TrustArc to Offer IAPP Privacy Core GDPR Training to Address Compliance Requirements

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May 25, 2018

With over 450 Tools and Resources, the Catalog on Sales Tools Features 32 Granular Categories – from Lead Generation to Closing Deals

Reply, a sales acceleration platform for SMB teams to automate one-to-one communication at scale, launched the biggest catalog of sales tools for SDRs, AEs, and Sales Leaders, with 450+ apps featured in 32 categories. The categories of the catalog feature tools and resources from lead generation and social selling to CRMs, cold calling apps, and helpful browser extensions. Moreover, it also covers sales industry events and offers sales e-books and playbooks by industry experts.

There is no similar catalog on the web since the existing ones are either limited, outdated or don’t include the latest sales tools. One of the main benefits of the Sales Tools Catalog by Reply is that it is crowdsourced, meaning that everyone can submit missing apps to the catalog to keep it updated and relevant.

At the time of this announcement, Oleg Campbell, CEO and Founder of Reply, said, “We are happy to launch our Sales Tools Catalog for everyone. You can contribute to this list as well by suggesting a new tool right from the catalog page. Happy browsing!”

Reply is a sales acceleration platform for SMB teams, which automates one-to-many communication and scales cold outreach capability, while keeping it completely personal.

“Very cool! I’ve tried to find something like this for ages but all the tools were either outdated or hard to navigate. I’ve already found a number of tools that I’m starting to use. Keep up the great work guys!”, said Aaron Krall, a free trial conversion specialist.

Currently, Reply takes care of outreach at scale for inbound, outbound, recruiting, account management, business development, new user trials or existing customers.

Why Influencers, Not Footballers Will Score for Brands During the 2018 FIFA World Cup

By

Harry Hugo

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May 25, 2018

Why Influencers, Not Footballers Will Score for Brands During the 2018 FIFA World Cup

Influencer marketing is the most effective brand building and sales tool right now, and if brands don’t invest in it for the 2018 FIFA World Cup they will score a massive own goal. My first insight into how incredibly effective influencer marketing campaigns are was working with Cristiano Ronaldo to drive app downloads through his social network.

By comparison, we achieved the same number of downloads for a sports website, Sportlobster, through a football fan page on Twitter and Facebook, because we engaged with their smaller, but a more dedicated audience.

Ronaldo may have a massive following, but his fans are not always engaged. That made my co-founders and I at Goat aware of the huge ROI – Return on Influencer – and understand why it has become the most effective tool to achieve both cut-through and authenticity.

At Goat, influencers aren’t celebrities, they are people you’ve probably never heard of. But if you are one of their followers, then you are probably totally interested in what they have to say, and likely to follow their recommendations.

Also Read:

Half of the population (49%) rely on influencer recommendations when deciding what to buy. We know almost half 18-29-year-olds use an ad blocker, so this is an effective way to reach people in an authentic way. Influencer marketing gives brands ROI and credibility.

That’s why, rather than using a megabucks 2018 FIFA World Cup TVC or overpriced footballers to deliver marketing goals, influencers offer a more authentic way to engage the right audience, at a fraction of the cost.

Just think about how things have changed since the last World Cup. Back in 2014, Vine was the hot social platform, with its six-second videos. Social video content is so much richer and more engaging now.

Also Read: The Data & Measurement Behind Successful Influencer Marketing

This tournament will entertain fans and non-fans on their social channels, and many will watch matches on a mobile device or tablet, making it the first major football competition that is truly social-first, with video the top content to share, whether through Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram or Musical.ly, or a combination of several.

The 2018 FIFA World Cup’s best social content will be produced by influencers. Goat works with a network of over 40,000 – across every platform – who understand their audiences and can deliver a brand message with an authenticity and tone of voice that is impossible for a brand to do directly. For me, this is key.

Also Read: How NOT to Handle a Collaboration Request When it Comes to Influencer Marketing

The smart brands we work with recognize that it’s not just football-obsessed fans who they can reach with football-themed content, it’s everyone from mommy bloggers, tech evangelists or makeup-obsessed teens. Watch this space for a wide range of influencer-led campaigns championing everything from supermarkets to sports gear.

Influencers get the right messages to the right community, in the right way. People don’t just follow one Arsenal fan page or mummy blogger, if they’re in a community they’re likely to follow 20 or 30. By using influencers who we know have the best conversion rates, thanks to our unique measurement tools, we’re able to guarantee results – or the brand gets its investment back.

To kick off influencer marketing before the 2018 FIFA World Cup, there are three things to consider:

Influencers are people, not marketers, platforms or algorithms, so be empathetic to their situations. The ROI is so high because influencers are real people.
Think of influencer marketing spend as you would for any other media channel. Have clear goals about what you want to achieve.
Influencer marketing is evolving, so there is a huge opportunity for brands to benefit. Experiment to see how your brand can work with influencers as part of the marketing mix in order to begin building credibility with them and relevant audiences.

Celebrities are an own goal, influencers score with authenticity, measurable success, and value for money. How’s that for a hat trick for the 2018 FIFA World Cup?

Also Read: TV May Affect the Brain But Influencer MarketingAffects the Heart

GDPR is the Best Thing to Happen to Personalization

By

Rob Brosnan

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May 25, 2018

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GDPR is the Best Thing to Happen to Personalization

Embracing Consent and Privacy is the Best Way to Breathe New Life into Marketing

After years of debate, infighting, and fear mongering, GDPR finally arrives in force on May 25. For many marketers, the path forward isn’t clear, and risk only seems to grow, given ensuing developments with ePrivacy, a pending ballot initiative in California, and a growing list of regulations appearing around the globe. Yet, the time has never been better to rethink how marketers approach privacy and personalization. It’s time to embrace consent as a fundamental component of personalization.

Don’t worry, this article isn’t about GDPR per se. If you don’t yet know what GDPR is, crawl out from under that rock. There are thousands of articles and an army of consultants who can help you figure that out. This article, in contrast, is about helping you create a thriving personalization program in the era of consent.

