight years,” said Gupta. “His knowledge of technology value and his unparalleled leadership and insight has allowed us to grow Apptio to the organization we are today.”

Tom Bogan, CEO of Adaptive Insights, and Chair of the Board, will be coming off Apptio’s Audit Committee but will continue to serve the Board and Compensation Committee as he has since he joined in 2007.

Simon Data Raises $20 Million to Take Big Data End-to-End for Marketers

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July 31, 2018

Simon Data Raises $20 Million to Take Big Data End-to-End for Marketers

Simon Data, the first and only enterprise Customer Data Platform with a fully-integrated marketing cloud, announced the close of a $20 million Series B funding round to further develop its arsenal of solutions for marketers.

“The current crop of enterprise CDPs are falling short of their promise to deliver on personalization”

The financing was led by Polaris Partners, and follows a Series A funding round in 2015. The company was founded by Jason Davis, Josh Neckes, and Matt Walker, and has raised a total of $32 million to date.

“The current crop of enterprise CDPs are falling short of their promise to deliver on personalization,” said Josh Neckes, Co-Founder & President of Simon Data. “Like us, they have the capacity to join data from disparate sources to build a rich, unified view of the customer. Unlike us, they’re completely incapable of complex campaign orchestration. With more ways to engage customers than ever, marketers are demanding complex cross-channel workflows, deep insights and journey management. That’s where the value is and where we come in.”

Also Read: Zero Opt-Outs Is the New Holy Grail for Marketing Automation, This Year’s Nucleus Value Matrix Shows

Simon’s disruptive platform vision of blending the messaging and orchestration capabilities of a marketing cloud with the critical infrastructure offered by an enterprise-scale CDP quickly attracted major customers such as Airbnb, OpenTable, Blue Apron, TrueCar, and Rover. Simon enables these and other major brands to leverage all of their customer data to drive personalized, optimized communication in any end-channel.

“The value to any business of big data lies in the insights it provides and the business outcomes actioning it can deliver,” said Jason Davis, Co-Founder & CEO of Simon Data. “Companies everywhere have invested tremendously in their data infrastructure, but they’re unable to capture the value held within. Simon is a new type of platform designed specifically to unlock that value by using data to inform and orchestrate the customer experience.”

Dave Barrett, Managing Partner at Polaris Partners, joins Simon Data’s Board of Directors, alongside Maria Cirino from .406 Ventures. .406, F-Prime, and Commerce Ventures also participated in the round.

“Simon Data is solving the complex personalization puzzle that has long frustrated marketing executives & practitioners. Fine-grained performance measurement and campaign ROI is the holy grail for this next generation of marketing,” said Barrett. “Jason, Josh, and Matt have an incredible vision in this space, and have navigated colliding categories to produce a solution that is wholly unique. Their customer traction speaks for itself, and we’re thrilled to be their partner in their journey in building a transformative company.”

Leveraging the Power of Social Media to Garner More Customer Reviews

By

Nivedya Varma

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July 31, 2018

The Importance of Online Reviews for Businesses Can Mean a Surge in Brand Awareness and an Overall Increase in Profit in the Long Run

An integral aspect of owning a business today would also mean the potential to garner online customer reviews for communication and positive participation. Customer reviews on social media today play a huge role in bridging divides between a viral form of feedback and simple word-of-mouth technique.

According to a local consumer survey report, 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Consumers also read at least an average of 7 reviews before trusting any business or buying a product.

So now if you’re sitting back leisurely in your chair and admiring these reviews, do know that you’re missing out on an incredible chance of creating more value for your business.

There are plenty of third-party sites that you can find reviews on, but there are possibilities of it being a vague and irregular number. Fortunately, there are methods on social media which can help an entrepreneur/business organically grow using only customer reviews for products/services.

What Should Social Media Platforms You Focus On?

Google Analytics notably mentions all the individual platforms that garner traffic. It also notes the platform that generates the most traffic.

For example, if Google Analytics points Facebook to be your key traffic generator- then focusing on the same social media platform and revamping it to have more social prowess is a good start. Though your company’s traffic may be coming in from Facebook, do not forget to count on other social media platforms as well.

Also Read: Integrating AI with Social Media Marketing to Persuade Profitable Markets

In this consumer-centric online marketing era, aligning your business with other social media platforms like Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn and Google Reviews is a smart step forward. Focusing on two or more social media platforms would mean a unified approach in harnessing more power on social media with added customer reviews.

Facebook

Facebook is a popular choice for customer reviews. It is a quick medium to give businesses credible information based on a consumer’s experience and evaluation of any service/product. Users can read reviews, add pictures or a rating besides the post, thus allowing users to quickly predict whether they want to opt for a service or not.

Twitter

Twitter is not always the most sought-after option for reviews. Despite that, Twitter is a great platform to generate a snippet based on customer reviews. A lot of businesses use Twitter as a platform for customer service and it effectively helps in strengthening the link between a customer and business.

Instagram

Instagram is a unique platform which has always outdone business expectations by harnessing the capability of doing more. Instagram’s review system is visually appealing and it cocoons an environment of detailed descriptions along with good-quality images. Most brands prefer using #hashtags and #reposts to generate a community vibe and develop brand awareness on social media.