Nearly every marketer knows the promise and pain of personalization. More personalization drives better outcomes for all: consumers see more relevant and helpful messages, and the vast majority of brands (87%) see better performance. Yet according to the Wall Street Journal, while 90% of marketers believe they are delivering personalized experiences, only 40% of consumers agree. Typically marketers see the obstacles to personalization as operational: a lack of access to data, difficulty gaining insights from the data, or an inability to use those insights effectively. Despite intense efforts over the last 20 years, it seems like great personalization forever recedes from our grasp.

Pause for a moment and think about those obstacles: a lack access, inability to extract insights, and an inability to use them. These obstacles to privacy are strikingly similar to the limits placed on consumer privacy and data protection. Under GPDR, European citizens must give marketers consent to use their data (access), for specific purposes (extracting insights), and with a clear indication of how that data will be used (activated). From an operational point of view, privacy and personalization are different sides of the same coin.

Also Read: GDPR Deadline Will Open the Door for Data Transparency

Why then is GDPR good for personalization?

Because GDPR prompts us to reconsider how we approach personalization — and to solve for data access and consumer consent challenges simultaneously. Increasingly we see marketers adopting a strategy of responsive personalization. Responsive personalization evokes responsive design — the approach to gracefully adjusting the design to fit the ever-growing number of screen sizes and contexts, from the palm-sized mobile phone to wall-sized displays.

Responsive personalization enables marketers to flexibly respond to the a) level of available customer data, b) the customer’s consent to use that data, and c) the environment in which it’s used. This strategy puts data access and consent onto the same spectrum, enabling marketers to instantly generate messages that are relevant and appropriate for the customer. And perhaps surprisingly, responsive personalization actually enables marketers to be more efficient, since they only need to design a single message that serves all possible outcomes.

Three Examples of Personalization in the Era of Consent

To better understand the concept of responsive personalization — be it for GDPR or because of inadequate data — suppose…

You have consent and you have the data to generate 1:1 personalization.

This is the ideal scenario for marketers. As customers opt-in to your marketing programs and practices, marketers can integrate, analyze, and generate content using the full suite of data at their disposal: CRM (name, loyalty, account history), contextual (location, device, weather) and behavioral (browsing, purchases) targeting. With modern marketing technologies, you can integrate your customer profiles across your technology stack, optimize messages using those profiles, then distribute those messages through customer-facing channels, such as email marketing programs.

Also Read: How Brands and Agencies are Affected by GDPR

You have limited consent, scant customer data, or can’t access the data.

This is the most common scenario for marketers. Perhaps you have customer data scattered about your organization. Perhaps you only have an email address or demographic data. Perhaps the customer has not agreed to personal data use. In this case, marketers can flexibly fall back to customizing content based on the context of the interaction.

GDPR classifies contextual data — such as the customer’s local weather or device type — as pseudonymous data. This type of data can be used in a broader range of scenarios and can be used to generate relevant content even when personal data is missing. Perhaps a brand doesn’t know if you have allergies, but it can use the pollen count in your geographic region to promote seasonal content in its messaging to you.

Also Read: What Does GDPR Mean For Martech?

You don’t have consent or you don’t have customer data.

Marketers can still bring their A-games to this scenario. Even when you can’t use personal data or have no customer data to use, you can still deliver relevant and timely content. Marketers can use real-time data from their own businesses to generate this content.

Think about real-time flight prices, store inventory, credit card APRs, and even just the current time (dayparting). Thanks to the growth of public and proprietary APIs, marketers are awash in data that can be used to generate great messaging — even when there is no personal data used in the message.

The key point to observe is that all three scenarios are just points on a single spectrum. Your personalization strategy should responsively adapt content to address each point in the spectrum so that you can deliver messages that are both relevant and appropriate. Marketers who practice responsive personalization build this fallback strategy into every message they deliver: starting with 1:1, consent-driven messaging, falling back to contextual messaging, and then all the way back to real-time customization, using only corporate data to generate the message.

There isn’t a digital marketer alive today who isn’t intimately familiar with the long-standing challenges to personalization. We all know the mantra “right message to the right person at the right time.”

Marketers have long known that data access, insights, and activation are key obstacles to personalization. Stepping back, it’s clear that operationally, GDPR just re-emphasizes these same challenges. Responsive personalization helps us see that customer privacy and personalization challenges are flipsides of the same problem.

Also Read: Why Buy Data When You Can Generate Your Own?

So why then is GDPR not the only good thing, but the best thing to happen to personalization?

We can look at growing demand for privacy as a limitation, or we can look at it as an invitation to more creative ways of building great relationships with customers and revenue for our shareholders.

With responsive personalization, we can focus our strategies and tactics towards building more intelligent content. And the benefits — building unique relationships with each individual customer, helping consumers understand and give consent, and using responsive content and design to differentiate further from our competitors — couldn’t arrive at a better time.

Also Read: GDPR Compliance Isn’t the End of the World for Your B2B Marketing

Piehole.TV Says That Mobility Will Rule Video in 2018

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May 25, 2018

Piehole.TV Says That Mobility Will Rule Video in 2018

Piehole.tv Research Shows That Video Production and Viewing Becomes More Challenging as Goldfish Attention Span Proves Longer Than a Human’s

Video is set to take over the digital landscape in 2018 with an estimated 74% of internet traffic taken by video according to Priscilla Kennedy, founder and CEO of Piehole.tv, a video production company.

In a recent workshop, Piehole.tv reported that its research within the industry has proven that mobile video will dominate, but that companies are still not considering it seriously enough when content planning and contemplating video production. Kennedy says that the research revealed that a fully-fledged marketing strategy needs to include content if it is to be successful: “How video is consumed is crucial and as mobility starts to truly dominate, companies need to realise that it is fast-becoming the device of choice when accessing the video.”

“It’s become apparent from consumer studies that people are watching more content on-the-go, so companies need to make it easier to consume video and ensure it is correctly configured. The studies also show that it’s important to plan a content calendar and ad rollouts. It was clear that technical aspects such as formatting for vertical phone screens; simplifying the message; making videos shorter and able to be played in silence, must be considered. It basically requires smart use of typography and visuals,” says Kennedy.

Also Read: Knowing Your Viral Potential Is Key to Marketing Success, Reveals Piehole.tv

If the video is monetized, Kennedy says that studies have proven that a call-to-action or method of retargeting viewers is critical: “Those who watched a certain percentage are targets and you don’t want to lose the opportunity to convert them while they are still using their device. There are other options such as working in silent or near-silent conditions, being easy to follow, getting-to-the-point and engaging designs.”

Facebook’s creative guideline changes are proof of the importance of mobile design. By recommending a 1:1 video format, completion rates of cropped clips increased by 67 percent. In addition, Buffer reported that square-shaped videos take up 78 percent more space in a Facebook News Feed, giving content a better chance to get noticed: “Understanding video in the mobile space is vital. Netflix and Amazon kick-started the popular trend, underpinning the importance of featuring video in a content strategy. Facebook also responded with Facebook Watch, addressing the popularity of social viewing.”

Kennedy says that Piehole.tv has established through its research and consumer studies that building a community is important to brands: “To ignore the impact of video on a mobile device is too risky. From inception, videos bring advantages to SEO rankings and if you consider that research states that a human’s attention span is shorter than a goldfish, it is clear impactful mobile videos have a great future.”

SHYFT launches New Lumen UI, its Latest Analytics and Data Platform

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May 25, 2018

SHYFT launches New Lumen UI, its Latest Analytics and Data Platform

Cloud-Based Data Visualization Interface Propels Insights for Clinical and Commercial Teams

SHYFT Analytics is the pioneer in cloud data analytics provider for life sciences. Recently, it announced that it has launched Lumen, its newest data visualization platform. Lumen is developed for both commercial and clinical terms and is designed to use advanced data-driven analytical and visual information. The data will then be utilized to empower users to understand complex interactions between patients, physicians and care networks. Lumen delivers the right information to the right user through intuitive interfaces. These interfaces are powered by rich data science and personally designed around the user.

Lumen is designed specifically for the life sciences industry. It also empowers users across sales, marketing, HEOR and epidemiology. It showcases relevant insights with answers to questions that the respective industries may face. Questions most likely include whether they are still in the developmental phase or well into commercial/lunch phases.

Framework of Lumen

Lumen provides context and simplifies insights from the massive data that life science companies. Lumen is built on SHYFT’s market-leading data platform Strata. The variety of data here is used to improve decision-making across clinical and commercial teams. Lumen enables integrated insights across several key areas, including:

Real-World Evidence: This combines clinical and commercial data with real-world patient outcomes. It propels insight into how patients move through the healthcare system and respond to different treatments in a particular therapeutic area such as Oncology.
Drug Launch, Planning, and Execution: Performance metrics delivered across commercial teams to provide an amalgamated blend into the key actions behind product adoption, influence and peak year sales.
Sales Optimization and Performance: Provides home-office teams with the right information at the right time to reduce planning and increase sales performance.
Market Access: Offers insights to better reimbursement dynamics with payers. It also enables integration with marketing and sales initiatives.

Also Read: Infogram Announces New Version of Leading Data Visualization Platform

The absolute reconceptualization of SHYFT’s data visualization platform focuses on how critical both analytics and user experience have become today. The industry becomes more dependent on data-driven patient insights. The multi-tenant platform includes mobile and desktop applications, thus ensuring a consistent user experience across devices and platforms. It also includes design mode, a feature that allows immediate yet effective changes to any data visualization or insight. Moreover, insights can be uncovered in Lumen nearly 90% faster than with traditional business intelligence tools. Users can now spend less time cross-examining their data and instead gain actionable insights over it.

Legacy business intelligence tools have not been built with the user in mind – which has led to challenges in the delivery and dissemination of critical information as well as substantial costs to organizations,” said Alex Sitbon, Head of Product at SHYFT. “By focusing on our users and utilizing the latest in information design techniques, we built Lumen to amplify data insights and fuel accurate and unbiased decisions. Our software allows users to dynamically update the views that drive the most immediate and valuable insight to them – enabling them to spend less time searching for answers and more time acting on them.”

Lumen will generally be available in mid-2018. Customers using SHYFT’s cloud platform can join forces and engross their customers and patients with omnipotent messaging, distinct insights and firm decisions they can represent.

linknexus Appoints Industry Veteran Lindsay O’Neill as SVP, Business Development

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May 25, 2018

linknexus Appoints Industry Veteran Lindsay O’Neill as SVP, Business Development

Move Supports Company’s Mission to Make the Internet Reactable for All Marketers

linknexus™, the cross-channel intelligence and marketing platform that gives marketers full transparency and control, has announced the appointment of Lindsay O’Neill as Senior Vice President of Business Development.

At the time of this announcement, Lindsay said, “I joined linknexus because I recognized a great vision, a dedicated leader and strong momentum with brands that believe in empowered post-click engagement.”

Reporting directly to linknexus founder and CEO, John Lim, Lindsay will be responsible for linknexus’ client success as well as the company’s sales and growth strategy. O’Neill’s short-term goal is to help provide transparency and the power of reactability to marketers through their use of the linknexus platform.

The linknexus beta program is proving significant benefits and ROI for CPG, retail, automotive and millennial brands, as they report increases from 10 to 85 percent. Results are based on the lift participants generated from using linknexus to react to its customers in real time versus using other marketing platforms to drive the same consumer engagement goals.