Google +

Having an optimized Google + page business profile is one of the most standard mediums of zeroing down on local searches. Being present on Google + can give you an opportunity for users to find your business using local maps, find the opening and closing times and even read reviews all based on your search results. If properly utilized, Google + can increase the overall traffic being generated towards your business.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn recommendations for user reviews are extremely helpful for brand awareness and visibility in the online clutter. If you want your clients to trust you personally, then LinkedIn is the chosen platform. There are various plugins and tools that can help promote your LinkedIn on email and on the site. Since LinkedIn does not generate a lot of traffic as other social media platforms do, the key to connection is by packing more reviews in your bag. You can also request connections to review you from an entrepreneurial perspective to create a valuable profile.

As the social media expert, Brian Solis said, “Welcome to a new era of marketing and service in which your brand is defined by those who experience it.”

Extensive Ways of Leveraging Social Media for Customer Reviews

Billions of people around the world interact and engage with social media communities, which is why creating a profile for your brand is valuable. Social media is one of the easiest platforms for brands to interact with their customers and it is a constant channel of communication i.e if you do it right!

There are various ways to collect customer feedback, but what could actually be easier than a survey is the path paved for social media success. It is important to know what customers speak of, especially in association with your brand.

Curated below are a few ways of understanding how to grasp a consumer’s attention and leverage social media to improve customer service for a brand.

Social Media Listening

Monitoring mentions of your competitors and your brand is a good idea to get started. By overhearing mentions of your brand name on social media, the solution of customer feedback, support and customer reviews will be addressed. Monitoring competitors on your social media platform can also help you connect with customers who are unhappy with your services and resorting to other means. Try and learn why they may be dissatisfied, and how you could improve on measures to better serve them. At your best, you can learn by differentiating yourself apart from the competitors, nurture leads and convert them to happier customers!

Product Feedback

Collecting product feedback on a new product launch or changes to an existing product is important and efficient to keep your customer base in-the-loop. Leveraging your social network to be larger and constitute target customers, industry influencers and prospects is important as a communication medium for greater adoption rates post a new launch/feature changes.

Understanding the power of customer reviews is important because if unsatisfied, bad reviews coupled with a disgruntled person is a recipe for disaster for your brand. Product feedbacks are important since they act as reassurance towards the customer and your services.

Efficient Focus Groups

Effective focus group interviews also have a good deal of segmentation within them. To filter that, conduct your R&D efficiently and incorporate mediums like Google + to target your audience. Facebook’s live feature for a Q&A segment is also a well-planned idea. Focus groups tend to make a person feel special about the power of choice and are inherently contributive towards a more refined search on products/services.

The Power of the Poll

Conducting polls to understand the choices of your consumers is a fun, interactive method of garnering customer reviews and feedback. Asking people for their opinions on critical issues or lighter topics can gauge your customer’s opinions and preferences on a wider platform.

Also Read: Ten Content Marketing Ideas to Grow Your E-Commerce Brand

Industrial Influence

One of the major reasons social media exists is for networking. Taking advantage of gathering the best answers to the choosiest of your questions is a brilliant way of asking for help, interacting, inducing engagement and also opening up new doors of meeting somebody influential and strengthening relationships. Influencers in any industry are of great assistance to somebody who wants to step up their game. This is a good solution for brands that are looking for greater visibility and hoping to create more awareness.

Developing Personas for Greater Inbound Marketing Strategy

Do you know who your customers truly are? You may think it isn’t important in comparison to the product you sell but these are important characteristics that form customer- buying decisions. Having a well-defined persona can assist you with targeting marketing campaigns and narrowing down prospective customers. Personas put a face to a customer and drastically reduce confusion, thus better-placing products and identifying a user’s needs and wants. Developing personas is one of the most important aspects of your inbound marketing strategy since it paints a better picture for your marketing, sales and product teams.

As a marketer, adhering to common social media practices and community management guidelines include;

Keep your responses to customers light, helpful and short. Focusing on building brand stories around their questions is also a good start.
Responding to customers with unique statements instead of a copy-paste job is incredibly important.
Incentives are another good way of asking customers for reviews. Incentives engage consumers to be more proactive with their ideas and who doesn’t love a freebie occasionally?!
Avoid arguments with your customers online. Answering queries by being respectable is crucial. Ignore and disregard the use of hate language, profanities, and inflammatory statements. Those social-media wars are the worst and can tear a brand’s reputation down in just a few seconds.

Social media management software like Buffer, Sprout Social, Mention, Brandwatch among others are good bets on handling public forums, registering customer feedback, and assisting brands to develop their image with a brand identity attached to it.

Subscribing to Google Alerts is another good method of getting notifications as and when a customer posts a review or a comment.

Understanding the power of social media and various channels is important for a brand to show their customers that their opinions matter and that they care. Gathering insights from negative comments can be seen as an opportunity to accept failure, improve and expand the overall performance and growth of a brand.

Paytronix Research Reveals One to One Win-Back Campaigns Drive the Most Traffic

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July 31, 2018