Lindsay O’Neill previously held key leadership roles at Rocketfuel, PulsePoint, Digital Media Review, Futures Media and Inuvo. She is a frequent speaker and contributor to marketing publications and events, in addition to a highly revered brand ambassador and influencer through her companies Mama O’Neill, LJ Stories, and GrillVIP.

Read More: Is GDPR Really Changing Ad Tech?

According to linknexus founder and CEO, John Lim, “Lindsay’s appointment adds tremendous fuel to our mission. We are giving power back to brands and marketers, so they can look beyond data to truly understand the individual customer, their journey and establish a stronger connection and deeper engagement with him or her.”

Lindsay added, “Activating the power of a reactable internet is allowing marketers to achieve goals they’ve been inhibited from realizing until now.”

Currently, linknexus redefines the speed and customization of digital data to enable marketers to connect with customers as they move moment-to-moment between different experiences and locations in both the physical and digital worlds. With linknexus’ platform, the complex barriers that once prevented marketers from directly managing today’s fast-moving and data-driven customer relationships are lifted.

MediaVillage Announces Partnership with Maru/Matchbox for Advanced Insights

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May 25, 2018

MediaVillage Announces Partnership with Maru/Matchbox for Advanced Insights

MediaVillage, a Media Industry Researcher and Publisher, Advances Media Insights with New Capabilities

MediaVillage, is a leading publishing, researching and business development firm in the marketing and media industry. Maru/Matchbox is the market leader in the use of insight communities and technology to produce focused-outcomes market research. MediaVillage announced the partnership with Maru/Matchbox to use their Eye Intelligence platform for advanced data visualization and analytics. MediaVillage is the primary source for media trends and economic forecasts and it publishes several landmark studies on an annual scale. Some of these studies include Media Brand Equity Study, Media Marketplace Assessment Study and the Upfront/New Front Study.

MediaVillage President and Chief Operating Officer, John McMenamin says, “The Eye platform gives us the ability to see and work with data in powerful new ways. It also allows our member companies a better way to engage with our data for deeper drill-downs and reporting.”

Jack Myers, MediaVillage Founder and Media Ecologist says, “The robust analysis of data is critical to discover greater insight. The Eye platform is an exceptional tool for working with large amounts of data as well as data from different sources.”

Also Read: Validu Announces Commercial Release of Real Time Meeting-Compliance Software: A Blue Ocean Solution to Eliminate Expense Fraud

What is Eye?

Eye is a next-generation reporting and analytics platform which is specific to the marketing research industry. It provides flexible reporting, unique dashboards, performance management and advanced analytical functionalities.

According to Bruce Friend, the President of Media and Entertainment of Maru/Matchbox says, “MediaVillage has a lot of amazing data. Eye will help take the value of that data to another level.”

Maru/Matchbox has always focused on applying new technology which pushes the boundaries of customer intelligence since over a decade. It unifies customer insights with deep sector expertise backed by superior quality data.

MediaVillage is currently using Eye on its 2017 Media Marketplace Assessment and on its 2018 Media Brand Equity Study. MediaVillage makes provisions for a community of 35,000 decision makers who constantly shape up the $215B+ in media expenditures annually.

Gracenote Launches New Tool to Unify Content Search

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May 25, 2018

Gracenote Launches New Tool to Unify Content Search

New Data Solution Sets Empower Video Streaming Services

Gracenote, a Nielsen company, is the world’s leading provider of video metadata including rich imagery, TV channel line-ups, programming and scheduling data covering 85 countries and 35 languages. Gracenote has now launched new datasets covering both On-Demand content and virtual MVPD (vMultichannel Video Programming Distributor) to completely optimize the TV Viewing experience.

A new TV metadata and electronic program guide (EPG) solution from Gracenote equips Smart TV and streaming device manufacturers who offer live TV streaming services, make their on-demand content a lot more discoverable than earlier.

To meet the ever-evolving needs of TV viewers, many of the worlds’ leading gaming console, Smart TV, and other consumer electronics (CE) makers are providing access to subscription-based vMVPD services. Though, users of these services often face challenges in finding live sports, news, and must-watch TV programming since it is based on the availability across various streaming apps and on-demand libraries.\

Also Read: CBS And Nielsen Collaborate To Advance Dynamic Ad Insertion In Live Broadcasts

Gracenote’s new data solution makes streaming possible for all services. This helps streaming services present all available shows in one unified search. This makes it simplified for users and fans to filter and watch the program they are interested in. The functioning assists Gracenote in giving their customers an optimized viewing experience.

Simon Adams, General Manager of Video and Sports at Gracenote said, “Gracenote’s mission is to help providers from all areas of the TV ecosystem make it easy for their end users to connect to great content. Our newest data solution, designed for cable and satellite operators who offer virtual services as well as standalone OTT providers, bridges the best of live linear programming with on-demand libraries to make content easier to find and watch across platforms. By empowering all players in the market to deliver outstanding user experiences, Gracenote is helping them stay ahead of shifting viewing habits and position themselves for success.”

Gracenote ID’s link programming across surface TV shows, movies, and platforms in unified search results which cover linear broadcast cable as well as on-demand availability.

Leveraging Gracenote’s latest solution, vMVPD’s can now deliver rich TV search and discovery experiences built around live TV schedules and stunning imagery.

Gracenote ID’s and video metadata serve as foundations for discovery, navigation and next-generation search offered by established vMVPDs including the world’s top satellite and cable TV operators.

CMO Council Reveals How Big eCommerce Communities Are Advancing Digital Marketing Uptake By Brands

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May 25, 2018

CMO Council Reveals How Big eCommerce Communities Are Advancing Digital Marketing Uptake By Brands

The PeerSphere Cover Story Delves Into New Research Findings Around How Online Marketplaces Bring Greater Customer Insight, Experiences and Value to Brands

With global eCommerce communities now accounting for more than half of the $500 billion spent by consumers online in North America alone, marketers are being pressed to rethink how they can create richer, more customized experiences for their consumers, according to the cover story in the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council‘s latest edition of its quarterly PeerSphere digital magazine, released recently.

Also Read: Global eCommerce Communities Inspiring Brands To Rethink And Reinvent Go-To-Market Strategies: CMO Council Research

Based on the success of large, global eCommerce marketplaces—which create frictionless transactional environments by bringing together vast numbers of buyers and sellers in trusted virtual ecosystems—many brands are now exploring how they can apply these features to their own engagements by creating more personalized experiences that lead to better conversions.

Also Read: CMOs Struggling To Meet Needs Of Local Audiences And Geographies With Adaptive Marketing Creative, Says New CMO Council Study

The report referenced in the cover story — titled “Ingenuity in the Global eCommerce Community: How to Compete and Not Get Beat in the Digital Retail Marketplace” — highlights perspectives from a survey of nearly 200 brand marketers, 60 percent of whom reveal that global eCommerce communities are forcing them to embrace a more integrated, multi-channel retail strategy to improve their own eCommerce efforts.

Also Read: CMO Council And NPES Launch Brand Inspiration Center To Deepen Collaboration Between Brands And Supply Chain Partners

PeerSphere also carries in-depth perspectives from leading marketing and eCommerce experts at brands like LEGO, PUMA, Casio, Serta and Fruit of the Loom/Spalding about how they are shifting their own strategies in light of the disruption created by online retail communities like Amazon, eBay and Alibaba.

Dropp.TV Announces Andrew McCartney as CEO

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May 25, 2018

Dropp.TV Announces Andrew McCartney as CEO

Seasoned UK Tech Entrepreneur and Former CEO in Residence of Microsoft Ventures Andrew McCartney Joins Global Shoppable Media Platform Dropp.TV

Dropp.TV, the next generation of shoppable media, giving viewers the power to buy any product on any screen instantly announced that Andrew McCartney, a quintessential player in the tech scene, will serve as the company’s first CEO.

In 2013, Microsoft tapped McCartney as CEO in Residence of Microsoft Ventures in the UK. In this role, he helped startups around the world build successful companies using the expertise of Microsoft and its partners. McCartney has spent his career finding, leading and advising groundbreaking startups including Jampot Technologies, AppyParking, TaDaweb, Skim.it, and Tech City UK. In doing so McCartney has driven significant shareholder value for early investors in these companies. Most recently, McCartney founded Whitespace Ventures Ltd., a venture capital fund based in London.

McCartney joins a team of innovators at Dropp.TV who are building a blockchain driven platform empowering audiences to purchase a product on demand – all from the comfort of their couch while watching any form of live or pre-recorded media. The buy happens instantly with the click of a button.

“From coding in my dorm room to leading global tech ventures, I’ve always been driven by pushing the boundaries and making the impossible possible,” said McCartney. “At my core I’m a tech nerd, and anyone that knows me will tell you that I only get involved in projects that I truly believe are changing how people interact with tech. That’s what Dropp.TV is doing.”

Also Read: Millennials Feel Social Media is the Most Effective Advertising Medium — But Don’t Count TV Ads Out Yet, New Horowitz Study Finds

Powered by Microsoft supported resources, its direct-to-consumer ecommerce capability is quickly securing partnerships with global and independent brands, designers, TV networks and content providers.

At the intersection of ecommerce, adtech, and innovation, Dropp.TV is building the future of shoppable media. The platform will use blockchain technology to ensure the safety of user data, accurate transaction records and a decentralized model.

Dropp.TV is a global, shoppable media company enabling a direct retail opportunity. Advised by Merchant Bank SDKA North America, the Dropp.TV management team consists of both disrupters and experienced c-suite professionals who collectively have launched multiple startups; authored one of the foundational coding languages [Java]; patented several technologies; and converted to the blockchain some of the largest companies in the world. MD Christopher Kelly (Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, First Boston) and CTO Harpreet Geekee (Nortel, Cisco, Juniper Networks) intend to flip the digital content industry on its head with this premier, interactive, direct-to-consumer experience that seamlessly fuses the entertainment, e-commerce and fashion industries.

Intelligent Content Platform Movable Ink Announces GDPR Compliance

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prweb

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May 24, 2018

Intelligent Content Platform Provider Is Fully Compliant with General Data Protection Regulations

Movable Ink, a provider of the leading intelligent content platform for digital marketers, announces that it is fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which take effect in the European Union on May 25, 2018 and are enforceable globally with any organization that handles EU personal data.

Hundreds of the world’s most iconic brands use Movable Ink’s intelligent content platform to power real-time personalization in email. As a processor of personal data, Movable Ink is committed to GDPR compliance internally and for its clients. In support of GDPR’s directive of protecting personal data, Movable Ink has a robust information security program that includes appropriate technical and organizational measures, including encryption, pseudoanonymization, two-factor authentication, and limiting access to data.

In the event an email recipient makes a request to a Movable Ink client to have their data deleted, Movable Ink will follow its standard procedure for deleting the end user’s data after receiving the user’s unique ID from the client.

Key Processes in Place to Ensure GDPR Compliance

Intact processes to comply with GDPR protocols and data controller instructions
Intact processes for responding to and deleting end users’ data upon request
Client data is not shared with other clients
All client data processing is governed by contract with the data controller
SHA1 is used to cryptographically hash any email addresses received as unique identifiers

Movable Ink offers the leading intelligent content platform, which enables marketers to power real-time personalization that drives performance, increases productivity and delivers compelling consumer experiences. More than 500 leading brands such as Delta, eBay, Spotify and The Wall Street Journal rely on Movable Ink to create rich, relevant, real-time experiences. The company is headquartered in New York City with offices in Chicago, London and San Francisco.

Also Read: Movable Ink Introduces Automated Content Sourcing

MediaBeacon Receives Highest Score in Current DAM Offering by Independent Research Firm

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May 24, 2018

MediaBeacon received the highest score in the current digital asset management (DAM) offering category in The Forrester Wave™: Digital Asset Management For Customer Experience, Q2 evaluation. Forrester, one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world, cites MediaBeacon for excelling in functionality, with good search and version control capabilities, and strong commerce and campaign management integrations. Reference clients are delighted by its Adobe and Microsoft integrations. Forrester evaluated the top DAM providers by researching, analyzing, scoring, and compiling the information into a report that includes a graphical Wave with positioning for each of the companies.

Tim Sixta

“We delivered on a market-driven product roadmap that was largely influenced by our customers and how to make the DAM experience easy for users and valuable for companies,” says Tim Sixta, Director of Product Management for MediaBeacon. “We believe that our position on the Forrester Wave reflects this initiative and we’re excited for our momentum to keep accelerating as we continue to innovate to meet the needs of a changing market.”

MediaBeacon gathered input from current customers and DAM users in their latest release. The result is an intuitive interface with industry-leading functionality, highly beneficial integrations, ease of new user adoption, and value-adding tools.

Philippe Adam

MediaBeacon is part of Esko, a global leader of solutions for packaging, labels, sign, and display industries. Since joining Esko in 2015, MediaBeacon has strengthened their product with a focus on the customer.

“We’re thrilled the results of the report reflect, in our opinion, the effort that we have put into developing a product that delights our customers,” says Philippe Adam, VP of Marketing and Strategy at Esko. “We will continue to empower our customers with solutions that meet their needs and influence the future of DAM.”

Salesforce Positioned as a Leader in the 2018 Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center for Tenth Consecutive Year

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May 24, 2018

Salesforce Positioned as a Leader in the 2018 Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center for Tenth Consecutive Year

Evaluation Based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute

Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, announced that for the tenth consecutive year, Gartner Inc. has positioned Salesforce as a Leader in its May 2018 Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center.

Salesforce Service Cloud empowers companies to deliver intelligent, personalized and seamless customer experiences across every channel, empowering them to grow their businesses.

Also Read: Salesforce Ventures Introduces $100 Million Canada Trailblazer Fund

“Customer expectations for service have never been higher. In order to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, companies must provide a seamless service experience spanning B2B and B2C,” said Bill Patterson, SVP and GM, Service Cloud, Salesforce. “As the world’s #1 platform for customer service, we’re committed to empowering every company to deliver personalized, connected customer experiences on every channel and device.”

Also Read: Salesforce Leads in Enterprise High-Productivity Application Platform as a Service

According to Gartner, “this Magic Quadrant examines the global market for customer service and support applications that enable customer service and support agents to engage customers through their preferred communication channel. It covers a wide range of customer service applications for organizations with customer engagement centers (CECs) ranging from very small (fewer than 20 agents), through average size (50 agents) to very large, distributed centers (over 10,000 agents).”

Also Read: Salesforce CRM Tops the Chart for the Fifth Consecutive Year

Service Cloud Empowers Companies to Transform Customer Service

Service Cloud, the world’s #1 intelligent customer service platform, enables companies to transform the customer and agent experience with an AI-powered, agile platform built for the modern era. Across every channel—whether messaging, video, communities, web chat, in-app, email, phone or even communicating directly with IoT-connected products—Service Cloud helps leading brands use service as a competitive advantage by delivering personalized, connected customer service experiences.

Cien Helps Businesses Deal with Messy CRM Data Using AI

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May 24, 2018

Cien Helps Businesses Deal with Messy CRM Data Using AI

Cien Appoints CRM Expert Matt Rodgers to Strategic Advisory Board and Launches Data Enhancement Services to Augment CRM Data

Cien Inc, the leading provider of AI-powered sales productivity solutions, launched its Data Enhancement Services to help companies clean up and, more significantly, augment their CRM data for more effective planning, analysis, and decision-making. Research by the company suggests that data quality remains the biggest challenge facing technology businesses for the third successive year. Over 83% of sales leaders surveyed claim that improving their visibility in their sales data is their top priority for 2018.

Cien’s Data Enhancement Services helps companies manage inaccurate, incomplete, or inconsistent CRM records. Using machine learning and natural language processing, Cien is able to contextually understand the semantics of CRM data and align entries according to changing business definitions and processes.

Also Read: Cien, An AI-Startup Providing Sales Productivity App Scoops $1 Million Seed Funding

In addition, the company announced that senior CRM expert and professional services executive Matt Rodgers is joining Cien’s Strategic Advisory Board. A Stanford University graduate with over 25 years of management experience at companies such as Salesforce.com, Lithium Technologies, Slalom Consulting, and Accenture, Rodgers brings to the board an extensive background in professional services, as well as expertise in the delivery of CRM products and services.

“I’m deeply impressed by the possibilities offered by Cien’s technology and am delighted to be joining their Advisory Board. Cien allows companies to easily enhance their CRM data in ways that were previously impossible, then use that augmented data to drive sales productivity,” says Rodgers.

“CRM data quality is a huge issue for most organizations and we have been working on this problem for several years. I am very pleased that we can now offer Data Enhancement as a stand-alone service. With Matt on the team, we have a true CRM thought leader, who can help our customers get more out of their existing Salesforce implementations,” says Cien CEO, Rob Käll.

Recommended Read: Interview with Rob Käll, CEO and Co-Founder, Cien

Attunity Introduces Gold Client for Data Protection to Enable GDPR Compliance for SAP Environments

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May 24, 2018

Attunity Introduces Gold Client for Data Protection to Enable GDPR Compliance for SAP Environments

New Data Governance Solution Helps to Enforce Mandate and Meet Data Privacy Standards

Attunity Ltd., a leading provider of data integration and big data management software solutions, announced a comprehensive data governance solution designed to assist companies with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance in SAP environments. The new Attunity Gold Client for Data Protection solution helps to identify and mask the personally identifiable information (PII) of customers, vendors, employees and partners across production SAP ECC applications to address the “right to be forgotten” mandate. This offering is an important part of a complete solution for GDPR compliance across the SAP landscape.

GDPR, in effect as of tomorrow, May 25, applies to any corporation, regardless of their location, that possesses the personal data of residents of the European Union. The regulations are designed to strengthen personal data privacy laws in the EU. Among the GDPR regulations includes a provision whereby individuals must agree to have their information used or invoke the “right to be forgotten” option. GDPR also gives regulators the power to fine offending organizations. Therefore, it is in the best interest of organizations globally to ensure that their data governance plan includes provisions for GDPR. With the launch of Attunity’s Gold Client for Data Protection, enterprises can locate the PII data in their SAP production environments and enforce the “right to be forgotten”.

Also Read: Attunity Named to CRN’s 2018 Big Data 100 List for Sixth Consecutive Year

Attunity’s Gold Client for Data Protection provides the following capabilities:

Obfuscates PII data – uses native application functions to ensure data masking and integrity throughout the SAP application environment, ensuring that individuals do not have access to PII data in compliance with the GDPR statutes.
Exposure reporting – profiles the existing customer data and proactively defines who can be/should be “forgotten” based on rules created by the user
Custom masking levels – powerful options include pseudonymization, substitution, and redaction while still preserving referential integrity
Configurable policy rules – define what could or should be masked based on different timeframes and business activity
Complete audit trails – makes changes directly through the SAP application layer to provide an audit log of all activity
User-defined “undo” period – provides a user-defined period after which the data masking process cannot be reversed

“GDPR is reshaping data management practices. As the regulation goes into effect across the European Union (EU) tomorrow, companies around the world will be impacted by these strict data privacy regulations,” said Cindy Zhou, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. “Many enterprises are working diligently to ensure their systems comply. It is critical that businesses have an action plan and enabling technology solutions to effectively meet the new data protection requirements.”

“The largest application vendor, SAP provides the primary system of record for tens of thousands of enterprises worldwide that require an effective data management and governance solution for GDPR compliance,” said Shimon Alon, Chairman and CEO of Attunity. “Attunity Gold Client for Data Protection helps businesses meet this need. As data privacy and protection regulations continue to be implemented around the world, Attunity’s solutions will ensure that enterprises remain compliant and future-proof.”

Recommended Read: Are You GDPR Ready?

GDPR is Coming: Monetate Names Dave Swarthout as Data Protection Officer

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May 24, 2018

GDPR is Coming: Monetate Names Dave Swarthout as Data Protection Officer

Dave Swarthout Will Continue to Lead Monetate’s Legal Team in Addition to Driving GDPR Training and Global Compliance Measures Throughout the Organization

Barely hours left to a GDPR-free business world, Monetate, has gone ahead to name Dave Swarthout as its Data Protection Officer. In this role, Dave Swarthout will continue to lead Monetate’s legal team in addition to driving GDPR training and global compliance measures throughout the organization – an initiative that he has been managing since 2016.

Dave Swarthout Has Been Integral in Navigating the Company Through Legal, Regulatory and Compliance Matters in the US

Dave Swarthout joined Monetate as its Vice President, General Counsel in October 2014 – a role he will continue to hold in addition to this new designation. Through his deep understanding of Monetate’s products and services, strategic partners and impressive client roster, Dave Swarthout has been integral in navigating the company through legal, regulatory and compliance matters in the U.S. and abroad, including securing Monetate’s EU-U.S. Privacy Shield certification in August 2016.

Monetate, the global leader in personalization software for consumer-facing brands, enables marketers to create experiences with improved relevance for every customer, increasing their engagement and boosting business outcomes.

“As a company that helps brands leverage and analyze key data points to inform business decisions, we are dedicated to protecting personal and consumer information – not only for our clients and their customers but also for our own employees,” said David Brussin, Monetate Founder, Chairman and Chief Product Officer. “Dave’s leadership and expertise in data privacy and security best practices make him an invaluable asset to our organization, particularly as we continue to embrace the GDPR-driven era.”

Dave Swarthout is a Certified Attorney to Both US and European Affairs

With 17 years of experience as a practicing attorney handling both U.S. domestic and foreign matters, Dave Swarthout also holds several data privacy certifications, including Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe, Certified Information Privacy Professional/U.S. and Certified Information Privacy Manager. He has also been designated by the International Association of Privacy Professionals as a Fellow of Information Privacy. He has been a member of the IAPP since 2015 and is based out of Monetate’s Palo Alto office.

“With the true impact of the GDPR only just beginning, it’s an incredibly exciting time for the world of data protection and regulation,” added Dave Swarthout.

Dave elaborated, “I’m extremely grateful to the team at Monetate for the opportunity to lead our GDPR efforts and ensure that we continue to provide our clients with a platform that enables global compliance and will protect their mission-critical data.”

Monetate Leads the Pack in Delivering Transparent Personalization Solutions to Marketers

In addition to developing internal GDPR best practices, Monetate has also created several compliance resources for those impacted by the new regulation, including a dedicated blog on advice for marketers.

The Monetate Intelligent Personalization Engine makes it easy to test and optimize, segment and target, recommend products and even create true 1-to-1 experiences. With all this in one solution, marketers have the flexibility to leverage proven approaches to personalize the customer experience across web, email, mobile apps, in-store and other touch points for all aspects of the customers’ experience with your brand.

The most complete, powerful, and easiest solution for optimizing and personalizing your customers’ experiences, Monetate’s platform is —

Open, so you can use all of your data wherever it sits, push a decision to any touchpoint, and pull the results back into your data/analytics infrastructure
Real-time, to enable interactions based on a customer’s in-session behavioral and event data that get their attention in increasingly narrow buying windows
Simple, making it easy to increase the relevance of offers, creative, and products you put in front of your customers
Powered by artificial intelligence, giving you the power to operate at 1-to-1 scale, for real

Founded in 2008, with offices in the U.S. and Europe, Monetate is used by leading brands around the world and influences billions of dollars in revenue every year for QVC, Newegg, Timberland, Carnival, The North Face, and hundreds of other market leaders.

Conga Continues to Lead the Race in Intelligent Document Automation

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May 24, 2018

Conga Continues to Lead the Race in Intelligent Document Automation

Conga Has Also Raised $47 Million in Fresh Funding Led by Insight Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures to Fuel Global Growth

In a major funding round, Conga, the global leader in Intelligent Document Automation, announced that it has received $47 million in new funding led by Insight Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures. Conga announced a strong start to 2018 growth, fueled by the acquisitions of Octiv, Orchestrate, LLC, and Counselytics.

Conga is a Salesforce Premier Partner and has more than 700,000 users in over 85 countries across all industries and sectors.

Conga developed the Conga Suite of enterprise-grade Intelligent Document Automation solutions to help businesses optimize their CRM investments. The Conga Suite, which includes Conga Composer, Conga Contracts, Conga ActionGrid, and Conga Sign, simplifies and automates data, documents, contracts, signing, and reporting.

The funding for Conga will supercharge their development of the comprehensive suite of Intelligent Document Automation products. The scope of the Conga Suite has grown significantly this year as the company continues to provide additional new productivity features for its customers. The funding will also help Conga fuel continued growth both domestically and internationally as demand for its productivity solutions continues to climb in the EMEA and APAC regions.

On April 3, Conga announced the launch of its newest product, Conga AI. The development of Conga AI will be accelerated through the recent acquisition of Counselytics, a leading provider of contract discovery, analytics, and artificial intelligence solutions. Counselytics’ New York City office will become an additional location for Conga to scale commercial operations.

As one of the early ISV partners developing solutions for the Salesforce AppExchange, Conga offers an expanding software suite that addresses the needs of the entire electronic document lifecycle. The Conga Suite automates tasks centered around data management, document generation and contract management, streamlining and digitizing the document automation experience for Salesforce customers. The company continues to enhance the Conga Suite based on direct customer feedback.

At the time of this announcement, Matthew J. Schiltz, CEO of Conga, said, “Our steadfast dedication to our customers’ needs for better Intelligent Document Automation has been on full display this year as we’ve aggressively grown the breadth and depth of the Conga Suite through product development and acquisitions.”

Following a string of recent strategic new hires that included Will Spendlove, Vice President of Product Marketing and Mary Sparks, Vice President of Privacy and Compliance, Conga is announcing several executive promotions. Effective immediately, Doug Rybacki is being promoted to Chief Product Officer, Allan Peters is now Chief Revenue Officer.

Mark Bales is now Chief Accounting Officer, and Mark Fowler is now General Counsel. Headcount grew by 64 percent in 2017, even as one in five of the company’s employees received a promotion.

Conga’s CEO added, “It has been a great pleasure to work closely with our expanding senior leadership team, and we are excited to use this latest round of investments to drive continued growth globally.”

Following a successful Conga Connect, held 3-4 April, in Chicago, the company has announced plans for its first-ever event in ASEAN. Conga Connect Sydney will be held on 5 July at the Hyatt Regency Sydney.

As a Salesforce Platinum ISV Partner, Conga is committed to providing its customers with enterprise-grade infrastructure, security, and solutions. In fact, more than 700,000 users in 85 countries across all industries rely on Conga applications to fully utilize their Salesforce data, including Hilton Worldwide, Schumacher Group, and CBRE.

Ackroo and Benbria Announce Partnership

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May 24, 2018

Ackroo launches MarketingHub for their AckrooMKTG clients

Benbria’s Customer Experience Platform to Complement Ackroo’s Gift Card, Loyalty and Rewards Solutions

Ackroo Inc., a gift card, loyalty, and rewards technology services provider, and Benbria Corporation, developers of the Loop omnichannel customer engagement and experience measurement platform, announced that the two companies have signed a joint marketing partnership agreement to help develop and expand their customer bases. Through this agreement, Ackroo and Benbria will co-market their respective platforms to each of their current and prospective hospitality and retail merchant clients.

Ackroo plans to leverage Benbria’s Loop platform to further help amplify their client’s ability to engage, understand, and build stronger one to one relationships with their customers. At a time when businesses want to learn from and communicate more effectively with their customers, the adoption of such technology has become critical. Loop delivers a unified platform designed to help businesses measure the customer experience as well as engage with them on their preferred communication channel. This ability to measure and message in real-time from a single solution is helping leading brands better understand the voice of the customer and deliver a differentiated experience.

Also Read: Solvvy Puts Self-Service at the Forefront of Customer Experience with its New and Improved Conversational Platform

“The partnership with Benbria was a logical next step for Ackroo as we look to further differentiate in the marketplace,” said Steve Levely, Chief Executive Officer at Ackroo. “Our clients use our platform to not only help them attract, know, and grow their customers; they also use our platform to help engage and retain their best ones. The fit with Benbria, and their suite of solutions focused on the customer experience and retention through engagement, is a natural one.”

In return, Benbria clients will be exposed to the great value of Ackroo’s finance and marketing platform. With it, they will not only have the ability to better manage valuable currencies like physical and digital gift cards, but also gain even greater insight and drive more behaviors through Ackroo’s promotional and loyalty rewards currencies.

Also Read: MSRCOSMOS Releases Real-Time VINCI360 Social Analytics Platform for Optimizing Brands & Customer Experiences

“This is a great enhancement for both organizations and our respective clients,” commented Jordan Parsons, Chief Executive Officer at Benbria. “Hospitality and retail customers are looking for full-service solutions and partnerships like these are key. We are looking forward to working with Ackroo to collaborate on joint solutions with existing and future clients at both companies.”

The two companies plan to start co-marketing their services to their respective clients in the coming week as well as working on more unified solution offerings in the coming months.

Buy Versus Build: What Should You Really Do with Tech Stack?

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Veronica Buitron

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May 24, 2018